As expected, this afternoon the
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) endorsed John Kerry for President. Some pundits will minimize this endorsement with caustic statements about "labor's" inability to deliver the nomination for either Dick Gephardt or Howard Dean (when in fact the majority of the AFL-CIO's 64 affiliate unions hadn't endorsed). What these assessments overlook is that labor unions can only deliver their members' votes in the places where they have members. This nomination battle has mostly been contested in places without enough union members to affect an election. That's about to change; coming just as the primary contest heads into heavily unionized states, the AFL-CIO's endorsement probably eliminates any long-shot chance John Edwards had of wresting the nomination from John Kerry.
The direct financial contributions and soft-money efforts of labor unions are important, especially in a general election, as is the assistance provided by the legions of experienced campaign operatives and rank-and-file activists. (There are also scores of superdelegates directly affiliated with labor unions.) But the most valuable assets that come with union endorsements are unions' direct communications directed toward and worker-to-worker organizing conducted with their members. As of 2001, 13.7% of non-agricultural workers in the U.S. were members of a labor union. Despite comprising less than 14% of the workforce, in the 2000 election 26% of voters came from union households, and they favored Gore over Bush by 22%. In 20 states and the District of Columbia the percentage of labor union members in the workforce is over 13.7%, in 30 states it's below the national average. Gore won 16 of the 20 most heavily unionized states, Bush won 24 of the 30 least unionized states.
16 states and D.C. have already conducted their caucus or primary, but only 4 of those states and D.C. have union density rates above the national average. Furthermore, only one state--Edward's home state of North Carolina--has a unionization rate lower than Virginia, where Edwards finished second, and South Carolina, where he posted his only win. But now the battle shift to states with markedly more union-influenced electorates. First up is Hawaii (second most unionized state in the U.S.), which votes next week. Then comes Super Tuesday (March 2nd), with primaries in 10 states, including NY (the nation's most heavily unionized state), MN (8th most unionized), OH (9th), RI (11th), CA (13th), CN (17th), MA (18th), and MD (21st). Only VT and GA have unionization rates below the national average. Add in Kerry's obvious regional advantage, and it's hard to see how Edwards gets much traction on Super Tuesday absent a Kerry meltdown.
There's been much talk about the compressed primary schedule, as well as the resumption of our quadrennial discussion about whether IA and NH should have such a disproportionate influence on the nomination. But there's been little if any discussion of the paucity of opportunities for labor to affect this primary season through its member-to-member political operations. If anything, the talk concerning labor has been about their supposed inability to deliver votes for their endorsed candidates. Over the next few weeks we'll see if the reports about labor's electoral weakness were premature.
Update [2004-2-20 14:17:20 by DHinMI]: Click here for an earlier post that provides a fuller explanation of how and why unions endorse candidates for elective office.