When the mainstream media gets it wrong covering the campaign, one can suspect conspiracy. But when they get it wrong concerning unions in the campaign, it’s almost always due to ignorance. To put it bluntly, most journalists know f***-all about labor unions and can’t make head or tail of the information they’re given.

Take for example two union endorsements that were announced in the media this week. A couple of days ago, CNN headlined “Clinton to receive major union endorsement”. The union turned out to be the United Farm Workers (UFW) — a union that commands enormous respect and has a tremendous history, but whose membership is at most 27,000, nationwide. Baby boomers will remember the union’s glory days during the grape and lettuce boycotts when it had triple that number of members. But those days are long gone. Calling this a “major union” is a bit of a stretch.
A day later, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) in South Carolina endorsed John Edwards (as did the CWA in Nevada). This union is considerably smaller than the UFW — but all 3,900 of its members are in South Carolina, a notoriously anti-union state whose primary is taking place on Saturday. And nationally, the CWA has 700,000 members. The Associated Press reported this by saying “the endorsement is not expected to alter Saturday’s vote” and noting “polls show Edwards trailing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in South Carolina.”
Anyone following the news — and not digging slightly deeper — would get the impression that Clinton is reaping major union support while Edwards is getting meaningless endorsements, while the truth may be the exact opposite. And of the course the 600 pound gorilla in the room — which the mainstream media is ignoring — is the massive support Edwards has received from key unions, including those representing 760,000 members across California. (The largest of these is the Service Employees International Union State Council.)