Gephardt to add endorsement of Transport Workers Union
After losing two big unions earlier this month to Howard B. Dean, Representative Richard A. Gephardt is scheduled to collect his 21st international union endorsement today.
The 125,000-member Transport Workers Union will declare its support for the Missouri Democrat's presidential candidacy, union spokesman Jim Gannon said yesterday.
Gannon said the union has about 9,000 members in Oklahoma and 5,000 in Arizona. They are two of the seven states holding Democratic caucuses or primaries Feb. 3, a week after the New Hampshire primary. Almost 50,000 of the union's members live in New York state, he said.
Meanwhile, the executive board of the Communications Workers of America failed yesterday to reach agreement on an endorsement after the 700,000-member union, the eighth largest of the 64 internationals of the AFL-CIO, had polled leaders of its locals, spokeswoman Candice Johnson said. Gephardt, Dean, and Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts were the "leading candidates," supported by 1,300 responders, Johnson said, but "no one candidate emerged as the overwhelming consensus."
Union leaders left open the possibility of revisiting the endorsement issue later, Johnson said.
Gephardt also secured the endorsement of Missouri members of the United Auto Workers. The 800,000-member union's international declined to make an endorsement, but freed state, regional, and local affiliates to back candidates.
Gephardt has now received the support of UAW affiliates representing more than 200,000 retirees and active members in four states, including Iowa, the first caucus state.
-- BRIAN C. MOONEY
