Speaking to the Communications Workers’ 1,000 delegates and the Building and Construction Trades Department’s 3,000 participants, on March 27 and 28, the two said, as one of them put it, that the next president “should not need four years for on-the-job training.”

Dodd, Richardson, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) addressed one or both of the conclaves--the first step in unions’ consideration of who to endorse, if anyone, for the 2008 presidential race.

All the Democrats stressed their pro-worker stands, and all strongly supported the Employee Free Choice Act, labor-backed legislation designed to level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing drives and in bargaining over first contracts. Clinton called the bill “as American as apple pie.”

The Building Trades also invited Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), but he did not appear. None of the five GOP hopefuls--including Hagel--who addressed the Fire Fighters in mid-March even discussed labor rights, much less backed the legislation.

Biden coupled his support of the bill with his repeated warning that GOP President George W. Bush is waging war on unions, too. “These guys want you out of the way. It’s time to draw a line in the dust and say: ‘No way!’” he declared.

The Democratic-run House passed the bill (HR 800) last month. But the Senate GOP plans to filibuster it--talk it to death--and anti-worker president Bush promises to veto it.

That threat drew scorn from the hopefuls, Dodd and Richardson included. “In 2008, unions will come out and we’ll have a Democratic president,” Richardson said, after citing union turnout in prior elections and praising BCTD and CWA members for their get-out-the-vote efforts.

“We’ve got to stand up for the middle class and the best way to do that is to support unions. Republicans have passed right-to-work laws, but I’ll fight by your side for the Employee Free Choice Act until every worker has the unfettered right to join a union.”

“The time is long overdue that we had an administration that understands what it means to put in a day’s work in a safe workplace, with a secure retirement, and improving collective bargaining rights…empowering working people and creating jobs,” Dodd said.

“I’m a union senator and I’m proud to stand with union members” on a host of issues,” he stated. And then Dodd talked about those issues, such as family and medical leave, that he has championed over a 32-year congressional career, the last 26 years in the Senate. They also included pro-worker issues, such as EFCA.

Richardson talked about dealing with workers’ issues, and foreign policy, and other issues, as a governor, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., congressman and as a special envoy named by President Clinton to negotiate with rulers in world trouble spots.

“Campaign promises may win friends, but performance keeps them,” Richardson said. He reminded the union crowds that as governor he restored collective bargaining rights for state workers, signed the first project labor agreement for a state construction contract--a $400 million state hospital that will be totally union-built--and just pushed through an increase in New Mexico’s minimum wage, to $7.50 an hour. GOP opposition has kept the federal minimum at $5.15 for more than a decade.

Richardson promised an union member would be his Secretary of Labor. Dodd declared: “We know the Bush administration does not believe unions have a role to play. In the Dodd administration, you’ll have it. I’ll stand up for fair wages, health care and the right to collective bargaining.”

Clinton agreed and added she would “end this practice of harassing and bureaucratizing labor organizations, making them run through hoops”--the hundreds of pages of forms and paperwork, disclosing spending on everything from paychecks to paper clips, that the Bush Labor Department now forces unions to fill out.

The others talked policy more than experience. Biden, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, again said the U.S. cannot solve any domestic problems “until we get rid of the boulder in the road,” Bush’s war in Iraq. He also again stressed no other hopeful in either party, regardless of whether they support withdrawal of U.S. troops--as he does--or Bush’s war and escalation, “have a policy for answering the question; ‘What next?’”

Biden again proposed Iraq should have a less-powerful central government, and great autonomy for its three regions, one each for the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shi’ites. That worked in Bosnia “and not one U.S. soldier was killed,” he pointed out.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.