Labor Leaders Withdraw Riordan Endorsement

Acting to head off an internal political rift, Los Angeles County’s top labor leaders Thursday backed away from their initial endorsement of Mayor Richard Riordan’s reelection bid and instead voted not to take a stance in the race.

The expected action by the executive board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor frees the organization’s 320 member unions to do as they wish in the April 8 election. As such, it provides a modest boost to state Sen. Tom Hayden, a Democrat who is waging an uphill battle against Riordan.

Labor leaders voted to withdraw last month’s surprise endorsement of Riordan, a business-minded Republican, after protests from Hayden backers in influential Service Employees International Union locals.

Those locals, which represent city workers along with other government and private sector employees, have faced off in the mayoral race against the county’s building trade unions, which are backing Riordan.

To blunt a potentially embarrassing squabble, the executive board voted to take a “no recommendation” posture. No breakdown of the closed-door ballot was disclosed, but labor officials said privately that the only vote against the compromise came from Richard Slawson, executive director of the Los Angeles and Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council.

Miguel Contreras, head of the county labor federation, said the compromise position was crafted because “we didn’t need the service employees unions or the public sector unions attacking the building trades unions.”

“We decided,” he added, “that we needed to move forward, and that we all agree that our organizing priorities are more important than any single candidate.”

Jorge Mancillas, political director for the Hayden campaign, said the initial Riordan endorsement “had deeply divided the labor movement, and that was something we found regrettable. The goal of our campaign is to weave together all the threads that make up the city of Los Angeles.

“We think that an endorsement of Tom Hayden would be consistent with labor’s interests,” Mancillas said, “but we also understand the differences in the labor movement, and we understand that each union will be making its own decision” in the mayoral race.

Riordan downplayed the endorsement withdrawal. Alluding to the previous two-thirds vote he won to gain the initial endorsement, the mayor said: “I’m very proud of the fact that two-thirds of the unions support me and will continue to support me. All this means is that, as a federation, they won’t support either of the candidates, but the individual labor unions can support and the vast majority of them are supporting me. . . I’m so proud to have the retail clerks, the restaurant and hotel workers, the carpenters and a large number of the other unions.”

Times staff writer Ted Rohrlich contributed to this story.