Bush Works the Union Halls

By JAMES GERSTENZANG

Sept. 4, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DETROIT — Locking James P. Hoffa’s Teamsters in a political bearhug as he courted union members on Labor Day, President Bush told workers Monday he knows economic growth is “anemic at best,” but he expressed confidence in the nation’s economic foundation.

The president offered an echo of the “Message: I care” declaration that his father made to voters suffering through a recession during his unsuccessful 1992 presidential reelection bid.

The younger Bush, faced with a sluggish economy but enjoying a much bigger time cushion before the next election, sought Monday to prepare the Midwest’s Rust Belt for potentially hard times to come and--like his father--emphasize that he understands workers’ fears.

“People are hurting. And people are suffering,” he said. “And there are families who wonder about how they’re going to feed their kids, and I understand that, and we’ve got help in Washington.”

In the city where the Teamsters grew into a powerhouse of American politics, Bush paid tribute to a union courted by Democrats and Republicans alike even during the years it became mired in corruption. He said Hoffa is running “a good union, in an aboveboard way.”

Hoffa himself was absent. His union members gave Bush a polite if not effusive welcome.

Bush’s first Labor Day in office gave him an opportunity to pursue two unions--the carpenters and the Teamsters--that spurned him last November but are looking for ways to work with him now.

The president stressed that the nation’s economic slowdown began before he took office.

“This is a Labor Day where we can’t celebrate a booming economy. For the last 12 months--let me repeat--for the last 12 months, the economy has been way too slow,” he told the Teamsters.

But, he said to the carpenters union in Wisconsin, “even though people are hurting today--and I know they are--I’m confident in the basic underpinnings of the American economy. . . . I’m confident that we’ll recover.”

The economy has grown at “a paltry 1%” over the past year--”not good enough for America,” Bush said. And while the unemployment rate remains near historically low levels, “if you’ve been laid off of work, you’re 100% unemployed, and I worry about it.”

“I intend to do something about it,” he added.

But as he looked to the possibility of rocky times ahead, his economic prescription remained unchanged: the $1.35-trillion tax cut he pushed through Congress last spring.

“Make no mistake about it,” he said, repeating the phrase for emphasis. “Tax relief was the right thing to do at the right time.” He argued that it provided investment money to fuel recovery.

The administration’s economic performance will be key for carpenter Ken Hietpas of Kaukauna, Wis., when he votes three years from now, he said. He voted for Al Gore in 2000, and he is lukewarm to Bush.

Asked whether Bush is the right person to be leading the country during a period of economic uncertainty, Hietpas, in a black T-shirt bearing the legend “Put the Hammer Down. Carpenters Organize!” said: “I guess we have no choice, do we? Give him a few years and see how it goes.”

In the view of White House advisors, if there is to be a recession, it couldn’t come at a better time for this President Bush. His father’s final year and a half in office was dogged by a recession that was his political undoing.

The advisors look at the economic and political horizon and say privately that if a recession strikes soon enough, it would most likely be far enough in the past that it wouldn’t damage Bush’s reelection chances in 2004.

Bush spoke first at a gathering of about 1,000 members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, in Kaukauna, near Green Bay, and then to a smaller Teamsters picnic in Detroit. The Teamsters said Hoffa did not attend because he was celebrating the end of a two-year strike in King City, Calif.

But Hoffa had the economy, and labor’s fears that relaxed trade barriers are costing Americans jobs, on his mind when he said in an interview with the Detroit News, published Sunday:

“Every day you pick up the paper and you see nothing but layoff, layoff, layoff. And what’s leaving the country? The good jobs. The jobs in the auto industry. The jobs in the steel industry.”

In his remarks Monday, Bush made no reference to expanding foreign trade, although the White House has said it will be a centerpiece of his speeches this autumn as he seeks to restore confidence in the economy.

The Teamsters have opposed Bush’s efforts to open U.S. highways to Mexican truckers under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both the Teamsters and the carpenters union, however, backed Bush’s energy policy, citing their anticipation that exploring for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would create jobs.

The two unions supported Gore’s bid for the presidency last year, and Wisconsin and Michigan gave a majority of their votes to the Democrat.