The Missing Union Endorsement

There's an edition of The Field, the NY Times podcast, making the rounds on social media this morning. It's all about the Nevada Culinary Workers Union not making an endorsement in this year's caucus.

Instead of an endorsement, there was a union scorecard, focusing on the three goals the union believes are important: immigration, jobs, and health insurance. On the first two, as we know, the candidates are very similarly aligned - they all want good union jobs, and lots of them, and they all support protections for immigrants. Where the candidates diverge, as the union sees it, is on health insurance. TGFV will end their coverage; Elizabeth Warren will eventually replace it, and the moderate candidates will protect it.

That scorecard, and other information from the union leadership, has led some pro-TGFV supporters to holler fraud, to holler election interference, and to holler about that darned rigged system, which we hear about with every perceived slight. Everything is an offense against him; everything is an attempt to keep him from his rightful claim to the throne, it seems.

What 's so weird is that no one remembers, or chooses to talk about the union not endorsing anyone the last time around, either. There was no endorsement in the 2016 election, when it was a very close race between TGFV and Hillary Clinton.

From Adam Nagourney's February 2016 piece in the NY Times,

When it comes to labor powerhouses in Nevada, few organizations quite match the Culinary Workers Union; 57,000 strong, more than 50% Latino, with an 80-year history of labor advocacy on the Strip and a record of turning out its members in political campaigns. But the decision to stay out also appears to be, at least to some extent, a legacy of the bitter Democratic caucus battles of 2008, when the union endorsed Barack Obama in the final weeks of the campaign. Mrs. Clinton's supporters took the Culinary Workers to court to challenge its voting procedures, while an angry Bill Clinton went casino to casino, urging workers to defy their union and support his wife. 

"It's unforgivable,” a union radio advertisement said at the time of the Clinton camp’s maneuvers. 

Obama won the endorsement, and more delegates, even though Clinton won the popular vote.

Fast forward to 2016 (again, from Nagourney's article)

The union’s decision is also powerful evidence of just how unsettled this race is, with the absence of much reliable polling and a rising sense in both campaigns that the fight is tighter than it appeared just a few weeks ago... And, by many accounts, this union — which Mrs. Clinton had once counted on as a strong supporter — is just as divided as the state appears to be, and union leaders are wary about pushing through an endorsement that could split its ranks.

The candidates had some work to do, and again, ran afoul of the union, just like in 2008.

With union leaders professing neutrality, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders have moved to win support of the members on their own, with mixed success. Union leaders rebuked Mr. Sanders's campaign after several of his workers, handing out stacks of pro-Sanders literature, posed as culinary employees to gain access to the private cafeteria where union members go on break. 

"It's completely inappropriate for any campaign to attempt to mislead Culinary Union members, especially at their place of work," Geoconda Arguello-Kline, the secretary-treasurer of the union, said in a statement. Yanna Cancela, the union's political director, said in an interview here that the union viewed it as a "huge problem" and that she had complained personally to Mr. Sanders's campaign. Mr. Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, later apologized.  

The union leaders knew that both Sanders and Clinton had supporters among union members - but it was heading to the negotiating table and one union leader said they

want to be very unified dealing with the companies, and we don't want anything polarizing our members. 

Today, Geoconda Arguello-Kline is the head of the union, and is taking a lot of heat from Sanders supporters. According to the podcast, Arguello-Kline got a text from her daughter, with screenshots of tweets about her mom; here's a sample.

F--- off Geoconda. If Sanders loses and we don't get Medicare for All and a union worker gets cancer and gets fired and he or she dies, their blood will be on Geoconda Arguello-Kline who for selfish reasons decided to spread these lies.

The assumption that this kind of message was coming from Sanders supporters is what led to a discussion during the debate the other night about how the candidates have a role to play when it comes to their supporters. Here's Senator Warren.

Look, I have said many times before, we are all responsible for our supporters. And we need to step up. That's what leadership is all about.

And here's what Mayor Pete said about it.

...but at a certain point, you've got to ask yourself, why did this pattern arise? Why is it especially the case among your supporters that this happens? ...Look, people know the way your supporters treat them.

And the response?

Well, Pete, if you want to talk to some of the women on my campaign, what you'll see is the most ugly, sexist, racist attacks that are -- I wouldn't even describe them here, they're so disgusting...

I saw some of those tweets regarding the Culinary Workers Union. I have a 30-year, 100% pro-union voting record. Do you think I would support or anybody who supports me would be attacking union leaders? It's not thinkable.

Meanwhile, according to this article from Nicole Karlis for Salon.com, trying to get out the vote is what the union is focusing on - that, and enjoying their time in the spotlight, it seems.

"I've never heard the Culinary Union mentioned on a debate stage so much," Culinary Union member Marc Morgan, 59, told Salon. "We have such a voice [in this election]."  

Karlis wondered if there were "murmurs or sly endorsements" going on during the phone banking, but Morgan, one of several union members manning the phones, said no. 

I'm just encouraging voters to go out and participate, and I think that's most important. We want them to vote Democratic, and to beat Trump.

Karlis talked to another phone bank worker, Diane Woodman, who said that the union sitting this one out changes things.

It's different for our members because they basically have to make decisions for themselves for this election. They know our stand on what we need to protect as far as our union goes and what's important to us because we fought for it for years and years, so they will make their own decision, which is a first for them.

To me, that's one of the saddest things about this entire mess: that voters making their own decision, rather than doing what the union tells the, is "a first for them."

Caucus results are coming in, and with a mere 3% of the vote counted, Sanders is leading the pack. In the end, we may never know why people are voting the way they are.

The best we might hope for is that the results will be known, with confidence, before midnight.