TIME: Behind Obama's Union Comeback

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1718918,00.html

By JAY NEWTON-SMALL/CLEVELAND Monday, Mar. 03, 2008

Last August, at the end of a sticky Iowa day, Barack Obama addressed the Hawkeye Labor Council at its annual dinner outside Cedar Rapids. The applause at his entrance was on par with that given to Hillary Clinton, who spoke just before him, but noticeably less enthusiastic than the welcome bestowed on John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. Then, five minutes into his speech, a man in the audience gave Obama a very different kind of welcome, shouting at him, "You've never worked a day in your life!"


A volunteer for Barack Obama canvasses in Columbus, Ohio.
Eric Thayer / Getty


The incident was one of the few times in this 13-month campaign that Obama's actually been heckled, and he politely laughed it off as the man's embarrassed comrades hustled him out of the hall. The scene was indicative, though, of the Illinois senator's shaky first steps with labor. A year ago, many pundits predicted that John Edwards' populist message and tireless union wooing could earn him the bulk of labor endorsements, with Hillary Clinton's establishment mantle securing the rest. Most blue collar workers didn't know what to make of the upstart Obama, who didn't help matters by skipping one early labor forum due to a scheduling conflict — and falling flat in several others.

Obama since has waged a long, quiet campaign for the support of national unions, emphasizing his community organizer past and the strong, virtually unified support he has received from their Illinois chapters. And in the last seven weeks the campaign has begun to reap the fruits, picking up new endorsements and getting close to neutralizing any advantage with organized labor that Clinton appeared to enjoy. Seven national unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, Unite HERE and the five-million member Change To Win coalition of unions — which includes the powerful Service Employees International and Teamsters unions — have all thrown their support behind Obama. The nods, and the tens of thousands of Ohio volunteers that come with them, could prove to be just enough to help swing the Buckeye State for Obama, and effectively sew up the nomination at the same time.

One of those volunteers is Frank Thornton, a 36-year-old organizer for the SEIU, who spent a recent typically snowy, windy Cleveland afternoon knocking on union household doors in the old Italian neighborhood known as "the flats." "Well, I was for Hillary but Obama says a lot of things I like to hear so I'm still on the fence," said Sherry Rowland, waving Thornton into her living room. "I feel like they've both saying the same things, though."

Thornton jumped in, "Well, take NAFTA, they're both saying the same things now, but that wasn't always the case." Rowland, 48, a member of a school board union, nodded — she says she's seen outsourcing destroy whole Cleveland neighborhoods since President Bill Clinton pushed through the North American Free Trade Act in 1993. By the time Thornton left, Rowland was "leaning toward Obama."

In Ohio, which has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and blue collar jobs over the past fifteen years, NAFTA has become one of the most contentious issues between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, which has done its best to try and link the former First Lady to her husband's trade legacy. Clinton, like Obama, now supports amending NAFTA with enforceable environmental and labor standards, although at the time of its passage, and in at least one of her subsequent best selling books, she hailed NAFTA as an achievement.

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