The Unions Man; Can Edwards Make Unions Matter

[EV_Ares]

John Edwards does more than talk the talk on workers’ but will he walk away with labor’s endorsement?
By David Moberg (Iowa City, Iowa)
If the labor movement put its formidable ground operations behind Edwards it could lift him out of his current third place in the polls and give him a better shot at the nomination.
Tags election 2008 labor Share Digg del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine Dressed in gently faded jeans and a solid dark-blue sport shirt, John Edwards sauntered across the stage of the Northwest Junior High School auditorium on a hot Saturday morning in June, talking to a labor union audience that was warm to him from his opening words.

“My view is not that complicated,” Edwards told the charter convention of Iowa’s Change to Win labor federation in his polished but folksy manner. “If we want to strengthen and grow the middle class in this country, if we want to grow America economically, if we want to see millions of people lifted out of poverty, the organized labor movement is a critical component of that. That’s the reason that wherever I am, I talk about making it easier to organize in the workplace, why that’s important for lifting people out of poverty and to strengthen the middle class.”

Politicians often praise unions at union halls, though rarely so effusively. But as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards’ rhetoric goes a couple of steps farther.

A few days before, at a trendy bar in the affluent Streeterville neighborhood in Chicago, Edwards told a group of mainly young Democratic business and professional people that America needed to strengthen the right to organize and create “democracy in the workplace.” And an hour after his Change to Win appearance, he made essentially the same pitch to a crowd of several hundred potential Iowa caucus-goers in the sheep barn at the Johnson County Fairgrounds.

(entire article @ link below)

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3274/the_unions_man/

[acmavm]

1. I think that of all the Dems running for the presidency, Edwards is most

likely to be the one who would support the unions and the working class.

[XOKCowboy]

2. He's right ya know...

Will he follow up if he's elected? Darn good question but deep down I feel he'd do his best to make good on those promises.

How's that for a very soft endorsement? :)

[madokie]

3. John Edwards is a good man and would make a good President

and I'll gladly vote for him but I would like to see him take an eight year tour in the White House under the wing of one Big Al Gore, you know the man who can get us out of this mess the bush*bots has us in. If its not Al then it is John for me.

[TahitiNut]

4. One of the things that bothers me about the way the "game" is played ...

... is that at some time in the future we'll probably hear (from a neo-dixiecrats?) how advocating organized labor is a "losing position." If Edwards (or Kucinich) doesn't get the nomination, I can EASILY foresee exactly that kind of posturing. After all, when the Democratic Establishment kicked George McGovern to the curb, it was as though they put all his positions into the trunk, along with the rocks, and shoved all of it (with him) overboard.

I often suspect there's more than a little intentional jettisoning going on.