The Connecticut Employees Union Independent is backing away from Lieberman.
"I was the first union leader to endorse Joe Lieberman against Lowell Weicker" in 1988, says Steve Perruccio. Eighteen years later, "I'm very disappointed in his years in the Senate." Perruccio's 7,000-member Connecticut Employees Union Independent hasn't gone so far as to endorse Lieberman's Democratic challenger, upstart Ned Lamont. But CEUI president Perruccio says that whatever his union eventually decides, "it won't be endorsing Joe Lieberman."Perruccio and his union of state and municipal employees have lots of company. As Democratic delegates prepare to endorse a Senate candidate at Friday's party convention in Hartford, organized laborincluding unions that have supported Lieberman beforehas largely decided to sit out the Lieberman-Lamont contest.
Observers predict that the convention will endorse Lieberman while giving Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who's challenging Lieberman from the left, enough votes to force a primary in August. Even after the convention, though, you can expect most unions to stay on the sidelines.
About a dozen unions, mostly smallish locals, have endorsed the the three-term incumbent. But Lieberman's in-your-face support for an unpopular war and an unpopular president has turned many working people against him, especially union activists.
This is surprising. I was told early on that labor support would be critical for Lieberman, and that his record on labor was very good. Then again, neither Iraq nor Alito are particularly good for any of us.
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