The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening, and happy Labor Day. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this holiday, we have a report on the air strike deadline in Bosnia, Paul Solman profiles the United Auto Workers Union, Elizabeth Farnsworth interviews the two candidates for president of the AFL-CIO, Philip Elmer DeWitt of Time Magazine reports on Congress in cyberspace, and David Gergen talks with the editor of a political almanac.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: A United Nations deadline expired in Bosnia this afternoon. The Bosnian Serbs defied a UN ultimatum to remove heavy weapons from around Sarajevo. Top UN and NATO officials said air strikes will resume if the Serbs do not begin the rollback. Before the 5 PM deadline passed, Bosnian Serb political leaders issued a letter to the UN agreeing to the demands, but later, the Serb military commander, Gen. Radko Mladic, said he would defy the NATO ultimatum. Mladic said neither he nor the politicians had the right to order a withdrawal without approval of the Bosnian Serb parliament. We'll have more on the day's events in Bosnia right after this News Summary. The fourth world conference on women began today in Beijing, China. Delegates from 181 countries met in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. Speakers at the United Nations event called on men to join women in a worldwide social revolution for equality. We have more in this report from James Mates of Independent Television News.

JAMES MATES, ITN: The biggest UN conference held, one of the biggest international events ever to be stationed. The opening ceremony was a two-hour extravaganza of music and dance. China's president, Jiang Zemin, one of the most senior men in China's all- male leadership, then told delegates how his country was at the forefront of women's rights.

PRESIDENT JIANG ZEMIN, China: The Chinese women have become masters of the state and society since the founding of the People's Republic.

JAMES MATES: Thirty miles away from the Great Hall of the People, there were thousands of women protesters coming up against the Chinese security system and being stopped in their tracks. They're attending a parallel conference of women's groups, and wanted to show their opposition to the treatment around the world. But while security problems have overshadowed this forum, there has been real determination among the women here that this UN conference should be more than a talking shop. Maureen Reagan, daughter of Ronald Reagan, was herself once part of a U.S. government delegation to a women's conference. Now, she's back as an activist and wants to hold governments to their promises.

MAUREEN REAGAN: The role of women in the 21st century is to be heard. We have spent the 20th century finding our voice. We will spend the next century changing the world. [applause]

JAMES MATES: Her views were echoed by many of the women activists who traveled across the world to China to try and make a difference.

MR. LEHRER: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in China today to join the official United States delegation at the conference. On the way there, she told reporters, it's crucial for the U.S. to have a strong voice at the conference. Mrs. Clinton plans to address the conference Tuesday and the meeting of the Non- Government Women's Advocacy Groups on Wednesday. Returning from Hawaii, President Clinton stopped in California to mark Labor Day. This afternoon, he attended an AFL-CIO picnic. Earlier, he went to the opening of a new California state college in Monterey Bay. The state used federal funds to turn a former Fort Ord military post into a campus. Mr. Clinton said such post Cold War conversions will help strengthen the nation's work force.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: All across America on this Labor Day, our people are beginning to convert from the Cold War economy to the new economy of the 21st century. And we are trying to do what we can to help. This thing we celebrate today is a decision that you made for yourselves, your children, and your grandchildren. It's a decision you made for the 21st century. It's a decision you made by working together to prepare for tomorrow. It's not very complicated. That's what your country needs to do.

MR. LEHRER: In other Labor Day news, James Hoffa, son of the late Teamster's boss, Jimmy Hoffa, today announced he's running for president of the union. His father disappeared 20 years ago and has never been found. James Hoffa said the current Teamster leadership has run the union into bankruptcy. Defense Lawyer William Kunstler died today in New York City. Kunstler was known for a high-profile clientele that included Dr. Martin Luther King, mafia figure John Gotti, and the group of 1960's radicals known as the Chicago Seven. No cause of death was immediately announced. He was 76 years old. And that's the News Summary this Labor Day. Now it's on to Bosnia, the UAW, the AFL-CIO, presidential race, wiring Congress, and a political almanac. UPDATE - DEADLINE

MR. LEHRER: First tonight, a Bosnia update. The UN deadline for the Serbs to pull back their heavy weapons overlooking Sarajevo passed tonight with conflicting statements from the Serbs. A key politician said they would comply, but the top Serb general rejected the ultimatum. We have a report from Gaby Rado of Independent Television News. It was filed several hours before the deadline.

