Gore Having to Work for Labor’s Backing

Seeking rescue from a riptide of bad news, Al Gore could not hope for better lifeguards than organized labor. In the last election cycle, after all, labor resuscitated the nearly comatose Gray Davis and propelled him toward the governorship of California, and did the same for Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

But as he avidly seeks the endorsement next week of the 13-million-member AFL-CIO, Gore is finding that his lifeline has frayed.

While Gore’s endorsement is seen as probable, the battle over it with challenger Bill Bradley has come to resemble the overall schematic of the Democratic presidential race: Gore leaning on tested loyalty, Bradley on electability.

The question of what the AFL-CIO will do when it meets in Los Angeles hinges not on whether it would endorse Bradley--most officials agree that’s impossible--but whether the unions demand more time to flesh out the candidates’ issue positions. Or, more precisely, whether they allot more time for the candidates to grovel.

A delay in the endorsement, or a less-than-strong sanctioning of Gore, would only benefit Bradley, whose record on labor issues is slightly weaker than Gore’s.

“People like Bill Bradley, but I think for an endorsement there’s stronger support for endorsing now and endorsing Al Gore,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who has been trying to rally support for an endorsement next week.

“Most national unions admit they would like to see the vice president endorsed,” Sweeney added. “The only question is whether they need more time to be more comfortable with their endorsement.”

If it decides to grant its imprimatur, the mammoth AFL-CIO would be making its earliest endorsement in a presidential contest since 1983, when it backed Democrat Walter F. Mondale. At the time, Mondale was much like Gore--the long-standing front-runner losing ground to a challenger, in his case Ohio Sen. John Glenn.

Both campaigns have gone all out to wrest control. Besides the pressure being applied by Sweeney, President Clinton made a Thursday pilgrimage to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, whose organization opposes an early endorsement.

Clinton told reporters after the 25-minute New York City meeting that he and Hoffa “didn’t talk much about” the endorsement. Hoffa told reporters that, “believe it or not, it didn’t come up.”

Gore has succeeded in luring a number of union locals to his side, including both the United Auto Workers and the public employees’ union in Iowa, where caucuses will open the voting season next January. In the last week, he won the support of both an influential Northern California health workers local and the American Federation of Teachers.

Bradley has mounted a full-court press on unions more sympathetic to him, including the Teamsters. Teamsters spokesman Chip Roth said that Bradley had called Hoffa at least half a dozen times. Gore, in contrast, had a “very brief” telephone conversation with Hoffa last week, Roth said.

The endorsement has both psychic and practical implications. It is particularly important for Gore, who in the last week has shaken up his campaign staff, moved his remaining organization to Nashville and acknowledged the obvious--that Bradley is mounting a far sterner challenge to his inevitability than Gore ever imagined.

“He needs a good shot in the arm,” said Paul Maslin, a California-based pollster who recently left the Gore campaign. “Gore has had an unceasing period of bad news and momentum going the other way, and he needs to turn that his way.”

Logistically, too, labor is enjoying renewed political heft, in part because of the Davis and Vilsack victories in two early 2000 campaign states. In both cases, the candidates benefited from early endorsements, a notion not lost on proponents of a vote next week.

“We took a risk, if you will, for Davis,” said Art Pulaski, the executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation. “The precedent in California shows you can get out there and take a position--and it paid off.”

Gore campaign officials have made that argument to union leaders.

“The Gray Davis paradigm is very accurate,” said a Gore official, adding that labor could assume that an early endorsement would win it “bonus points.”

In Gore’s favor, as well, is Bradley’s voting record on labor issues. Neither man has been a consistent suitor; both, for example, opposed labor and backed the North American Free Trade Agreement, the premier battle for unions this decade. AFL-CIO records list Bradley as voting with it 86% of the time from 1985 to 1996, when he was in the U.S. Senate. Gore sided with labor 88% of the time from 1985 to 1992, when he left the Senate to become vice president.

Yet as the 2000 campaign has progressed, both candidates have openly courted labor, salting their speeches with references to “working families” and standing up for unionization. Bradley caught the eye of the Teamsters when he opposed an administration-backed NAFTA provision that would give Mexican truck drivers free access to U.S. jobs beginning Jan. 1.

Teamsters spokesman Roth cited that issue as symbolic of the need to delay an endorsement and study the candidates’ positions more diligently.

“We know what Al Gore’s position is as vice president,” he said. “What is candidate Gore’s position and is there a difference? Our members deserve to know.”

Bradley campaign officials have argued that labor is better served by postponing an endorsement until the better candidate emerges--an extension of its overall campaign theme that the former senator and basketball star will be better able to compete against the Republican nominee.

“Quite frankly, they have an interest in having a candidate who wins,” said Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser, adding that it is “more likely than not” that Gore would win the endorsement next week.

The AFL-CIO’s Sweeney hopes to call for a vote on Wednesday, when Gore plans to address the convention. Bradley has not yet responded to an invitation, AFL-CIO officials said.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.