AFL-CIO COUNCIL MEETING: POLITICS ON AGENDA,
BUT PROBABLY NO ENDORSEMENT

As might be expected in an election year, politics will be a big item on the AFL-CIO Executive Council agenda at its meeting in San Diego, March 4-6.

But even though the session coincides with key presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be an endorsement of an Oval Office hopeful from the leaders of the nation’s largest union federation.

That’s because, absent a cataclysm on the Democratic side, there aren’t enough votes, under the federation rules, to issue such a judgment.

The two big primaries, along with voting in Rhode Island and Vermont, pit Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). And while Obama has racked up 11 primary and caucus wins in a row since “Tsunami Tuesday” in February, he still trails in the number and size of unions backing him for the party nod.

Clinton leads in both categories, but she does not have enough support to get the required votes of unions representing 67% of the federation’s 10 million members.

Of the AFL-CIO’s biggest unions, AFSCME and the Teachers endorsed Clinton. So have at least 10 other unions or sectors, including the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Letter Carriers, the Machinists and their Transportation Communications Union sector. Another big union, the Communications Workers, left the decision to its locals. The Auto Workers made no decision.

The Steel Workers, Mine Workers and Transport Workers endorsed former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who has since dropped out. The Fire Fighters backed Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who is also out. Now, all four can make a new decision.

The Utility Workers are the latest construction union, joining the Boilermakers, for Obama. The Sheet Metal Workers/SMART and the Painters back Clinton.

With such splits, the union leaders will spend much of their time discussing political plans below the presidential level. AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman has forecast the federation will get involved in at least 528 races--everything from referendums and local city councils to governorships and U.S. Senate seats.

And the federation plans to make universal, affordable health care--type unspecified--its #1 domestic political issue this fall. But there may be a split, there, too.

That’s because a panel of union presidents is working on what type of healthcare plan the federation would back next year, with a lot of its thought taking into account the plans offered by the two Democratic hopefuls.

Both Obama and Clinton want to build on the present combined private-public system while extending coverage, but with cost controls and measures to help the poor pay for health insurance. Obama wants to cover all kids first, while cutting costs for adults to make insurance available to everyone. Clinton would mandate everyone buy insurance. That’s a key difference between them.

But USW President Leo Gerard, a panel member, is a strong advocate of government-run single-payer health insurance--basically extending Medicare to all. So is Rose Ann DeMoro of the California Nurses Association. The sole presidential hope-ful who pushed single-payer, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is also out of the race.

Increasing numbers of AFL-CIO unions back single-payer, its advocates report. The latest are the Office and Professional Employees, the Masters, Mates & Pilots, the International Longshore Association--agreeing, on this issue, with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union--and the Professional and Technical Employees.

CNA injected the issue into the Ohio primary, with radio ads saying “mandating private insurance is not universal health care.” The ads demand Obama and Clinton “support real reform” via “Medicare for all,” not a system where “insurers can still charge as much as they want and still deny you care when you are sick.”

“All Americans would win with HR 676,” IFPTE President Gregory Junemann said of the single-payer bill, sponsored by veteran Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Kucinich and dozens of other lawmakers. “Conyers’ bill does exactly what the (75,000) members of IFPTE have asked for, namely to provide for a complete dismantling of our broken healthcare system that has resulted in upwards of 45 million uninsured Americans and replace it with a national single-payer system.”

OPEIU, IFPTE and ILA join the Steel Workers, the UAW, the Plumbers, the Musicians, CNA--which twice pushed single-payer bills through the state legislature but saw them vetoed by the GOP governor--the Letter Carriers, the Sheet Metal Workers and the Machinists in backing single-payer national health care. The non-AFL-CIO United Electrical Workers also back single-payer government-run health care..

The California Federation of Teachers, which has one of every nine of AFT’s 1.1 million members, also endorsed single-payer. It’s urging the parent union’s convention in Chicago this summer to do likewise. “It is especially important…the U.S. have the highest quality system of providing healthcare, one…available to all, independent of one's financial standing,” California Teachers President Marty Hittelman said.