GABY RADO, ITN: On Mt. Igman overlooking Sarajevo this evening, the tanks of the French contingent of the Rapid Reaction Force were once again targeting the Bosnian Serb heavy weapons, following the weekend's lull in hostilities. Whether or not they'd be used once tonight's ultimatum passed seemed to depend on how convinced the UN commanders were that the promises now coming from the Serbs on pulling out their big guns would be followed by action.

RIDA ETTARASHANY, UN Spokesman: [Sarajevo] We don't have anything confirmed by our people in the crowd that would suggest that there is any significant movement of our heavy weapons out of the exclusion zone, nor to suggest that there is any preparation for such a move.

MR. RADO: The citizens of Sarajevo today received their second surprise of recent days. NATO's decisive action from the air is now being followed by lorries laden with food and fuel for the coming cold weather. Such convoys were blocked for months by the Bosnian Serbs, but now the UN's no longer asking Serbs for permission and has opened the route across the airport for aid to the besieged city. Its leaders wish this new firm resolve had come earlier.

HARIS SILAJDZIC, Prime Minister, Bosnia: This is a first, the first day yesterday that we did not have a dead person in Sarajevo, first killed--first killed person in Sarajevo, so this is--it is obvious that the force works. It is obvious that the Serbs only understand the force, obvious. This is the proof of it.

MR. RADO: NATO's warplanes are being prepared for renewed action on board a U.S. carrier in the Adriatic Sea as the hours slipped away before tonight's 10 p.m. deadline, the Serbs to move back their heavy weapons. This afternoon, America's distinguished peace envoy said he'd just been assured by the Bosnian Serbs that the pullback would happen but with conditions still attached.

JIMMY CARTER, Former President: [Plains, Georgia] Before they completely remove the heavy weapons and leave those positions defenseless, they want some assurance from NATO that those positions will not be attacked by Bosnian government troops, and that's the thing that is being negotiated now but there's no doubt that there will be early movement on those--on those heavy weapons.

MR. RADO: NATO and the UN want to re-establish their heavy weapons exclusion zone in the 12 miles around Sarajevo. They want the Bosnian Serbs to either withdraw their tanks and heavy guns from the zone, or allow them to come under U.N. control. If the U.N. isn't convinced of Serb compliance before 10 p.m., London Time, tonight, then NATO will resume its air raids. Bosnian Serb positions, including those around Ilijas, Ilidza, and Vogosca, will again be targeted, along with the communications center near Pale. On the diplomatic front, the U.S.-driven peace negotiations were today clearly bogged down with the Serbian leadership in Belgrade.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: It's another meeting, another meal, another difficult but constructive discussion on the huge issues that still divide the two sides. I would be misleading you if I suggested we made any progress last night on specific things. The work ahead is very, very great.

MR. LEHRER: This evening, UN officials were standing by their threat to resume air strikes. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the auto workers, the AFL-CIO presidential race, wiring Congress, and the new political almanac. FOCUS - LABOR'S PAINS

MR. LEHRER: Now, two Labor Day looks at organized labor. The first is a report on the changes and challenges facing one of the nation's largest unions. The reporter is our business correspondent, Paul Solman, of public station WGBH-Boston.

PAUL SOLMAN, WGBH, Boston: To take stock of the labor movement in 1995, its strengths, its weaknesses, and its future prospects, you need look no further than the United Auto Workers. This summer, low-key Owen Bieber, the so-called "gentle giant," who ran the union for the last dozen years, passed on the presidency to a firebrand, Steven Yokich.

STEVEN YOKICH, President, UAW: Any union that can't change in today's fast-changing society will not and cannot survive.

MR. SOLMAN: Leaders like Yokich think change is the key to labor's future prospects, because the current state of the unions is troubled at best, and labor's weaknesses are certainly glaring. Automation and cheaper labor, both overseas and in non-union shops at home, have been eliminating union jobs, especially in manufacturing. As for labor's strengths, well, they're more nearly a thing of the past. It was in 1937, during the famous sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan, that the Auto Workers first organized. It was the UAW's powerful first president, Walter Reuther, who prevailed with the argument that if the companies paid workers more, the workers would be able to buy the products they, themselves, were making, namely, automobiles, and indeed, union- made blue collar prosperity fueled the American boom of the 40's, 50's, and 60's.

1986 BUICK AD SPOKESMAN: A 350-cubic inch engine, four-barreled carburetor, super turbine transmission, and more, all standard equipment. The only thing you have to provide is the girl. It's California. California.

