October 11, 1999
Web posted at: 3:05 p.m. EDT (1905 GMT)

LOS ANGELES -- As backroom meetings continued on Monday, Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign said that an AFL-CIO endorsement of Gore is all but assured.

The endorsement would provide a much-needed boost to Gore's presidential campaign, which has been struggling in the face of a stronger-than-expected challenge from Gore's lone rival for the Democrats' 2000 presidential nomination, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley.

Labor endorsement are important because unions are a key bloc in Democratic primaries and can provide an army of grassroots campaign volunteers for a chosen candidate.

On Sunday, Gore was unanimously endorsed by the 1.4 million United Food and Commercial Workers (UCFW).

That endorsement was followed Monday by a vote by 15 building and trade unions to endorse Gore. The building and trade unions -- many of whom, including the Electrical Workers, were long holdouts on the question of endorsing Gore now or later -- approved a motion to vote "yes" after a pitch by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at their morning huddle.

"We're keeping a tally sheet and people are moving. Looks like it's going to happen," said Rick Diegel, political director of the Electrical Workers union.

"The UFCW endorsement makes it look very good. Now we just work on the rest of them to get them to endorse or abstain," said campaign chairman Tony Coelho, as he arrived late Sunday to lobby any holdouts at the AFL-CIO convention that opened Monday.

Sweeney told union members that he wanted the Gore endorsement when they first met here on Friday. In his keynote address opening the biennial convention, Sweeney did not mention Gore by name, but in a nod to Bradley, Sweeney said both Democrats "are right on our issues more than they are wrong." He made a strong attack on the Republican majority in Congress during his address.

"The House of Representatives is controlled by an ugly, anti-poor, anti-working family majority," Sweeney said. The AFL-CIO would express its outrage next year, he added "by taking back control of our government, by electing a working family president, and by taking a broom to the House."

Republican National Committee spokesman Mike Collins responded Monday: "The average working class man and woman is of no interest to these union bosses in their Gucci loafers and $600 suits in their downtown Washington luxury office suites."

The votes of the United Auto Workers, Teamsters and, perhaps, the Machinists, remain uncertain, labor and political operatives said. But those unions don't have the votes to block an endorsement. Any endorsement must be approved by unions representing two-thirds of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members under convention rules proposed by Sweeney.

The 1.3-million-member Service Employees International Union decided against endorsing Gore at this AFL-CIO convention and will follow its own schedule of issuing an endorsement in January. But the group is likely abstain rather than oppose "the way the bulk of the AFL-CIO is going," said political director Matt Witt.

"This is in no way a boost of or slap at anybody," Witt said.

If Gore is endorsed, it would be one of the earliest presidential endorsements by the AFL-CIO since it gave former Vice President Walter Mondale the nod in 1983. An early endorsement also would reflect the accelerated nature of the 2000 presidential election.

The executive council -- made up of presidents of the AFL-CIO's largest unions -- and the full convention of some 700 delegates vote on Wednesday. Gore is planning for a victorious acceptance speech at the Los Angeles Convention Center after those votes.

"We'll start now, meeting with state federations in Iowa, New Hampshire, New York, California, Ohio, Michigan -- a bunch of the early primary states -- to put in place the mechanisms for mobilizing union members. We know how to produce a vote," said AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal.

Gore was endorsed by the board of the United Food and Commercial Workers after UFCW President Doug Dority received back-to-back calls from Gore and Bradley.

On Saturday night, Dority, a Gore supporter, was leaning toward the view that "an endorsement in a couple of months" may be the best way to have an impact after building greater consensus, said Greg Denier, Dority's senior assistant.

But Dority was swayed to the vice president's position after another call from Gore. Before Sweeney arrived to press Gore's case at a private Sunday-morning meeting of the UFCW board, Dority asked his board to join him in supporting an early nod to Gore.

Denier said that the news media had made the stakes so high that the UFCW wanted to avoid a "no" vote being misinterpreted "as weak support for Gore."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Monday, October 11, 1999

• Clinton writes letter seeking delay of nuclear test ban treaty vote
• Poll: Bradley gains ground
• Dole announces official campaign launch
• Gore campaign says AFL-CIO endorsement all but assured
• On eve of lottery vote, ministers hold prayer vigil
• Buchanan brigades could change face of Reform Party

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