01.20.09
11-02-2008, 08:40 AM
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15176.html
Since Barack Obama gave a dramatic speech on the subject of race this spring, the issue has lingered over the election, a quiet, awkward factor that the candidates, their campaigns, and their surrogates have brushed aside or would rather not talk about at all.
But there's one place the "national conversation" Obama suggested in March is taking place: among white, Rust Belt union workers who generally voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary whose leaders have led a large-scale, direct, and under-the-radar conversation about some members' discomfort with a black Democratic nominee.
"I think a lot of people expected when he made that speech about a national conversation about race that it would be formalized," said Gerald McEntee, the president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in a telephone interview from Ohio. "In the labor movements and unions and the way they are composed, it just became a reality.
Some of our own people had never experienced anything like this before, so the dialogue did take place, the conversation did take place, he said.
The older, largely industrial unions, members of the AFL-CIO, have emerged as key ambassadors for Obama to the parts of the country where he is weakest. Those unions have, in the recent past, been dismissed by Democrats as fading powers good for turning up some burly, white ethnic workers at campaign rallies, but shrinking and demoralized, and without the energy or organization of growing unions like the Service Employees International Union.
But for the first black nominee, white labor has proved a crucial bulwark of support. The AFL unions have pressed a concerted and targeted effort that began in earnest in July, when AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka a former Pennsylvania coal miner with a bushy mustache delivered a speech to the United Steelworkers' national convention in Las Vegas that many considered a key moment in the campaign to build cultural comfort with the Democratic nominee.
"A lot of good union people just can't get past the idea that there's something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can't afford to look the other way," Trumka told fellow labor leaders. "I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist. Instead, we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions and their homes; if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers, there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on their side."
The discussion Trumka opened has taken place in conversations between shop stewards and rank and file members, and in large-scale internal union campaigns.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 in Philadelphia, for instance, mailed out a plastic MP3 player to members that featured 60 minutes of local union workers and leaders offering testimonials on Obama's commitment to labor.
"This election is not a personality contest, nor should it be about race. So let's talk about that and get it out of the way right now. The fact that Sen. McCain is white and Sen. Obama is black should not matter. Though I know for some of you it does. You are not alone," says Local 98 head John Dougherty, through a thick Philadelphia accent. "Don't let the color of a man's skin prevent you from doing the right thing. I know Barack Obama. I know him to be a man of great character and conviction."
Other unions have sent out DVDs to members with the same message.
Barack Obama is clearly on the side of the working man regardless of what Joe the Plumber thinks who now appears to be more concerned with his own celebrity status.
Since Barack Obama gave a dramatic speech on the subject of race this spring, the issue has lingered over the election, a quiet, awkward factor that the candidates, their campaigns, and their surrogates have brushed aside or would rather not talk about at all.
But there's one place the "national conversation" Obama suggested in March is taking place: among white, Rust Belt union workers who generally voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary whose leaders have led a large-scale, direct, and under-the-radar conversation about some members' discomfort with a black Democratic nominee.
"I think a lot of people expected when he made that speech about a national conversation about race that it would be formalized," said Gerald McEntee, the president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in a telephone interview from Ohio. "In the labor movements and unions and the way they are composed, it just became a reality.
Some of our own people had never experienced anything like this before, so the dialogue did take place, the conversation did take place, he said.
The older, largely industrial unions, members of the AFL-CIO, have emerged as key ambassadors for Obama to the parts of the country where he is weakest. Those unions have, in the recent past, been dismissed by Democrats as fading powers good for turning up some burly, white ethnic workers at campaign rallies, but shrinking and demoralized, and without the energy or organization of growing unions like the Service Employees International Union.
But for the first black nominee, white labor has proved a crucial bulwark of support. The AFL unions have pressed a concerted and targeted effort that began in earnest in July, when AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka a former Pennsylvania coal miner with a bushy mustache delivered a speech to the United Steelworkers' national convention in Las Vegas that many considered a key moment in the campaign to build cultural comfort with the Democratic nominee.
"A lot of good union people just can't get past the idea that there's something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can't afford to look the other way," Trumka told fellow labor leaders. "I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist. Instead, we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions and their homes; if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers, there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on their side."
The discussion Trumka opened has taken place in conversations between shop stewards and rank and file members, and in large-scale internal union campaigns.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 in Philadelphia, for instance, mailed out a plastic MP3 player to members that featured 60 minutes of local union workers and leaders offering testimonials on Obama's commitment to labor.
"This election is not a personality contest, nor should it be about race. So let's talk about that and get it out of the way right now. The fact that Sen. McCain is white and Sen. Obama is black should not matter. Though I know for some of you it does. You are not alone," says Local 98 head John Dougherty, through a thick Philadelphia accent. "Don't let the color of a man's skin prevent you from doing the right thing. I know Barack Obama. I know him to be a man of great character and conviction."
Other unions have sent out DVDs to members with the same message.
Barack Obama is clearly on the side of the working man regardless of what Joe the Plumber thinks who now appears to be more concerned with his own celebrity status.