Lacking endorsements, Sanders relies on local unions

Even among labor unions, Bernie Sanders is an underdog.

The democratic socialist who has put wages and workers’ rights at the center of his campaign is losing out on labor union endorsements in the Democratic presidential primary.

The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign touts 15 national union endorsements. Sanders has just two — representing postal workers and nurses.

As Clinton’s credentials pile up, the Sanders campaign is pushing back by casting big unions as another part of the entrenched Democratic establishment that has rejected him.

Within the national unions that have endorsed Clinton, however, a few local chapters have dissented.

The largest union in the country, the National Education Association, endorsed Clinton. The NEA in Vermont has thrown its support behind Sanders.

Clinton announced a major endorsement from the Service Employees International Union, which includes 2 million members. Two SEIU chapters in New Hampshire chose Sanders instead.

Friction has also surfaced within the AFL-CIO, a national federation of labor unions. Local leaders in Vermont and South Carolina signaled a preference for Sanders, prompting a scolding memo from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka because the group's presidential endorsement will be made at the national level.

“It’s a very interesting dynamic that pits local democratic processes against national democratic processes,” said Stuart Eimer, who researches labor unions as associate professor of sociology at Widener University in Pennsylvania.

“When local union members meet and democratically decide to endorse candidate X, and a different process leads a national union to democratically endorse candidate Y, what you have is a tension with no easy solution,” Eimer added in an email.

The Sanders camp takes the smaller endorsements as proof that many “rank-and-file” workers are on his side. Union endorsements can lead to organizational support in key states, as well as financial backing.

Larry Cohen, a former president for the Communications Workers of America who now volunteers for the Sanders campaign, has been watching the pattern.

“There’s something so deep about Bernie that members are saying, ‘What, are you kidding? We’re going to make an endorsement — how can it not be him?’” Cohen said in a telephone interview.

‘Fight back’

Union rhetoric reverberates in Sanders’ words as he casts his presidential bid as a fight between workers and wealthy CEOs.

“Not only will I fight to protect the working families of this country, but we’re going to build a movement of millions of Americans who are prepared to stand up and fight back,” the Vermont senator said in his campaign kickoff speech on the Burlington waterfront in May.

In 1979, at the start of his political career, Sanders made a documentary about labor organizer and Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs.

As an independent U.S. senator, Sanders has spoken out more than once on labor issues in Vermont, including a bus-driver strike that dragged on for weeks in 2014. Sanders spoke separately with management and workers to urge a resolution.

In the presidential campaign, Sanders lent his support to a rally of federal contract workers in September. He carries the banner for labor causes such as a $15 minimum wage, paid family and sick leave, and opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Clinton has also opposed.

“Bernie has a 98 percent lifetime record of support, according to the AFL-CIO,” said Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, “and he thinks they were probably wrong on the other two percent.”

“Something other than merits and the track record and the voting record are at work here,” Briggs added.

When Clinton left the U.S. Senate in 2009, she had a 94 percent lifetime rating from the AFL-CIO.

“I have always stood with organized labor,” Clinton said in a campaign statement after a recent union endorsement. “As President, I will fight every day to protect and expand workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, to maintain prevailing wage and labor standards, and to retire with dignity after years of hard work.”

Cohen, the former union president working for Sanders, said the Clinton campaign started locking down endorsements early.

“With a generous spirit I would say that some union presidents believe that you can’t elect somebody like Bernie,” Cohen said, “even though they agree with him.”

Acronym parade

Endorsements from celebrities or political leaders may be largely symbolic, but union endorsements can lend practical help to a political campaign.

“They matter because the unions have a lot of organizing experience that they have used for their own purposes that can be applied to campaigns,” Briggs said.

John Revitte, a retired professor of work, leisure and labor studies at Michigan State University, said a union endorsement is unlikely to directly influence workers' preference for the candidate. On the other hand, unions can effectively motivate members to get to the polls, he said.

Union endorsements are unlikely to influence members' voting habits much this year because both Democratic front-runners support union causes, said Eimer, the Widener University sociology professor.

“That said, I did meet a postal worker last week who told me that his national union’s endorsement of Sanders made it easier for him to talk about Sanders to his co-workers,” Eimer said. “It provided some legitimacy to his position.”

Many union remain uncommitted, including the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents about 1.3 million grocery and retail employees, the 700,000-worker Communications Workers of America and the AFL-CIO itself.

“If and when we endorse, it will be for a candidate who shares our commitment to helping hardworking families build better lives,” UFCW spokesman Casey Hoag said in an email.

Individual UFCW chapters are allowed to endorse a presidential candidate, Hoag added, but historically the locals and the parent organization have endorsed a candidate together.

The Sanders campaign is counting on help from unions in New Hampshire, including the Service Employees International Union chapters that broke ranks with their national organization.

The SEIU Local 1984 group represents more than 11,000 state employees and will lend the Sanders campaign an organizational boost in the Granite State.

Meanwhile, the national SEIU is assisting the Clinton campaign.

“While we differ in our endorsement, we share the same values, hopes and dreams for our country,” said Richard Gulla, the president of SEIU Local 1984 in New Hampshire.

The national organization said in a statement that the local group is allowed to make its own endorsement, and promised that the local and national unions would “engage in a respectful manner” in advance of the February primary.

National unions that support Clinton have been cordial about rogue local endorsements, said Revitte, the labor studies professor emeritus.

“I think if they thought it would mean she wouldn’t get the nomination,” Revitte said, “they would care more.”

Contact April Burbank at 802-660-1863 or aburbank@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AprilBurbank