Drawing the first blood, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton raised up the first national labor endorsement of the 2008 White House pursuit.
The United Transportation Union (UTU), said to be the largest railroad operating union in North America, yesterday endorsed the New York’s junior senator for the Democratic nomination for president of the US.
The UTU, one of the top political donors in organized labor, represents about 125,000 active and retired members in the railroad, bus and public transit industries. Paul Thompson, UTU President, in a statement asserted,
The UTU has a long history of picking winners early. Hillary will be a president that America’s working families can count on. Time and again, as a United States senator, she has stood with us.
While Clinton holds a big lead over her 2008 Democratic rivals in national polls, on the other hand, top rivals Barack Obama (an Illinois senator) and John Edwards (the 2004 vice presidential nominee) are not far behind and have good labor support in various other worker unions as well.
Though, the Unions typically represent working class Americans and bring in a good deal of dollars, but they cannot guarantee all the votes of their members, especially in present time when a number of members are not in good terms with the unions.
Contrary to the UTU, the AFL-CIO - an umbrella group representing 55 labor unions - has set its members free to back a contender of their choice after it failed to reach the two-thirds consensus needed for an endorsement by the full federation earlier this month.
However, this is just the beginning of the mega event. Still there are five months before the first nominating contests will take place and more than 14 months ahead of the November 2008 presidential election.
