Democrats court labor vote
Originally published in the Concord Monitor
Clark finds his voice as Democrats court labor vote
Sunday, October 26, 2003
By SYDNEY B. LEAVENS
Monitor staff
Whitefield
The retired general sketched out a plan to give all children health care, but Dennis Kucinich won the most applause at theAFL-CIO state convention.
Wesley Clark recovered his voice in time to address the AFL-CIO's state convention yesterday, and he had something to say. The retired general revealed the first details of his health care plan, which would include streamlining the country's medical practices and ensuring that all children receive the care they need. Low-income families, Clark said, would receive help from the government to help buy health insurance for their children, while higher-income families would be expected to pay for the coverage themselves.
"That's just like having auto insurance if you're a driver," Clark said. "If you have children, they deserve to have full health coverage."
Clark said his health care plan will cost a lot of money, and that he knows how to get it. He did not, however, explain exactly how. Clark, who has promised he'll begin outlining the specifics of his campaign platform in the upcoming weeks, told the attentive crowd that he'd have more to announce Tuesday.
Clark was one of four Democratic presidential candidates who took the stage at the Mountain View Grand Hotel in Whitefield to woo the labor vote. One at a time, Clark, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, former Vermont governor Howard Dean and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich were invited into the room to field questions on trade, health care, unions and jobs before about 70 union representatives. (A fifth candidate, U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, couldn't be at the event in person, but took his turn by phone.)
They wore suits and ties, smiled broadly and enthusiastically professed their support for unions and union causes. Each said he'd oppose trade agreements that do not include internationally recognized labor and environmental rights, as well as those structured to allow corporations to challenge labor, environmental and consumer protection laws in the United States. All of the candidates except Clark vowed not to attend debates held by WMUR, the ABC affiliate that operates Channel 9, until it reaches a contract with its employees that lets them form a union. (Clark assured the employees they have his full support and that he'd put pressure on managers to sit down with the employees, but stopped short of promising he'd give up the airtime.)
At least on stage, it was Kucinich who seemed to set the crowd's heart aflutter. He left the platform to pace the aisle, bouncing to the tips of his toes when he talked about how he'd lined up 176 Democrats to oppose the war in Iraq. He had audience members cheering when he held up his union membership card. They leapt to their feet when he blamed the North American Free Trade Agreement for the loss of American jobs overseas and said he would make canceling it his first act in office.
"This is about taking a stand, and it's about who we are as a nation," he said.
Lewis Henry, a letter carrier from Durham, was already leaning toward Kucinich, he said. Now, he's even more confident that the Ohio congressman has his vote.
"It was quite a dynamic speech," he said. "He hit on everything perfectly."
Other candidates got their cheers, too, if not quite so raucous.
Kerry, the first candidate to take the stage, swept into the room followed by a train of yellow-shirted representatives of the International Association of Firefighters, a union that endorsed him last month. They stood to the side of the stage like a silent choir as he pledged to stand up for fair labor practices.
"We shouldn't be talking about raising the minimum wage in America," Kerry said. "We should be making sure people working in the United States have a living wage."
Dean spoke of his plans to balance the budget by rolling back all of Bush's tax cuts, as well as investing in highway, telecom and renewable energy projects nationwide.
Like Clark, the other candidates outlined the points of their health care plans. Kucinich called for a universal health care system, while both Kerry and Dean told the audience they'd learned from President Bill Clinton's failed attempts to create such a system. Both have looked for ways to tweak the private market in place: Kerry by having the government pick up the cost of the most catastrophic cases that drive up the price of premiums for employers, Dean by expanding existing programs to cover low-income families and people under 25.
Gephardt would have the government pick up 60 percent of employers' plans through tax credits.
When representatives asked the candidates what they'd do during their first 100 days in office to create new jobs, all the candidates said they'd revise the tax code and review trade agreements to make sure companies did not have incentives to move their jobs overseas.
Dean and Kucinich said they'd like to make it easier for employees to unionize. Kucinich said he'd like to make it as easy as just signing up.
Though candidates and union members alike spoke broadly of the unfair labor practices abroad, none mentioned last week's arrests of more than 300 illegal workers at 61 U.S. Wal-Mart stores. Nor did anyone mention the abuses that allegedly took place at the hotel where they gathered. The owner was indicted earlier this year, accused of exposing workers to asbestos during the hotel's $20 million renovation.
Although Kucinich received the most whoops and hollers from the audience, he hasn't won all of their votes. Firefighters stood up for Kerry while other conference attendees proudly wore their Gephardt stickers. Gephardt, who has picked up the majority of the union endorsements announced so far, didn't receive as many cheers, but he was the last in the long line of suitors and was separated from the crowd by a squawky speaker phone.
Farmington resident Don Dinwoodie, a boilermaker with local 920, is a staunch Gephardt supporter. He says there's no doubt about Gephardt's labor record, though he thinks the other candidates would stand up for labor, too.
"This field of candidates that we've got going this year is very strong," he said. "Any one of them could do the job."
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