SECTION: Editorial; Ed. Final; Pg. 5B

LENGTH: 591 words

HEADLINE: RECORD SHOWS BUSH IS NO FRIEND OF LABOR

BYLINE: By James Hansen

BODY:


The Teamsters and the United Auto Workers have made it unanimous. They recently endorsed the candidacy of Al Gore for president, which ought to be good news to Democrats.

The last time labor was so united in a presidential election was in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater. Conventional wisdom is that the Gore-Lieberman ticket must win 60 percent of the votes of union members to be victorious in November. President Clinton received 59 percent of the union vote in 1996, and 55 percent in 1992, but he was assisted by the candidacy of Ross Perot who took sizable chunks of votes from the Republican candidates.

This brings up a question often asked in correspondence to this column. Why do unions always support Democrats?

First of all, they don't. Two Republican state senators who were term limited out of office this year can attest to that. Sen. Dottie Wham, a Denver Republican, and Sen. Dave Wattenberg, a cowboy lawmaker from Walden, enjoyed the support of Colorado unions for many years.

But the letter writers are mostly correct. Unions endorse far more Democrats than Republicans, because Democrats have a better record of supporting labor's bread-and-butter issues.

The Teamsters and the Auto Workers came late to the Gore-Lieberman campaign because they don't agree with Gore's support of permanent normal trade relations with China.-

By delaying their endorsements, though, they were allowed more time to examine not only Gov. George W. Bush's labor record in Texas, but also his personal philosophy as expressed in statements to the press over the years. After that examination, both unions now enthusiastically support the Gore- Lieberman ticket.

They didn't have to go any farther than the Texas Department of Economic Development web site to get an indication of what Gov. Bush thinks of working men and women. Not much, it seems.

Direct quotes from the web site:

* Texas is a right-to-work state, with low unionization of the manufacturing workforce.

* The average manufacturing wage in Texas was $12.15 and hour in 1998, almost 10 percent below the U.S. average of $13.49.

* Texas has instituted major reforms in workers' compensation, which have lowered employers' costs substantially over the past several years.

In addition, Gov. Bush said on public television that he favored "the abolishment of all labor union soft money" in politics, and pledged support for a misnamed "paycheck protection" proposal that would effectively exclude unions from participating in the political process.

The Texas governor believes states should be able to opt out of federal minimum wage laws. When federal welfare reform legislation was passed, he opposed paying welfare workers the minimum wage in Texas.

Bush then sought, and failed, to privatize the Texas welfare system. He favors personal privatization of Social Security accounts, and would consider raising the retirement age for younger workers.

He also opposes any expansion of the Davis-Bacon law, which guarantees that prevailing wages will be paid on federal construction projects.

After Bush's labor record was explained to the Teamster rank-and-file, which includes a surprisingly large number of registered Republicans, 80 percent supported the endorsement of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.

In the presidential debate last week, Bush said if were elected he would " set aside partisan differences and set an agenda that will make sense." His labor policies fail on both counts.





NOTES:
James Hansen is active in organized labor. You can e-mail him at Jayhans@aol.com.
Colorado Labor

LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2000