Union members unsure about helping Bredesen re-election
The governor addressed the Tennessee AFL-CIO Labor Council’s biennial convention here on Tuesday.
While most in the hotel ballroom responded by giving Bredesen standing ovations at the start and end of his remarks, a handful of delegates did not. One was Kevin Hayes of Dickson, who described himself as a political independent who didn’t vote for Bredesen in 2002 and won’t next year.
“He hasn’t helped us on some issues,” Hayes said. “Workers’ comp was a bad deal, and TennCare of course. There are people who need help.”
Jim Bass, president of the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Area Central Labor Council, supported Bredesen last year, but doesn’t plan to this time around.
“I knocked on doors for Bredesen last time,” Bass said. “I’ll stay at the house on this one.”
Before Bredesen spoke, one member asked his colleagues to show the governor some respect despite their differences with him.
“Regardless of how we feel about what’s going on right now, the governor’s going to be a guest in our house,” said John Kimbro, president of United Auto Workers Union local 737 in Nashville. “We don’t need to put him in a bad spot here today.”
No major candidate has emerged to oppose the Democratic governor yet, although two Republican lawmakers — Rep. Beth Harwell of Nashville and Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey of Blountville — are considering candidacies.
In his speech, Bredesen sought to lay out the rationale for both his workers’ comp and TennCare proposals and to reach out to one of his party’s base constituencies for common ground.
“I think it should speak to all of us when exit polls show that over half of organized labor in Tennessee voted for George Bush in 2000,” he said. “We have to accept the fact that, whether we’re Labor or the Democratic Party, we’re currently working here in Tennessee from a position of minority status. What I’m here to say today is this: We’re on the same team.”
As for the state’s public health care program, Bredesen acknowledged the cuts he’s making are “gut-wrenching,” but necessary for the state’s fiscal stability.
The governor has said he’s cutting about 190,000 adults from TennCare and reducing benefits for thousands of others because the state cannot afford the $8.7 billion program in its current form.
Bredesen told the labor members that he hopes to restore former Gov. Ned McWherter’s original “dream of TennCare” as a program that “reaches out to as many Tennesseans as possible and offers them help through the rough patches.”
On Tuesday, Labor Council members endorsed Harold Ford Jr. in the 2006 U.S. Senate race after hearing a riveting speech from the Memphis Democrat the night before, said Eddie Bryan, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO.
Ford’s challenger in next year’s Democratic primary, Sen. Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville, also addressed the convention, but Bryan said Republican candidates “didn’t even answer our letters” inviting them to speak.