WASHINGTON INSIGHT

LOTSA QUID, LITTLE QUO: Several labor unions chipped in up to $100,000 when aides to President Clinton hit them up for loans to finance various inaugural events. Now union leaders are squawking about the small number of top posts they’ve landed in the new Administration. “On paper, it’s not a hell of a lot,” said one lobbyist. . . . So far, unions have only two of their own in key jobs. Jerry Klepner, from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has been tapped for assistant secretary of health and human resources for legislative affairs. And Geri Palast, from the Service Employees International Union, has bagged a parallel post in the Labor Department. . . . “We have no big players in the Administration,” a union operative said. Leaders like much of what Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich says--but moaned after he failed to mention the word union at his Senate confirmation hearing.

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LABOR’S LOVE LOST? (CONT’D): Labor’s concern extends to pet issues. Will Clinton seek passage of a controversial bill barring employers from hiring permanent replacements for strikers? He backed it in the presidential campaign. . . . Will he try to tax health care benefits or levy a new energy tax? Both are anathema to unions. Will he reverse two orders by former President George Bush--one allowing subcontractors on federal projects to hire non-union workers, the other allowing hurricane-cleanup employers in Florida and Louisiana to pay less than union wages? Labor sure hopes so.

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FROM AP TO U.N.?: One-time hostage Terry Anderson met last week in Washington with the Clinton Administration’s new U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright to discuss what appear to be his bright prospects for becoming her deputy. Anderson, the former Associated Press bureau chief in Beirut, said he is no longer interested in a journalism career and might run for office. An early Clinton supporter, he is said by sources to be a shoo-in for the job if he wants it. The main problem may be his other engagements, which include a series of lectures around the United States.

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PLAY BALL: Two Washington insiders crave being named baseball commissioner. One, the recently departed Navy secretary, Sean O’Keefe, is campaigning hard--swinging for the fences. His boosters are telling club owners that, in the Navy, he solved the same kind of financial and social problems faced by baseball. . . . The other prospect, a former senator who (believe it or not) doesn’t want his name in the paper, is lying low--laying down bunts, looking for a lucky bounce to get him around the bases. “Any red-blooded American boy would want this,” he said. “But those who take a high profile usually fall by the wayside.”

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NOT GUILTY: Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt startled hundreds of his new employees by standing in front of department headquarters and shaking hands as they arrived for work. He has pledged to get out of his office and see the new lands under his jurisdiction. . . . “This secretary is going to spend more time climbing mountains and running rivers with less guilt than anyone in history.”