Boy, talk about missing the point of your own story. This morning's PD headline was "Campbell wins backing of failed candidates", and you had to read two-thirds of the way through to reach the real news:
Jackson was far more interested in winning over the Service Employees International Union, which has 7,500 members in the city. The union endorsed Jackson because the rank and file members believe Campbell has ignored their concerns and possesses the leadership of a "weather vane," union chief Dave Regan said.Back in December, I wrote the following:
He cited Campbell's support of a city retail development that includes a Wal-Mart store and her failure to intercede on the union's behalf during tough contract negotiations with the Cleveland Public Library.
"People feel at best, they have been taken for granted," he said.
SEIU supported Campbell four years ago, as a member of the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, which actively campaigned on her behalf.
SEIU has since left the labor federation, which voted Wednesday night during a two-hour meeting not to endorse a mayoral candidate.
... Regan said the union planned to contact its members by phone and mail and use the union's Columbus and Cleveland phone banks - capable of contacting 200,000 households a day - on Jackson's behalf.
Unless it comes with unprecedented labor and community protection agreements (and I stress the word unprecedented, as in "highly unlikely"), a Wal-Mart in Steelyard Commons will become one of the most important issues in the mayoral election next year and may well cost Jane Campbell a second term.This prediction hasn't seemed very prophetic up to now, largely because the national split in the AFL-CIO this Summer separated the two big anti-Walmart unions (SEIU and UFCW, the United Food and Commercial Workers) from the Cleveland Federation of Labor's political decision-making, effectively removing the central labor body -- and its issues, including Wal-Mart -- from the mayor's race. But SEIU's decision to jump in on Jackson's side may make me look a whole lot smarter.
The AFL-CIO's phone banking and doorknocking was a huge factor -- many people think it was the factor -- in Campbell's 2001 victory. (Indeed, the absence of labor's field operation from this year's primary was probably a significant factor in the pitiful blue-collar turnout.) SEIU, with a big active membership in the city, East and West, and its own sophisticated phonebanking setup, was a major part of that 2001 AFL-CIO effort.
Now SEIU's people and resources are with Jackson. They've got the technology, they've got the troops, and they've got plenty of time to use them effectively. And in this new post-AFL-CIO world, they have every reason to go all-out to prove they're the baddest players in town.
Especially in light of the tiny primary turnout, an effective union operation calling thousands of blue-collar voters all over town, giving them a push and a clear ten-word rationale to vote for Jackson, ought to be Campbell's worst nightmare. But it's no dream; it's about to happen.
The only way this could get worse for the Mayor would be for the UFCW -- which left the AFL-CIO with SEIU, is even more pissed off about Steelyard Commons, has thousands of its own members in the city, and has serious phone-banking abilities of its own -- to join the Jackson campaign too. Stay tuned.