AFL-CIO Backs Dukakis as He Raps Administration on Jobs : Says U.S. Needs ‘Economic Leader, Not Cheerleader’

Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis picked up organized labor’s endorsement today, criticized the Reagan-Bush record on creating jobs and said the nation needs “an economic leader, not a cheerleader” for President.

Dukakis criticized Republican candidate George Bush for failing to mention budget and trade deficits in his acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention in New Orleans last week.

And to thunderous applause from the AFL-CIO, Dukakis supported the agenda of labor leaders including a higher minimum wage, health insurance for 40 million Americans who have none, a crackdown on corporate mergers and acquisitions and a tough trade policy.

Dukakis spoke to the labor gathering shortly after receiving their endorsement with only three of the AFL-CIO’s 91 international unions abstaining during a long roll call of the AFL-CIO General Board.

Teamsters Abstain

The powerful Teamsters Union was the key abstention, as new President William J. McCarthy said the Teamsters are awaiting the results of a membership presidential poll which will be counted Sept. 16.

The final tally, announced by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas Donahue, was 12,032,815 for the Dukakis-Lloyd Bentsen ticket, no votes for the GOP ticket of Vice President Bush and Sen. Dan Quayle, no votes for no endorsement and 535,863 votes to abstain.

Dukakis opened his speech with an appeal to the Polish government to immediately recognize the outlawed Solidarity Union. He referred to Polish workers, who have confronted the government in another series of strikes, as “our courageous Polish brothers and sisters who are only doing what all God’s children are entitled to do”--to collectively form labor unions.

Dukakis then criticized President Reagan’s economic record, saying, “I want a future where Americans are investing in America, where American ideas are working for America, where American jobs stay in America and where American productivity and workmanship are the best in the world.”

Jobs Paying Poorly

Dukakis said that while more Americans are working today than at any time in history, the majority of jobs created under Reagan have paid poorly. He said the average weekly wage for jobs lost between 1979 and 1985 was $440, while the average wage of replacement jobs was one-third less.

“That’s the price American workers and families are paying for eight years of voodoo economics,” said Dukakis, borrowing a phrase that Bush himself once used to describe Reagan’s economic policies.

Earlier, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland charged that the Reagan Administration “has favored greed over need” for the past eight years.

“The Reagan-Bush Administration came to Washington charging that government itself was the problem,” Kirkland said. “Eight years later we know that government is not the problem. The problem lies with those who govern.”