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My Union is not prepared to endorse anyone before Super Tuesday.
February 1, 2008
To: All Steelworkers in the United States
Greetings: As you know, we endorsed Sen. John Edwards after carefully considering the positions of all of the candidates and their ability to forcefully advance our issues and after various consultations with the Executive Board and the activists in our union. We remain very happy with the decision we made and very proud of Sen. Edwards’ performance in placing our issues front and center in the national debate.
We understand that with Sen. Edwards’ withdrawal from the Presidential race, some of our members are asking what our position is with respect to Senators Clinton and Obama.
As with our initial decision, we intend to review the positions of Senators Clinton and Obama on all of the important issues, and most especially on trade, health care and the right of employees to organize — particularly as those issues have evolved since the campaign began. We also intend to discuss the matter at our Executive Board meeting this month and to afford our activists and leadership an opportunity to weigh in with their thoughts. When that process is completed, we will make our conclusions known.
In the meantime, for those of our members who are voting on February 5, we suggest that they make their best decision after weighing carefully the statements of both candidates and the issues that are most important to us as workers.
In solidarity,
Leo W. Gerard International President
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