For the past few months, pretty much the entire campaign reporting corps has regurgitated a line that is so demonstrably misleading, it's shocking that at least one of the more clued-in bigfeet hasn't deviated from it. No, I'm not talking about the "Dean is angry" theme, or the "Clark is inherently electable" story -- although those are not necessarily true, they're really matters of opinion -- they can't be conclusively disproven. No, I'm talking about the "Gephardt is supported by old industrial unions, Dean is supported by service unions" line. It just ain't the case -- and it's use is indicative of the laziness and groupthink that unfortunately pervades even the best media outlets.
From Jim Vandehei to David Broder, from the NYT to the AP, it's common knowledge that Dick Gephardt is the "traditional industrial union" candidate, while Dean has the "new service unions" wrapped up. In fact, Gephardt is supported by a wide range of unions in different sectors, including, yes, the industrial (USWA, IAM). But Gephardt hardly has all the industrial unions wrapped up -- he wasn't able to secure a UAW endorsement (althogh he did get the Iowa UAW to back him). But the industrial unions are just a small segment of Gephardt's labor support.
In fact, Gephardt's support may be strongest among the building trades unions, where he's earned the backing of the Ironworkers, Bricklayers, Laborers, Boilermakers, and a host of Building Trades Councils in early primary states. The building trades are about as different from industrial unions as night and day -- hell, the term "industrial unionism" was invented to differentiate the enterprise-based unions of the 30s and 40s (think UAW, USWA), which sought to represent all of a particular employer's employees, from the trades, which wished only to represent narrow bands of similarly-skilled individuals. Where the UAW will represent all Ford employees from the line worker to the skilled die maker to the janitor, the Ironworkers union will represent only skilled ironworkers. The "industrial union" movement arose as a response to skilled trade unionism -- to now equate the two branches of unionism is to display a shocking degree of historical ignorance.
And Gephardt's support extends beyond the industrial unions and the building trades, to transportation (the Seafarers, TWU) and even to the service sector, supposedly the domain of Dean. (the OPEIU and UFCW) In short, the Gephardt union base isn't comprised solely of the Rust Belt industrial unions that Dan Balz has in his mind when he writes about Gephardt's labor support. The Gephardt-backing USWA has as much in common with the Gephardt-backing Bricklayers as it does with Dean's SEIU -- i.e., not a lot. The Gephardt-allied UFCW, on the other hand, is a relatively new service sector union that looks and acts an awful lot like the SEIU. Meanwhile, Dean is supported by the Painters, who are a long-established building trade -- not exactly a "service" union.
So Gephardt's union support isn't all industrial, nor is it all "old." Gephardt's unions don't all agree on the importance of trade issues. They're a diverse group, united primarily by their allegiance to Gephardt. Likewise, Dean's high-profile support comes from the SEIU and AFSCME (which isn't really a service union in the way that the SEIU is, but that's another post), but he's also got the Painters and a number of regional labor bodies, like the NH UAW, which are decidedly Old Economy.
Why am I so concerned about the media's laziness in this area? Two reasons: first, it fosters an even deeper misunderstanding of labor issues and labor structure among a public already woefully underexposed to labor issues. Second, it's a harbinger of things to come -- the way that journalists during a campaign latch on to an idea -- even one that is objectively false -- and won't let go until the votes are counted. It's bad news, and it can't go unchallenged.
OK, back to the horse race.