| We have our fair share of labor skirmishes here, (I refer you to my WTF is up with SEIU posts) but Nevada has its share as well. In the presidential caucus battles, well skirmishes would be putting it nicely. Marc Cooper describes it in different terms: But this is no run-of-the-mill get-out-the-vote campaign of the sort frequently run by labor in election season. This isn't a ground game, to use the parlance. It's a veritable ground war. Campaign against campaign. Union against union. Unions against the Democratic Party. Even faction against faction inside some unions. (Marc Cooper 1/17/08)
The battle seems to really have been set up when the Culinary Workers, who represent many casino workers, endorsed Barack Obama. Just two days later, the Nevada State Education Association, who are generally considered unofficial Clinton supporters, sued to block caucus locations in casinos. Well, the Culinary workers aren't exactly digging that. And this election might be different than other Nevada elections, with powerful ramifications for the unions: "This was mock outrage from the teacher's union. It stinks," Eric Herzik of the University of Nevada, Reno tells the Huffington Post. "These rules have been in place for the last six months, and they file a suit two days after Culinary endorses [Obama]." "Filing the suit was ill advised," Herzik said, "because by losing the suit, all you have done is irritate Culinary. So now you've riled up Culinary, they get upset and they go vote for Obama." But with media attention now so intensely focused on the union role in Nevada's caucuses, especially that of the Culinary, is labor's clout being unrealistically over-estimated? "Definitely a possibility," says Nevada historian Green. "I think this could be very dangerous to Culinary if Obama doesn't win." The union has an impressive record of carrying local and sometimes statewide elections, Green says. But there's no guarantee that clout is transferable to national contests. "Culinary might have bitten off more than it can chew," he says. "I don't think anyone really knows how much influence the union leadership has over some newly arrived workers who are trying to make up their minds among three candidates with strong national presence."
More from Nevada when we get there this afternoon. |
