Union battle puts debate on hold
Originally published in the Telegraph
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Union battle puts debate on hold
By ANNE SAUNDERS The Associated Press
WHITEFIELD – A major televised debate hangs in the balance after four Democratic presidential hopefuls said Saturday they would bypass the event if newly unionized videographers at WMUR-TV do not have a contract by January.
The videographers made the request of five of the candidates at a New Hampshire AFL-CIO convention.
Four of them – Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Richard Gephardt of Missouri, who was not present but answered questions via a telephone hookup – agreed to the request. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark said he would look into the matter.
The other four of the nine Democrats running did not attend, and did not face the request.
“I have never crossed a picket line in my life, and I do not intend to start now,” Dean said.
Dan Ryan, a member of the videographers bargaining unit, said they have been negotiating for nine months. WMUR-TV’s General Manager Jeff Bartlett said the station has been working hard to reach an agreement, but said the union’s salary requests are exorbitant.
“The events WMUR produces during the primary season play an important role in informing voters about the candidates and the issues. The people who would be most affected by this union action will be voters, whose opportunity to hear from and about the candidates will be reduced,” he said in a statement.
The Democrats, however, used the issue as a jumping off point to talk about labor.
“This is an example of the breach, the breakdown of the relationship between workers in America and the people they work for,” Kerry said. “That’s happening all over the country.”
He said he had a long record of fighting for workers’ right to organize.
“I’m not a missionary to labor. I’m from the house of labor,” Kucinich said. “I’m not going to be participating in any forum which would in any way compromise my brothers and sisters.”
In spite of polls that show him in the single digits in New Hampshire, Kucinich repeatedly got hearty applause and cheers for several statements, including his position that the United States should withdraw from Iraq.
“Let’s support our troops and bring our troops home,” he said, and many people jumped to their feet to cheer.
Dean promoted his ability to draw in new voters.
“Let (Bush) get the $2,000 checks from the one percent (of Americans) who got the $26,000 tax cuts. I’ll take the 75 bucks from the 60 percent who got a $300 tax cut,” Dean said.
“If you want to live like a Republican, you’d better vote for a Democrat,” Gephardt said. “We know how to make the pie grow for everyone.”
Clark said he learned valuable lessons about teamwork in the military.
“It wasn’t generals that won battles, it was soldiers,” he said. “Every part of this society has to be given equal opportunity.”
Subscribe to this blog's feed