Dukakis Is a Friend and Ally of Unions, Not Their Tool

Both organized labor and the Rev. Jesse Jackson pose difficult, politically awkward dilemmas for Michael S. Dukakis in his campaign for the presidency.

The Jackson problem is the more critical and highly visible one, getting constant, nationwide attention. Dukakis is struggling with the question of how Jackson can play a major role in his campaign without costing more votes than the civil rights leader can bring in.

While less critical, the issue of Dukakis’ relations with organized labor is very important. On Aug. 24, the AFL-CIO will endorse the Massachusetts governor. With that, he will have the official blessing of almost every union in America.

Before that, though, on July 17, the day before the Democratic National Convention opens in Atlanta, there will be caucuses of nearly 1,300 union members who are delegates and alternates to the convention--the largest number at a political convention in history.

Most of the delegates from labor represent Dukakis, but at least a fourth of them are for Jackson and other candidates now out of the race.

Despite representing different candidates, the labor people are bonded by their loyalty to the labor movement.

They will be in a position to serve as a bridge between Dukakis and Jackson at the convention if differences arise between the candidates that threaten to upset the mood of unity that Democrats need for a victory in November. And that is labor’s plan.

While the labor delegates are committed to the candidates they represent, the labor contingent will hold special daily caucuses to make sure they don’t end up fighting one another on issues that might also threaten Democratic Party unity.

John Perkins, AFL-CIO political director, will be in constant touch by walkie-talkie with the labor delegates through union people on the convention floor to help them serve as peacemakers if battles do erupt.

The Republicans and labor unions historically have largely ignored one another--when they aren’t fighting, as they have been during the entire Administration of President Reagan. Only six unionists are expected as delegates to the Republican convention.

By contrast--and further evidence of the increasing role labor plays in the Democratic Party--six of the 16 members of the Democrats’ platform drafting committee are from labor, another record high.

Dukakis is not, and, of course, doesn’t want to be, tagged as a “tool of organized labor,” a label former Sen. Gary Hart tried with some success to pin on Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 presidential primaries.

The former vice president and unions had almost identical goals, but that made Mondale a natural ally, not a puppet, of labor.

The late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, too, was “accused” by his political enemies of being too closely tied to the labor movement. Humphrey, however, regarded that as a compliment. He had longer and even closer personal friendships than Mondale with many of the nation’s union leaders.

Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, too, were almost always in sync with labor and its goals. Those presidents boasted of their good relations with unions.

Unions were lukewarm, at best, however, toward former President Jimmy Carter. They were not in tune with him ideologically on many issues, and Carter had almost no acquaintances, much less personal friends, among union leaders when he first ran for President.

Dukakis is more like the other Democratic presidents and presidential candidates in his good relations with labor, and his rather moderate political and social goals are almost identical with those of most unions.

However, until now, Dukakis has not been a major player on the national political scene, so naturally his contacts with national union leaders are not as personal as those developed by the other liberal Democratic presidents and contenders who had been national figures before getting into presidential politics.

Paul Jensen, Dukakis’ national political director, said there is a “partnership between the governor and labor. We are together on almost all issues, from minimum wage and health care to labor law reform.”

Jensen, who, significantly, was a Mondale adviser and the his chief liaison with labor in 1984, said that, in Massachusetts, Dukakis meets frequently with union leaders individually and confers with them on a more formal basis at regular monthly meetings.

Jensen puts a high value on labor’s vast political network, noting that unions were primarily responsible for Mondale getting the Democratic nomination in 1984.

And if there was any negative in labor’s early endorsement of Mondale, that issue cannot be raised because Dukakis will not be endorsed until after he becomes the nominee, he noted.

There has been speculation that by waiting until August to endorse Dukakis, the unions are trying to help Dukakis distance himself from labor.

Actually, the endorsement hasn’t been made yet because union leaders did not push for the two-thirds vote of unions needed for the AFL-CIO endorsement. Dukakis could almost certainly have won by the required margin.

But there is significant support among unions for Jackson, and an early Dukakis endorsement would have unnecessarily split labor’s ranks. Such a split might not have prevented an early endorsement if it had been over almost anyone but Jackson, whose supporters are passionately behind him.

The emotional reaction Jackson can generate was dramatized here last week when both men addressed the convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Dukakis, who has the strong if unofficial support of AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and several other leaders of the union, was warmly applauded as he spelled out the goals he has in common with labor.

Jackson, though, evoked floor-stomping and thunderous cheers from most of the 3,500 union members as he outlined his goals, which more precisely mirror labor’s agenda. Several in the audience were moved to tears as he emotionally described his hopes for the future.

The ovation for Jackson helps explain why he is so determined not to concede defeat in the presidential race that he has already lost. Jackson is no longer a contender for the vice presidency, but demonstrations like that keep him center stage in the nation’s political scene.

If Dukakis and Jackson can make peace with one another, as in good sense they must, all unions will rally behind Dukakis. It is obvious that only he can defeat Bush--and bring an end to the policies of the most anti-labor Administration in modern time.

Exploiting Children Is More Than Just Vile

Child labor has been a primary concern of the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, ever since it was created in 1913, and a new ILO study shows the problem is far from solved.

The ILO, in a report to be published in two weeks, estimates that more than 100 million children around the world--possibly twice that number--still “toil long hours for a pittance, often under precarious and exploitative conditions.”

Protective legislation in most countries is “toothless,” and many others have no child labor laws because there is no political will to do anything about it, the distressing study found.

Child labor persists on such a large scale worldwide because children are “docile, fast and agile, their labor is cheap, they can be easily hired and fired and they cannot join unions.”

Even in child labor, there is sex discrimination: “Young girls are often assigned to more tedious tasks, work much longer and get paid less than boys,” according to the ILO report.

Child labor abuses naturally should evoke compassion from Americans, but we have another, more selfish reason for calling for action to end it: The children who work for even less money than poorly paid adults in many countries are becoming our competitors in the world marketplace.

As long as productivity is low, and the children are struggling merely to stay alive, the competition from those millions of young workers may be minimal. But as their employers increase efficiency with more modern equipment--often furnished by U.S. corporations--our concern about the children will become less and less an altruistic one.

Laws sharply limiting child labor were passed in several European countries in the 1800s, but meaningful legislation wasn’t adopted in this country until 1938, 30 years after a crusader, Sarah Cleghorn, began stirring the public with her famous little poem:

The golf links lie so near the mill

That almost every day

The laboring children can look out

And see the men at play.

There are still substantial abuses of our child labor laws, but the use of child labor in this country is almost insignificant when put in a world perspective.