MR. SOLMAN: But if this late 60's ad seems politically incorrect, how about the car? A muscle-bound gas guzzler with built-in obsolescence, about to face an oil crisis and Japanese competition in the form of energy-efficient products of high quality. It was the union that saw the importance of quality before management did and pushed for it, according to UAW leaders of that era. Among them, Irving Bluestone.

IRVING BLUESTONE, Former Vice President, UAW: In 1973, I was then director of the General Motors Department, and I issued a bulletin notice to all local unions to put up on the bulletin boards of the union inside the plants, and what it said, in effect, was, quality is our concern too, and we've got to pay attention to it to make sure that quality is there, because quality sells, you've got better employment security. Lousy quality won't sell, and you'll be laid off. Within a couple of weeks, I received a telephone call from one of the top executives of GM demanding that I have all of these notices taken down, because he said, "Quality is GM's business, none of your goddamn business."

COMMERCIAL SPOKESMAN IN 1980 PONTIAC AD: With power swelling out of the hood and telling the world where it's at--

MR. SOLMAN: If the 70's and 80's were rough on the industry, from labor's perspective, it was because the industry kept building ridiculous cars, while inside the plants, management wouldn't listen to the workers.

MONA LONGO, UAW Local 7: It was like being a robot.

MR. SOLMAN: So you're on the line and 26 or so years ago, and you think you can see a way to make things better. What would have happened?

MONA LONGO: Twenty-six years ago, it wouldn't have made any difference.

MOON MASSEY, President, UAW Local 7: I can look at may hand. I've still got callouses on my hand from working on that line.

MR. SOLMAN: That's from--my goodness--

MOON MASSEY: Using welding guns. They're still there. They'll be there till I die.

MR. SOLMAN: That's as hard as--

MOON MASSEY: That's right.

MR. SOLMAN: It's like--harder than dry leather.

MOON MASSEY: That's right.

MR. SOLMAN: But the union's strength is that jobs like Massey's are a thing of the past, and Moon Massey, himself, is now president of the local at Chrysler's Jeep plant in inner-city Detroit. It was Massey, among others, who fought to achieve a state- of-the-art labor contract here, an MOA, or Modern Operating Agreement, in which workers have a real input into the running of the factor and their jobs. Thirty-year UAW veteran Preston Jenkins loves the new agreement.

PRESTON JENKINS, UAW Local 7: It's like I hit the lottery. I mean, like I really hit the lottery. After trying for 30 years, it's--it's tremendous, it's great!

MR. SOLMAN: Spell it out. What do you mean?

PRESTON JENKINS: Well, today I get to say, more or less, have the last word on everything that I do--my team, the product. I can see it finished. I can have the beginning input and ending input. I couldn't do that before. My foreman would come up to me and say, well, look, you can't do it this way, and I say, I know it's wrong, but I couldn't say anything, that's the way it's supposed to be done, but now, it's a different day. I have the last word.

MR. SOLMAN: Among the union's strengths is that it's provided dignity and support for its members.

MOON MASSEY: I don't think I would have been an employee at Chrysler if it weren't for the union.

MR. SOLMAN: Why not?

MOON MASSEY: Because I was young, hard-headed, didn't take no BS, but I had a union rep there to calm me down. He had a great influence on me. I used to drink a lot. I haven't had a drink since 1967.

MR. SOLMAN: And you attribute that to the union?

MOON MASSEY: Yeah. Helping me get off that alcohol. I sure do.

MR. SOLMAN: In the largest sense, the union sees its strength as maintaining jobs and benefits, and that's one reason it has fostered cooperation with management. The ultimate example of such cooperation is Saturn, GM's answer to the imports, the UAW's answer to confrontation and alienation. At Mario's a favorite restaurant of theirs, we had lunch with Irving Bluestone, Douglas Fraser, president of the UAW in the pre-Saturn era, and Don Ephlin, who championed Saturn within the union.

DON EPHLIN, Former Vice President, UAW: People came together from all over the country, from GM plants all over the country, to Saturn. It became a community in itself once they all got together there.

DOUGLAS FRASER, Former President, UAW: I think, Don, you, you understate what was done there really, because there's a couple of very significant things that are unparalleled, unprecedented. The workers have a voice in selecting the dealers, and the workers have a voice in selecting the plants at which parts are going to be made, and then probably, most revolutionary of all, is that it's governance by consensus, because the union can veto any policy introduced by the company. Now, they just can't sit on your veto, you've got to come up with alternative solutions. But even Germany or Sweden or any of those countries, it does not give the workers that, that much authority.

