Primaries tough choice for unions

Labor groups choose between Clinton, Sanders

LAS VEGAS — The choice facing labor unions in the Democratic presidential race boils down to hearts or heads — Bernie Sanders, who embraces their forceful opposition to a big trade deal, or Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is a strong favorite for the nomination.

Clinton has campaigned as a fighter for middleclass families and carries with her establishment support and ties to labor leaders going back to her husband’s White House years. But her unwillingness to take a position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade pact vehemently opposed by labor, has made some union leaders and workers wary.

Sanders, meanwhile, has made his opposition to the trade deal and a message of economic inequality central to his upstart campaign. At large rallies across the country, the Vermont senator has championed a $15-anhour minimum wage and a single-payer health care system, putting him in line with many unions’ aspirations.

“I would say to the AFL-CIO, ‘Take a hard look at my record. Take a hard look at Secretary Clinton’s record,’” Sanders told reporters after meeting leaders of the Nevada AFL-CIO this week, rejecting a “mythology going around” that the democratic socialist can’t win the nomination.

Clinton, Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley have been auditioning before labor unions this summer, seeking their stamp of approval and an army of volunteers that can fuel campaigns. Clinton and Sanders met with the Nevada AFL-CIO at the Luxor Hotel and Casino on Tuesday; O’Malley was addressing the group on Wednesday.

Clinton, who also toured a Las Vegas training center run by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters union, released a new ad on Wednesday in Iowa and New Hampshire with a pro-labor message. In the ad, she says, “When you see that you’ve got CEOs making 300 times what the average worker’s making, you know the deck is stacked in favor of those at the top.”

For labor, Sanders’ rise in the polls and Clinton’s trade agenda have made its calculations more difficult. Unions that endorse Clinton this year might gain more clout if the former secretary of state wins the White House. But some union leaders may risk a backlash from rank-and-file members who have been drawn to Sanders’ blunt, anti-establishment message.

“Business as usual has not worked,” said Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America who is now helping Sanders’ campaign. “It has not worked in the last six years. It didn’t work in the Clinton years.”