Gephardt garners union's endorsement

By Brian Mooney, Globe Correspondent, 9/24/2003

Democratic presidential candidate Richard A. Gephardt collected another major labor union endorsement yesterday, this one from the Laborers International Union of North America.

About 1,000 union leaders and activists "voted overwhelmingly" to support the Missouri congressman at a conference in Chicago, according to the union's website. The union's general president, Terence M. O'Sullivan, called Gephardt "a lifelong friend of working families."

The laborers are the 11th-largest of 64 unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella and the 14th to back Gephardt to date.

Under AFL-CIO rules, a candidate must have the backing of unions representing two-thirds of federation members to win federation support. The AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney, is expected to decide soon whether to call an Oct. 14 meeting to take up the endorsement issue.

Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts is the only other candidate to win support from a national union, the 194,000-member International Association of Fire Fighters, which is to announce its endorsement today.

Brian Mooney