MR. SOLMAN: The UAW's new president, Steven Yokich, is known as a tough fighter and as a tough fighter and no fan of the Saturn contract, since it's separate from the union's overall GM agreement. But he too thinks cooperation is essential to labor's continued strength.

STEVE YOKICH: The key is working together. We have what we call a quality network, what I call quality of product, and you have the right, as you do in Saturn and a lot of plants to shut down the line. You can do it in Numi, you can do it in Saturn, you can do it in some of our plants. If the product isn't right, shut it down. Make sure it's right. It's for the consumer, and that's job security.

MR. SOLMAN: To some, the power to shut down the line, as here at the jeep plant, or especially at Saturn, bespeaks labor's strength through cooperation. To others, however, it's a sign of labor's weakness, of management squeezing workers with the union's consent. Dave Yettaw, president of the Buick UAW Local in Flint, says the worker is simply helpless when a manager puts on the pressure by appealing to team goals.

DAVE YETTAW, President, UAW Local 599: You know, our goals are up here. We have got to make them goals. If we don't, corporate America isgoing to fail, and we're not going to have jobs at Saturn. So here's some person who's already carrying at tremendous workload, a tremendous burden, and now he's got the stress on him that if I don't take this extra work, not only am I going to have a job, this factory is not going to be here and my brothers and sisters aren't going to have a job.

MR. SOLMAN: To hard-liners like Yettaw, the stresses are already great enough. Job insecurity is a constant as automation replaces manual labor slowly, surely, inexorably.

DAVE YETTAW: In the last 20 years, we've lost probably 700,000 jobs in the UAW. When the tractor was introduced to the farms, no one asked the horse what he was going to do about his job. That's what's happened to us as workers. They've introduced all this technology, and no one asks the workers what's going to happen to you, or what do you think should happen.

MR. SOLMAN: Now, automation is the major drain on union jobs, but it's far from the only side of labor's weakness these days. There's also competition from cheaper labor all over the world and from non-union shops right here in America. Keith Farner is a UAW machinist in Flint whose department has lost several hundred jobs to non-union operations nearby. In fact, his son works in a non-union shop that supplies the auto industry.

KEITH FARNER, UAW Machinist: He was telling me that they had him chain up like long steel tubing, and he came home with three cuts across the fingers from where the steel rolled over, and he tried to catch it so it wouldn't hurt somebody else, and it just--they don't have any safety training or anything, and he's only been there less than a week. And he's been welding. He's been driving a Deere truck, he's been running cranes, he's been painting.

MR. SOLMAN: How much less total earnings does he have than a guy or a similar person would have at a UAW place?

KEITH FARNER: At least $10 an hour. He makes $5.50 an hour.

MR. SOLMAN: And here you'd be making 15/18 dollars an hour or something like that?

KEITH FARNER: Right, correct.

MR. SOLMAN: So you can certainly see why--

KEITH FARNER: Well, you can't compete with that. If I was running a business, I might be tempted--you know, I'd be tempted to do the same thing. And you would too, I believe.

MR. SOLMAN: For his part, President Yokich doesn't feel the weakness of competition from non-union shops is irreversible.

STEVE YOKICH: We're starting to prepare our strategy, continuing a strategy that will go after these employers. We're going to now chase 'em. I mean, they can run, but they can't hide as long as they stay in the United States.

MR. SOLMAN: But we asked the UAW's elder statesmen, is there really much you can do about the union's long-term weaknesses?

DOUGLAS FRASER, Former President, UAW: Maybe it's limited what you can do, but you can slow up the process, but you can't stop it completely, so you can't--it's inescapable. You can't stop this change that's taking place. It's how you manage it, so that the workers, as I said, don't have to accept the disproportionate burden of that change.

MR. SOLMAN: It is in terms of the union's current weaknesses then and past strengths that President Yokich is looking to the future. Perhaps his boldest move within weeks of taking office was an announcement of plans to merge the UAW with two fellow unions--the Machinists and Steel Workers. It's a plan that appealed to everyone we asked, even UAW dissident Dave Yettaw.

DAVE YETTAW: The merger's going to help us in many ways. One, it's going to combine our organizing staffs,and lead to a more efficient organizing. You're going to see a strike fund that is combined what should be something in the neighborhood of about $1.2 billion. That's a lot of economic clout, not only in the marketplace but in terms of winning strikes.

