Blah, blah, blah

Although his track record isn’t that great, Edwards has supported unite-here many times, he’s buddy-buddy with John Wilhelm (see their co-authored boston globe oped–“Making america work for the working poor”), and he has the most pro-labor agenda of the top three candidates. He was slated to get unite-here’s endorsement, but folks were so anti-Hilary that Obama had to get the nod.

The result: the unite-here local, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents 60,000 workers–far more than any other union– in Nevada is supporting Obama for the key primary.

And what does Obama turn around and do–he praises Reagan.

Obama: “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Edwards: “[Reagan] was openly — openly — intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment. I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.”

How does it feel, unite-here leadership? i guess if Edwards doesn’t become president, then the burned bridges wont matter that much any way.

Then again, he hasn’t done much to support NC workers. He has even said he didn’t want to change the NC right to work law, which weakens unions by preventing closed shops.

And while Edwards today aggressively courts the support of labor unions, he seemed to discount their importance in a 1998 radio interview in which he said, “What my focus is, is on the working people. And most of the working people in North Carolina are not members of labor unions.” He added, “I just don’t think labor unions are an enormous issue in North Carolina one way or the other. We have a right to work law. I do not support the changing of that law.”

However, he did cosponsor a bill to give collective bargaining rights public safety workers employed by states and local governments. This would challenge NC’s refusal to give collective bargaining rights to state workers. Mexico is challenging through NAFTA now. There is a also a state bill to overturn the statute.

He didn’t cosponsor a 2000 bill “to amend the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act to prevent discrimination based on participation in labor disputes” although John kerry did (and barbara boxer, of course).

And of course, there is his cosponsoring for the 2003 resolution that “commends and supports the efforts and leadership of the President, as Commander in Chief, in the conflict against Iraq.”

Please note that while the collective bargaining rights bill never came to a vote, another of his cosponsored bills–A resolution to recognize the evolution and importance of motorsports–was approved.