LIANE HANSEN, host:
Tomorrow, Americans will mark Labor Day for the 125th time in history. These days, Labor Day is less about working men and women than it is about the symbolic end of summer. Only one of 10 American workers belongs to a union.
Still, organized labor retains plenty of political muscle. One piece of evidence is the way presidential wannabes seek union endorsements around this time every four years.
Andy Stern is president of the Service Employees International Union. That's the fastest growing union in North America. He's in the studio. Welcome.
Mr. ANDY STERN (President, Service Employees International Union): Thank you.
HANSEN: Just this past week, the International Association of Firefighters announced that it will endorse Democrat Chris Dodd. The United Transportation Union endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said it will back Clinton, as well as Republican Mike Huckabee.
First of all, what are the factors that unions weigh as they decide to make these kinds of endorsements?
Mr. STERN: Every union has a set of issues that are important not just to its members but to all working families. For our members, health care.
HANSEN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. STERN: And the question of are they going to have quality, affordable health care is the most important issue in their lives. And at the same time, people looking for leadership. It's not just about getting elected, it's about at a time of enormous change in our country of rapid significant transformative economic revolution, do we have leaders who understand what it's going to take to make work pay for America?
HANSEN: I'd like to play an excerpt for you of Democrat Barack Obama speaking at a rally last month in Las Vegas. And it was the Local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union.
Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democrat, Illinois; Presidential Candidate): People understand that we need a union to make sure that they're respected, that they go to their job and they get dignity each and every day and not just at the whim of employer. That's what people understand here in Nevada and they understand it all across the country.
(Soundbite of applauding)
HANSEN: Senator Barack Obama, a presidential candidate. Boy, he can talk the talk. Can he (unintelligible)?
Mr. STERN: He's great.
HANSEN: But how well do you think he can actually walk the walk for organized labor?
Mr. STERN: I think all of our leaders who - and members who met with Barack Obama when he was even as community organizer first in Illinois and then a state senator, you know, saw him stand up for very low-waged workers, for home care workers that we were organizing, for child care workers. I don't think there's any question that Barack Obama gets what it means to work in America. And, you know, it would be a terrific candidate for people who are trying to make sure that their dreams and the dreams of their children come true.
HANSEN: Well, another Democrat is also courting the union vote. This is Democrat John Edwards and this was his pitch at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting in Washington this past February.
Mr. JOHN EDWARDS (Democrat, Former Senator, North Carolina; Presidential candidate): The men and women of organized labor, they will never lack the backbone to stand up for their workers. They will right injustice when they see it. They will fight with courage and passion. And I'll speak for this Democrat, I am proud to stand with them.
(Soundbite of applauding)
HANSEN: How popular is Senator John Edwards with union members?
Mr. STERN: I mean John Edwards has been almost everywhere you can imagine, on every picket line for every union over the last several years. But I think what you've seen is something a little bit bigger here, which is the census bureau just said that we have the greatest amount of inequality in American history. They said for the sixth straight years, American workers haven't gotten a raise. Goldman Sachs has profits that at a record high of income in our country and wages at a record low.
And unions, I think, people are beginning to appreciate our resolution that when you have an imbalance in the economy and too much money is going to those who are shareholders and executives, that unions are a way we can rebalance and restore the middle class. And I think you see these candidates not just talking at unions about endorsements but appreciating unions are now part of the way we need to rebalance our economy in the 21st century.
HANSEN: And Republican Mike Huckabee won an endorsement from the machinist and aerospace union and it came as a bit of a surprise to some people that that happens because Republicans really land union endorsements. We have an excerpt, a little bit of the speech that he gave to the convention of the National Education Association at Philadelphia in July.
Governor MICHAEL HUCKABEE (Republican, Arkansas; Presidential Candidate): We ought to pay people for the professional preparation and development that it takes not only to get there, but what a lot of people failed to understand is the extraordinary professional development and ongoing education that it takes to stay there.
HANSEN: So how well positioned is Mike Huckabee or actually any of the Republican candidates to get some union voters over to the GOP?
Mr. STERN: Other than Governor Huckabee, none of them really responded. I think they're making a huge mistake. I think you see Governor Huckabee reaping the rewards of just engaging with people about important issues that aren't about Democrats or Republican - they're about America and our country and our kids' future.
HANSEN: Let's talk a little bit though about the globalization of the economy. Organized labor traditionally opposes free trade agreements and other aspects of this globalization. But economists, at least one at Peterson Institute for International Economics, estimated the trade and investment, this liberalization during the past decades, have added between 500 billion and $1 trillion in annual income. So how well then does the union serve it's members by going against policies that actually have given Americans, on the average, from $1,650 to $3,300 a year?
Mr. STERN: First, I think we all need to appreciate our country and the rest of the world is living through the most profound transforming of economic revolution history. There's only been three economic revolutions. First it took 3,000 years, the agricultural. The industrial took 300. This only could take 30 years.
So it really is a question of how do we rebalance power and then secondly, if -how do we look at areas like the energy and environment and build new jobs for the 21st century that really work? America is really at a moment where team USA need to plan if our kids and our grandkids are going to do better than their parents do.
HANSEN: So why do only about one-tenth of American workers belong to unions.
Mr. STERN: I mean, I think you've seen, since the 1930s, a conscious effort to stop workers having the kind of power that allows them to share in the wealth of their company. And when we - when you used to stay you had a union job on a Labor Day in America, everybody knew what you meant - you had a good job -whether you're driving a truck or in a mine or on a construction site. And what we've seen now is employers abuse the power of a new global economy where they have a lot more choices. So that profits are at record high and wages are at record low. And that's not the America we love or need.
HANSEN: Andy Stern is the president of the Service Employees International Union. Thanks for coming in, Mr. Stern, and have a good Labor Day weekend.
Mr. STERN: Happy Labor Day to everybody and you too, Liane.
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