MR. SOLMAN: The creation of a mega-manufacturing union 2 million members strong is not the UAW's only hope for the future. There is talk of pressing for a shorter work week, of organizing workers in other fields, from nursing to government, and finally to parry the push to global corporations, there's the drive to global unions-- the workers of the world trying once again to unite.

STEVE YOKICH: We have offices all over the world now in Chile, in India. You name it, we have an office there in the Far East, working with these underprivileged countries to try to organize labor. Listen, AFL-CIO had played a great role in Poland; it wouldn't be there. They wouldn't be there, if it wasn't for the help from all over the world. And that's how we accomplished that. So what you're saying, yes, we're trying to organize the world, the world of workers. That's what it amounts to.

DOUGLAS FRASER: As time goes on, I think you're going to see more and more and more of international involvement rather than just national involvement. I don't know how far it's going to go. I suppose if we look out far enough, I don't know, well into the next century, conceivably you could have international bargaining.

MR. SOLMAN: And that, in short, is the state of the union in 1995: historical strengths, a lot of weaknesses, and has been the rule in recent years, uncertain prospects for the future.

MR. LEHRER: The UAW is a member of the federation of unions known as the AFL-CIO, which is in the midst of a race for its leadership. On Friday, Elizabeth Farnsworth talked to the two candidates.

MS. FARNSWORTH: At the heighth of the labor movement in the 1950's, almost 35 percent of the American work force belonged to unions, most within the AFL-CIO, giving the federation a strong role in American political life. Today, just 15 percent of American workers belong to unions, and a real struggle is on for the leadership of the AFL-CIO. Following Lane Kirkland's forced retirement after 16 years as president, the two men now campaigning for the office both vowed to reverse labor's slide. Thomas Donahue was secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO under Kirkland and was elected to serve out the presidential term until the coming October election. John Sweeney is president of the one-million member Service Employees International Union which represents public sector employees, office and health care workers, and janitors. Thank you both for being with us. In the video, the president of the Buick UAW local in Flint, Michigan, points out that the UAW's lost 700,000 jobs in the last 20 years. I believe overall membership in union has fallen to what, about one in six workers, from about one in three in 1960? Mr. Donahue, why has this happened?

THOMAS DONAHUE, President, AFL-CIO: Well, you just answered the question. The UAW lost 700,000 jobs because the companies did away with those jobs. They either automated, introduced technology, or they shipped 'em offshore. What's not said in your tape is that GM and all of the auto producers shipped hundreds of thousands of jobs out of the United States. Our manufacturing base has been substantially diminished by that fact, and opportunities in manufacturing employment were substantially diminished. If you look at the size of our unions, you see that the loss in membership took place in what were historically the heartland of the labor movement. The most heavily organized industries are the ones which are most susceptible to downsizing and shipping of jobs offshore. We've been growing, however. The other side of the coin is that--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, wait. Before we get into the growing--let me just go on with the--what do you think? I mean, is the main reason for the slide in labor union membership the shipping of jobs overseas and the loss in the manufacturing base?

JOHN SWEENEY, President, SEIU: That's certainly a major factor that has contributed to the loss of those jobs, but it's also a fact that we have to organize better just going back to the tape that we just saw. Steve Yokich, the new president of the UAW, said unless unions are organizing, they're not going to survive, and so there has to be a massive commitment to organizing.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So has the AFL-CIO played a role in the slide in membership by not putting enough resources into organizing?

MR. SWEENEY: The AFL-CIO has had some involvement in organizing, and one of the most successful programs has been the organizing, training institute. I feel that more substantial resources have to be put into that program. That's a great source for training organizers, and it's a program that has assisted unions in their organizing, assessing their campaigns, and I think that since that's one of the programs that's working, we should be putting massive resources into it.

MR. DONAHUE: Both John and I agree that the federation has to make a major commitment to organizing, as do our affiliated unions. We've proposed, I've put in place a budget to double the output of our organizing institute, double it next year, double it the following year, so that we'll put in the field 1500 organizers. We'll spend $20 million a year from the federation to stimulate organizing among our affiliates. They, in turn, will have to increase the expenditure of their resources on organizing, and they've been--some of them have been slow to do that. If we can do that, we can increase spending on organizing by tens of millions of dollars, and, and really mount major campaigns all across the country. We then face the problems of the law, and how do you change the way--change the law? Only through a political legislative action, and that's the second emphasis that I'm placing on, on the trade union movement, is the return to real grassroots politics, real grassroots work with our people in both political and a legislative arena so that we can get a congress which will do what's right for working people and which will change the law so that working people can form and join unions, and that the law will deliver on the promise that it makes the workers. I mean, the law says that you'll have a right to join the union, and that right's going to be protected.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Hard to do this, isn't it, Mr. Sweeney, with the Republican Congress?

