USW President Leo Gerard and UMW President Cecil Roberts used the platform of Pittsburgh\'s Labor Day parade to announce their unions\' decisions. Carpenters President Douglas McCarron said separately his union also backs Edwards.

The Steel Workers and Mine Workers endorsements of Edwards--who is tied for the lead in opinion polls in the key first caucus state, Iowa, but runs third nationally--are important for two reasons.

One is that USW, with 1.2 million members and retirees, has a large and politically active corps of members who can hit the hustings quickly and effectively in the industrial states of the Northeast and Midwest, and elsewhere. The other is UMW has thousands of members and retirees in the coal-mining areas of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and southern Illinois and Indiana.

"All the Democratic candidates in the field share our values, and any one of them would be a major improvement over the current administration," said Gerard, whose union has many members in battleground states such as Ohio.

"But none of them is a more forceful advocate for those values than John Edwards. Edwards is committed, as he has been throughout his life, to going to bat for everyday Americans and to changing a broken political system that leaves millions of Americans without a voice in their government," Gerard added.

The USW and UMW decisions increase the likelihood the AFL-CIO will not make an endorsement until after the February 5 round of caucuses and primaries.

The AFL-CIO needs votes of unions representing two-thirds of its 10 million members to issue an overall endorsement, and the United Transportation Union and the Machinists endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Another politically active and influential union, the Fire Fighters, endorsed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).

Meanwhile, the Carpenters--the sole union to officially stay neutral in 2004--are the first Change To Win union to endorse anyone this time. Change to Win will hold its own presidential candidate forum on September 25 during its convention in Chicago.
Unfair trade played a big part in the USW\'s decision, which came after extensive surveying of its members and discussions within its executive board. Edwards denounced unfair trade treaties while he was in the Senate--they cost textile workers\' jobs in his home state--and has continued to do so on the campaign trail.

"He [Edwards] grew up in a family that worked and lived in a mill town, so he has seen first hand the damage unregulated trade has done…He is committed to changing entrenched trade policies that export American jobs to low wage countries where they exploit Third World workers and the environment just to fatten multinationals\' profits, instead of lifting all workers\' wages and creating American jobs," Gerard said.

Edwards reiterated those themes in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in late August, in a major speech just before the unions\' decision.

"Washington isn\'t looking out for them," Edwards said of the government\'s attitude towards workers and trade. "Washington is too busy looking out for big business and protecting irresponsible corporations." And he said both parties were to blame in that attitude.

Clinton\'s husband, then-President Bill Clinton (D), pushed NAFTA--the job-losing U.S.-Canada-Mexico "free trade" treaty--through a then-Democratic Congress over intense labor opposition.

"Trade has become a bad word for working Americans for a simple reason: Our
trade policies have been bad for working Americans. Washington looks at every trade deal and asks one question, and only one question: Is it good for corporate profits? They don\'t look at what it will do to workers, to families, to wages, to jobs, or even to the economy. When it comes to trade, the only thing that matters in Washington is the big business bottom line," Edwards continued in Cedar Rapids.

"We need new trade policies in America that put workers, wages and families
first. Not fourth, not third, not second. First. What we need is trade without trade-offs. Trade without trade-offs for workers. Trade without trade-offs for jobs. Trade without trade-offs for the environment. We need trade without trade-offs for America," he said.

In its endorsement, Gerard added, USW also cited Edwards\' electability. The North Carolinian is the only Democratic hopeful from the South, where Democratic nominees--except Bill Clinton--have run poorly. But Edwards, then a sitting senator, did not carry his home state for the Democrats in 2004 as their vice-presidential nominee.

USW said it "aims to play a leadership role in ensuring Edwards\' nomination," by mobilizing its "significant" numbers of members in the early caucus and primary states. Many are in Iowa, the first caucus state, one where Edwards ran strongly in 2004.

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