Frustrated by President Barack Obama and wary of Hillary Clinton’s perceived closeness to Wall Street, several leading figures in organized labor are resisting falling in line early behind the former secretary of state as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee.

Top officials at AFL-CIO are pressing its affiliates to hold off on an endorsement and make the eventual nominee earn their support and spell out a clear agenda. The strategy is designed to maximize labor’s strength after years of waning clout and ensure a focus on strengthening the middle class, but it could provide an opening for a candidate running to Clinton’s left to make a play for union support.


“We do have a process in place, which says before anybody endorses, we’ll talk to the candidates,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in an interview. That could postpone an endorsement until the second half of 2015, he said.

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“The big question we want to know is, ‘What’s the agenda?’” added Trumka. “We don’t want to hear that people have a message about correcting the economy — we want to know that they have an agenda for correcting the economy. If we get the same economic [plan] no matter who the president is, you get the same results.”

The plan doesn’t mean that someone other than Clinton will win the unions’ backing, though some labor leaders are holding out hope that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will run for president, and others speak highly of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). But it is a warning shot to Clinton or any other potential Democratic hopeful not to take labor for granted.

For Clinton, who’s been battered in the media over the past year for her paid speeches, jet-setting travel demands and questions of whether she truly understands the new economic populism of the progressive left, labor could be a key validator. And at a moment when economic populism is dominating discussion and Democrats are worried about how to relate to the middle class again, the efforts to stave off endorsements could be troublesome for Clinton.

Her backers are mindful of the need to have a strong showing among labor groups, especially after 2008, when a divided labor movement gave lift to then-Sen. Barack Obama.

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The former New York senator showed how mindful she is of the concerns of the Democratic base on the economy during a late-October appearance in Massachusetts on behalf of failed gubernatorial hopeful Martha Coakley. Embracing the populism of Warren, who spoke just before her, Clinton made a clunky statement that “corporations and businesses don’t create jobs.”

But Trumka’s hopes of a united front may be difficult to achieve for a number of reasons. Major unions such as SEIU aren’t part of the AFL-CIO and tend to operate independently when it comes to politics. There’s significant doubt within organized labor whether any of the alternative candidates can gain enough traction to make an endorsement meaningful.

And Clinton has strong, long-standing relationships with some unions, which could allow her to pick up support earlier than Trumka’s process calls for.

“There’s a sense that people — the members who have talked to me about it — they feel very close to her,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, an AFL-CIO member and a longtime supporter of Clinton.

“They feel like she’s their colleague, that she’s their champion, that she is someone who worked doggedly in 2008 or worked doggedly as their senator,” said Weingarten, who used to helm the teachers union in New York City. She added that her own union has an endorsement process that she will adhere to.

Weingarten is also on the board of the reconstituted super PAC Priorities USA, which plans to support Clinton in a primary if necessary, according to people familiar with its plans.

The labor movement has suffered a string of defeats since the 2008 fiscal collapse. Efforts to reel in major pension obligations in several states, including blue states like New York and California, have often pitted unions against governors.

In the two years after the fiscal collapse, public-sector unions in particular became public enemy No. 1, targeted by Republican governors including New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.

Labor leaders have repeatedly been disappointed by Obama. They had high hopes after he declared in 2007 that he would “walk on the picket line with you” if bargaining rights were threatened. But once he took office, Obama never pressed for labor’s top priority during the election: the Employee Free Choice Act. The measure would have made it easier for workers to form unions but was opposed by Senate Republicans and a few Senate Democrats.

Labor later lost a standoff with the White House in a 2010 Arkansas primary, when Sen. Blanche Lincoln defeated the union-backed candidate, then went on to lose in the general election. And labor leaders were again dismayed by Obama’s muted comments when Walker moved successfully to curtail collective-bargaining rights. In recent months, organized labor, particularly unions that represent manufacturing workers, has been angered by Obama’s push for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which some have dubbed “NAFTA on steroids.”

