Union Members Give Rousing Cheer : Bentsen Appeals to Labor to Rejoin Democrat Ranks

Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen basked Thursday in the warmth of support from trade union members who fled his party in droves four years ago, winning rousing cheers as he denounced “seven years of do-nothing Republican indifference.”

“It’s been a tough time for American workers, who are running just as hard as they can, barely managing to stay even. . . . “ Bentsen told the annual convention of the 1.1-million member United Food and Commercial Workers union here. “The status quo has to go.”

Bentsen came to the podium after union president William H. Wynn announced that a new poll showed UFCW members backing the Democratic ticket headed by Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis 52% to 29% for Vice President George Bush. Four years ago, despite an official union endorsement of Walter F. Mondale, UFCW members backed Mondale over President Reagan by a bare 53% to 47%, according to post-election polls.

Negative Poll on Bush

Wynn said the new poll showed that while union members respected Bush’s foreign policy experience, they regarded him as “a wimp” and “for the rich, not for the common person.”

“George,” Wynn said, referring to Bush, “UFCW members know you and, frankly, they don’t like you.”

Not wanting to appear beholden to special interests, Dukakis spent little time addressing union audiences in the primary campaign. But Bentsen--who says he is campaigning to persuade wayward Democrats to “come home”--made a direct appeal to the union delegates Thursday, praising organized labor for its leadership in making “the American dream come true for millions of our people.”

“Mike Dukakis and I want to put an end to Republican rule that has treated the working men and women of America with disdain for eight long years,” Bentsen said.

Castigates Administration

The Texas senator castigated the Reagan Administration for its opposition to an increase in the minimum wage, to plant-closing legislation, and to the Bentsen-drafted trade bill that the Texas senator vowed to get through Congress next week despite the Reagan veto.

“We know American workers are the best, most productive workers in the world,” Bentsen said. “I say let’s give them an even playing field. Let them compete on equal terms, and then watch what America can do.”

The delegates voted unanimously later Thursday to urge the AFL-CIO to endorse the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket. The UFCW is the second largest union in the labor federation. Bentsen spoke later in Reno to the National Conference of State Legislatures before flying to Los Angeles for an early end to a campaign day on a trip that has been most marked for its leisurely pace.

Francis O’Brien, one of a number of senior Dukakis aides who are traveling with Bentsen on his maiden vice presidential trip, said the Texas senator would soon step up his stump speech pace to three cities a day, and would add rallies to a schedule so far dominated by drop-bys at annual conventions.

But on this first trip, he said, the campaign was applying lessons learned from Geraldine A. Ferraro’s disastrous premier vice presidential campaign swing in 1984, when she was sent unaccompanied by experienced aides on a frenetic solo trip that became dominated by questions about her husband’s tax returns.

“They treated Ferraro like a dog,” O’Brien said. “We decided to do it right this time. We’re giving Bentsen time to find his legs.”