Labor Seeking an Edge in Iowa Caucuses

DES MOINES —  Organized labor in Iowa may field its own slate of uncommitted delegates in the state’s Democratic precinct caucuses next February in an effort to enhance its influence in the first contest of the 1988 presidential campaign, top labor leaders said here Monday.

Frustrated by the national AFL-CIO’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate until after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, powerful state-level AFL-CIO leaders said fielding an uncommitted slate may be the only way labor can gain bargaining power in the Iowa campaign.

Some leaders attending a Labor Day parade said they also believe such a slate could reduce internal union tensions between supporters of rival candidates. Labor-sponsored polls show that most union members remain either uncommitted or deeply divided among three or four leading candidates.

“I see the best position for labor as going into next June’s state convention as uncommitted,” said Howard Flatt, business manager of Local 347 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the largest construction workers local in Iowa. (Delegates elected in February’s precinct caucuses will finally select delegates to the national Democratic convention at the state convention in June.)

Labor has traditionally played a key role in the Democratic side of the Iowa caucuses. In 1984, the AFL-CIO gave Walter F. Mondale an early endorsement, and the Iowa Federation of Labor subsequently contacted 58,000 union members to get out the vote for Mondale, who went on to win handily in Iowa.

But the AFL-CIO’s decision this year to delay a national endorsement “worries me quite a bit,” said Bill Fenton, an international representative for the International Assn. of Machinists, a leader in Iowa labor politics. “If there is no endorsement of any kind, it’s going to split us up to where we won’t be as effective in getting a good candidate.

“We should be seeing more leadership from the national AFL-CIO already,” Fenton complained. “But if they don’t endorse or do something, we’re going to have to.

“We have talked about coming together around (an uncommitted slate),” he added. “We would then have a pretty good bargaining position.”

That course would also prevent “union people fighting union people for delegates,” said Howard Smith, secretary-treasurer of the Iowa Federation of Labor, the second-highest ranking labor official in the state.

“We did that in 1976. The myth in Iowa is that in 1976 Jimmy Carter won Iowa,” he added. “Actually, uncommitted won, and we had more uncommitted delegates going to the convention than Carter did.”

But Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), a presidential candidate who marched in the Labor Day parade, warned that organized labor would be making a major mistake if it backs an uncommitted slate in February. “I don’t think uncommitted is going to be a very saleable product,” said Simon. “I think labor is going to be divided.”