AFL-CIO, the massive umbrella group for other major unions, is staging a series of forums on wage stagnation in the coming months. The first one, in January, will feature as the keynote speaker Warren, who some progressives are pleading with to run. Trumka has frequently praised Warren’s efforts to address income inequality.

Some smaller unions are also taking a look at O’Malley, who will soon leave office, and Sanders. Their dilemma will be whether any of the underdog candidates can gain enough traction to nudge Clinton toward policies they want discussed, such as how to grow the middle class. They also want to hear how she speaks about Wall Street and efforts to reel in big banks.

The labor movement splintered in 2007, during the run-up to the primaries. Back then, Clinton was the overwhelming favorite for the nomination, and AFSCME, a major public-sector union, supported her in October of that year, at a moment when then-Sen. Obama was on the rise. But SEIU went on to endorse Obama in early 2008, giving him a critical lift.

This time, much of organized labor is willing to let the nomination process play out for a while.

“Labor would love to see her have to [work for] the nomination and not have it given to her,” said one labor official, who has worked with Clinton in the past and asked to speak anonymously in order to be candid. “I think she has to deal with our issues first before she gets our support, and we’re laying off on an early endorsement.”

Every major labor figure interviewed pointed out that the Democratic field is still unformed and that Clinton is not yet a candidate.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders, who worked with Clinton when he was in charge of the union’s embattled New York affiliate, District Council 37, signaled his group is heeding Trumka’s call not to rush.

“I believe that she understands the plight of the middle class,” Saunders said of Clinton. But, “we’ll have to see if she’s going to wrap her arms around that and make it a major issue.”

Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen said there is concern within the labor movement about too little competition for the Democratic nomination. The worry, he said, is that “the next candidate will do more of the same as they raise $2 billion mostly from [big] donors for their campaign. We need fundamental reform, and it is not in sight.”

“We do have a process in place, which says before anybody endorses, we’ll talk to the candidates,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in an interview. | AP Photo

Cohen said his union is devoting more attention to electing local officeholders who back its policies, as opposed to focusing on the White House. The 2008 election “was a clear signal that billion-dollar presidential politics will not lead to change without a much deeper movement across our nation.”

To some extent, Clinton, if she runs, will have to bear the brunt of labor’s pent-up frustration with Obama. But there’s also wariness of the policies her husband put in place as president, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. And as secretary of state, Clinton led the negotiations for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, which is opposed by many manufacturing unions, including the Steelworkers and the Teamsters. Officials from both unions declined to comment for this story.

Steve Rosenthal, a former AFL-CIO political director, stirred the pot on that very question in an op-ed on Huffington Post shortly after the midterms, suggested that labor change its entire approach to elections.

“The only way to help the party that won’t help itself is to stop giving it all your campaign money,” he wrote. “Instead, unions and progressive groups should lead the way — stop preaching and start practicing what we have always said the party should do: invest in a national campaign aimed at mobilizing millions of Americans committed to voting only for candidates who support a new, populist, all-inclusive American economic agenda. If we start this parade, other progressives — and the Democratic Party and its candidates — will follow.”

Some unions are giving O’Malley and Sanders a look. Since the beginning of September, labor interests, primarily construction unions, have given $122,000 to a pro-O’Malley political action committee.

Leaders of Change to Win, an umbrella group consisting of Teamsters, SEIU and UFW, see Sanders as a forceful advocate for union issues, noting his presence at union halls and on the picket line of a fast-food strike last week. They want to see other presidential candidates embrace strike actions by low-wage workers.

“The Democratic Party economic agenda is bankrupt,” Change to Win Deputy Director Joseph Geevarghese said. “The only way that workers can have power is through a robust system of collective bargaining, and that is not a central pillar of the Democratic Party’s economic platform.”

Trumka said he has spoken with Clinton and does not expect she will take labor for granted.

“I think she’s very astute, and I don’t think she would do that,” he said. “It’s not about us; it’s about the agenda. They can take me for granted all they want.”