Wooing the Labor Vote

One day not long after American troops entered Cambodia, the usual complement of tourists, strollers and protesters in Washington's Lafayette Square were startled to see a swarm of black limousines pull out of the White House gates, wheel around the corner and descend on A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters. President Nixon, maps and charts in tow, had come to explain his Cambodian policy to the executive labor council. He thus made a parlor call in a continuing courtship that Republicans hope will erode the Democratic Party's traditional base among working men and women.

That there are votes up for grabs was confirmed two weeks ago by A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany during his 76th birthday press luncheon. "Our people are looking less to the Democrats," he said, "because, actually, the Democratic Party has disintegrated--it is not the so-called liberal party that it was a few years ago. It almost has got to be the party of the extremists. More and more [they] are going to lose the support of our members." When a reporter asked if the man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue knew that, too. Meany said emphatically: "You bet your life he knows it."

Military Pageant. Just how well the President knows will be evident this week. Nixon is coming back to Washington from San Clemente early to throw a Labor Day party at the White House for at least 200 labor leaders, including Meany--a radical departure, especially for a Republican President, from the pro forma proclamations that have marked Labor Day celebrations in recent years. After dinner, they will be joined on the South Lawn by an estimated 6,000 labor union employees and their families for a military pageant that will conclude with the Army Band playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture--complete with cannons booming on cue.

The staging is no coincidence. It is with an appeal to patriotism, stability and law and order that Nixon hopes to place the blue collar and hardhat firmly in the company of the Silent Majority that he considers his own. As Political Analyst Richard Scammon observes: "What is unusual is that until now, Republicans have generally not considered such a large appeal to labor as worthwhile. Now they do."

Souvenir Hardhat. Some of the reasons why the Republicans believe the romance will flourish are already evident. In New York, at least 17 unions have endorsed Nelson Rockefeller for Governor over Arthur Goldberg, a candidate whose impeccable credentials as a labor lawyer and Secretary of Labor under Kennedy would normally rate reflex support. Parades of hardhats backing Administration policy in Southeast Asia have reified the peace backlash and warmed the President personally. Nixon entertained construction and longshoremen union leaders in the Cabinet Room, accepting a souvenir "Commander-in-Chief" hardhat. Later, on his trip to the South, he proudly noted a New Orleans construction workers' helmet and said: "I have one of those."

There are exceptions to this new rapprochement within labor's ranks, notably the United Auto Workers, and Nixon still faces labor opposition to his economic policies. Inflation, rising unemployment and tight money hit labor where it lives; Meany kept up the pressure on the economic front, charging in his Labor Day message that "the combination of recession and inflation at the same time results from ill-conceived Administration actions." But the Republicans are looking to '72. The Labor Day party is based on the premise that, by then, jobs and prices will not be any bar to thinking Republican in the polling booth.

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