The Detroit News, April 14, 2008, Monday

The Detroit News

April 14, 2008, Monday

The Detroit News

Hoffa drums up Obama support;
Teamsters chief pushes members to vote for Ill. senator while some unions wait to endorse.

David Shepardson / The Detroit News
READING, Pa. -- Organized labor is working overtime to get a Democrat elected president, flexing its once dominant muscles to try and get trade deals rewritten or canceled and secure passage of a proposal to boost membership.

Some unions -- like the United Auto Workers, steelworkers and mine workers -- are waiting for the dust to settle before endorsing Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Teamsters President James P. Hoffa isn't sitting on the sidelines.

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He interrupted breakfast one day last week at O'Grady's Family Restaurant in Reading to take a quick call. Obama wanted to know how things were going on the campaign trail.

Obama quizzed Hoffa, head of the 1.4-million member union, on how his weeklong tour of Pennsylvania to drum up support among the Keystone State's 83,000 Teamsters was going, six weeks after he endorsed Obama.

"The polls are going good, (Obama) said. We're closing," Hoffa said, recounting the brief chat he had with Obama about the Democratic presidential race with Clinton. Organized labor's clout has diminished as its ranks have thinned, but it still carries significant weight in the Democratic primaries, and Hoffa is doing all he can to make that count. He's stumping for Obama at every opportunity and trying to rally the union's members. On April 6, he met with 100 Michigan Teamsters stewards in Detroit to tout Obama.

"We've got to be a player," Hoffa said, explaining the union's Obama endorsement. "We're going to be a player for Obama."

Harry Katz, dean of the school of industrial relations at Cornell University, said unions still have "noticeable influence in elections" with financial resources and get-out-the-vote efforts. "Members tend to vote in a strong majority direction consistent with what the official union position is," Katz said, adding that overall union membership has declined nationally to 12.1 percent of workers, reducing union clout.

Labor unions don't always have a great track record of picking winning candidates early, he said. The Teamsters endorsed former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri in 2004. "Strategically, it clearly helps them to declare a position if they guess right," Katz said. "But if they endorse the loser, it works against them."

In Pennsylvania, 13.6 percent of workers belong to unions. In Michigan, it's 19.6 percent, the sixth-highest in the nation. A survey said about 27 million votes came from union households in the 2004 presidential election, or about 22.3 percent of all votes.

The Teamsters endorsed Obama in February, after previously pledging to stay neutral in the campaign.

During his tour of Pennsylvania, Hoffa visited Teamsters at three work sites, including outside a Hershey candy plant that's closing in Reading at year's end, with production of York Peppermint Patties being shifted to Mexico. He rallied for changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he reminded everyone was pushed through by former President Clinton.

But based on interviews with more than a dozen Teamsters members at three work sites in southwest Pennsylvania, Hoffa may have a rough road. Nearly all said they were undecided, while others voiced support for Clinton or Republican rival John McCain. Only a couple said they supported Obama.

"I really want to see what (Obama) has to say about the economy. I want a future for my two kids," said Danielle Simmers, 35, a receiver at a food warehouse in Pine Grove, Pa., where Hoffa spoke to more than 100 Teamsters.

Pennsylvania Teamsters also got recorded phone calls from Hoffa.

"Barack Obama is the man who can change America," Hoffa told a dozen truck drivers at the New Penn Terminal in Reading. "I looked in this guy's eyes. I believe him. I believe he can change this country."

Hoffa said Obama will renegotiate NAFTA. He will "sit down with the Mexicans and Canada and say, 'Hey, there has to be a new deal. We're losing jobs to you and this was never the intention.' "

Hoffa and other major union leaders want Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, a law that would make it easier for unions to organize new members. Business groups argue it unfairly tilts the table toward unions and could coerce workers into joining.

Some unions aren't jumping in.

The UAW has declined to make an endorsement, but UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has said the 475,000-member union would back the Democrat who wins the primary.

"The question: Where's the UAW? Just floating around out there. What do they intend to do? They could have a big impact," Hoffa said.

Clinton has sought to bolster her affiliations with unions and has visited two General Motors Corp. assembly plants this year.

"I drove here today in a car built by union members from steel made by union members, over roads laid by union members," Clinton told the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO on April 1. Obama visited a GM plant in Wisconsin.

Both candidates are working hard to court the union vote.

In an interview aboard a Teamsters semitrailer last week, Hoffa said the race was close.

"The longer it goes, the nastier it gets," he said. "It's like a big dead heat. It's like two guys in double, triple overtime just keep playing and playing and playing."

Clinton's lead has shrunk in Pennsylvania, with one poll putting her up 46 percent to 42 percent. Some have suggested Obama is closing the gap.

In Michigan, the race is up in the air. Obama hasn't campaigned in the state because of state Democrats' decision to move up the primary and his decision to pull his name off the ballot. Clinton, who was the only major candidate on Michigan's January ballot, won the Democratic primary.

Obama's tough criticism of Detroit's Big Three automakers made in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club in May 2007 could be an issue.

"That's not a good message," Hoffa said. "Probably doesn't help him in Michigan."