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Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator. |
Labor pains
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.5 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME) is the kind of guy who could single-handedly give opportunism a bad name.
Consider this record of constancy by a leader of the American labor movement, where loyalty historically has been the most honored of values.
Last February, McEntee openly flirted with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, publicly declaring that the former war hero "would have the best chance" against President Bush.
When Kerry failed by summer to climb in the polls, McEntee's affections switched to retired Gen. Wesley Clark, but when Clark decided to skip the Iowa caucuses (where AFSCME has 13,000 members), McEntee dropped Clark like a bad habit.
By Nov. 12,Gerry McEntee had found his horse. He pledged "the largest and most aggressive grassroots campaign this nation has ever seen" in support of the "candidate who represents our values and who can defeat the president," then front-runner Howard Dean.
On Feb. 9, less than three months later, the union headed by "Foxhole" Gerry McEntee, who's with you through thick and thick, announced it had "ended its activities on behalf of the Dean campaign."
Do not think that McEntee's cut and run behavior is in any way typical of American labor. It is not. "Loyalty is everything," in the judgment of Leo Gerard, president of the Steelworkers Union, who refused to comment on McEntee's Britney Spears-like embrace of Dean.
"Loyalty is the cornerstone and foundation of what this movement is about. Not to be loyal to a man like (Rep.) Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) who has been working families' most loyal champion is just unacceptable," says Gerard, whose union not only endorsed Gephardt, but when his campaign hit a rough patch in early January, it actually redoubled its efforts.
One of the more memorable sights from that Iowa campaign was Teamsters Union president Jim Hoffa on the stump personally firing up his members and others in meeting after meeting in support of Gephardt.
One Teamster official (not Hoffa) could barely contain his rage at McEntee's abandonment of Dean, whose criminal offense was not some flip-flop on collective bargaining, but rather finishing third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire and going directly to Wisconsin: "It goes against everything we stand for - -your word is your bond. I don't know how (McEntee) can justify what he did. It's a terrible precedent."
Gephardt was not the only candidate who inspired loyal support from a union .In November and December, when John Kerry's campaign was faltering and Kerry was mocked by many in the press as "Dead Man Walking," the firefighters union, especially in New Hampshire, and its national leader, President Harold Schaitberger, never flagged and never flinched in their support of the Massachusetts senator.
Ever since that fateful September day in New York City, when 343 of their brothers walked into the jaws of death and the fires of Hell to save strangers whom they had never met, because it was their duty, the firefighters union has mostly been spared the bile of even the most anti-labor types.
Duane Worth, the president of the Airline Pilots Union, was an indefatigable Gephardt backer. "Loyalty is absolutely the core of who we are, and it's a two-way street: What is the message to the elected officeholder who risks his own political neck fighting for us and then we drop him for the flavor of the month?"
Why did Gerry McEntee do what he did? "He wanted to be a kingmaker again," answers Duane Worth, speaking for many who share that judgment and who remember the status McEntee attained and enjoyed after leading his union to an early and lonely 1992 endorsement of a longshot from Arkansas named Clinton.
Up to now, 2004 has not been a good year for organized labor. Gephardt left the race after Iowa, and Dean's prospects grow dimmer by the day. And Gerry McEntee has shown all the constancy of a political day-trader.
But let it be known that he is the exception, that there are many in labor for whom their word is their bond and for whom loyalty -- especially when the going gets tough -- remains their guiding value.
