Obama Gets Another Union Endorsement

The new Change to Win labor federation will give its first presidential endorsement to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, a union official said Thursday.

The endorsement comes after a teleconference between Change to Win's leaders and the heads of the seven unions that make up the 6-million member federation, Greg Tarpinian, the federation's executive director, said in an interview.

Four of Change to Win's unions had already endorsed Obama, with the Teamsters endorsing Obama on Wednesday. UNITE HERE, the Service Employee International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers also have endorsed Obama.

The Change to Win endorsement gives Obama a boost in the upcoming March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, as well as in Pennsylvania on April 22. There were 830,000 union workers in Pennsylvania and 730,000 in Ohio in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some of the largest numbers of unionized workers in the nation.

Tarpinian the vote was unanimous although the United Farm Workers, the Laborers' Union and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners had abstained. The farmworkers already had endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton; the Carpenters originally endorsed John Edwards, who has dropped out, and the Laborers had yet to make an endorsement. Tarpinian said, however, the three unions released the federation to work for Obama in the upcoming primaries and caucuses.

The unions in the Change to Win federation broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005 over internal disagreements on how best to build organized labor's membership and political clout.

The AFL-CIO has not endorsed any candidate in the Democratic primary, although it has allowed its 56-member unions to make individual endorsements. The AFL-CIO's executive council will meet in San Diego March 3-5, and a decision could be announced.