MR. SWEENEY: It sure is, but we can't wait for labor law reform, or for the changes to take place. It has to be a top priority certainly, but we have to get involved more aggressively in organizing, not only organizing new members but also organizing our effectiveness in politics, mobilizing our grassroots. Our rank and file are our strongest resources, and that's what of all our campaign is about.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you want to pour more resources into say local organizing to affect congress people in their districts--

MR. SWEENEY: Oh, certainly.

MS. FARNSWORTH: --rather than into Washington, for example?

MR. SWEENEY: Certainly.We have--we have to do a lot of work among our rank and file, a lot more, so that we can be more effective in terms of getting their ideas and congressional districts on what their agenda is and what their priorities are. We have to be constantly involved in the process of change, and the two most important areas are organizing and political effectiveness. But we also have to improve our perception, our perception among our own members as well as our perception with the public, and we have to do--

MS. FARNSWORTH: The perception of the union?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Of unions?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes. So we have to do a better job of communicating and educating our own members on many of the issues that are so important.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think that confrontation will be necessary, more confrontation in the future, or do you think the sort of cooperative union approach that was outlined in this UAW story is the wave of the future?

MR. SWEENEY: I think the confrontation has to be a possibility in certain areas in order to aggressively organize. I think that only with strong unions can you have good labor-management processes. I mean, the model that we just saw with Saturn is a classic example of a great union, strong union, involved in the whole process, democratic election of the employee representatives, not hand picked representatives from the workers or nothing like a company union or anything like that. It requires a strong union to have a stable labor-management. It's to the benefit of the employer in terms of the increased production and improved quality.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let's get into the campaign just for a minute here before we're out of time. This is a very unusual campaign, isn't it? Am I wrong? Has there been only one change to the elective process in the AFL since, what, 1894?

MR. DONAHUE: Well, that's always the standard pattern, yes, that there's a challenge in 1894, not since there.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Why is this happening now? What does it portend for the union?

MR. DONAHUE: Well, it portends the--it represents the frustrations that everybody feels. There is enormous frustration among the people we represent, among our leadership, with the political processes of the nation, with the employer attitudes towards workers, all of that frustration has been building and building, and it requires us to look at ourselves and to change, to modernize, to do all the new things we're supposed to be doing, and we're doing that. I mean, we are making change. John says--and quite correctly--that we have to change the attitudes of people toward unions. People still want unions. They believe in unions, and they know that they serve workers well on the job. The problem is they're not sure they can afford to have confidence in the union's ability to deliver anymore. That's because of what the employer does or what the law does. The examples of cooperation you see in the tape are examples of cooperation achieved after you hand-wrestle the employer to the ground, pin him to the mat three times, then he says, hey, let's cooperate, that's a very nice way to go. We need--we need a change in the employers in this country. Our unions don't want to be confrontational if we don't have to be. We want partnership in the work place just as that film speaks of partnership, but we want real partnership.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What about this campaign, though, do you think this is a historic moment? I noticed that the "Wall Street Journal" today said that we're seeing a revival of unionism. They talked about the fact that the numberof union workers has actually increased 3 percent over the past two years. Do you this election will be seen as a kind of historic moment in this revival?

MR. SWEENEY: Yes. I really think this is a historic moment. I think the process that we've started here in terms of talking about change, the dialogue that's taking place is something that regardless of who's elected president is going to be a continuing process. I think it's also a necessary process in order to really change the labor movement to the needs of the current workers, the current members, and to be as effective and as strong on behalf of American workers. I also think that this dialogue that's going on is also an opportunity to talk about things such as leadership development, and how the largest percentage of our successful organizing campaigns now are women workers, people of color, as well as young workers. We have to find ways to bring them into this process, to bring them into the leadership at every level in the labor movement and to open it up as much as we possibly can. It's going to reflect on all the changes in the future.

MR. DONAHUE: I didn't mean to interrupt. I've done the--the--what needs to be done in terms of the changing nature of our unions. I say to you these processes for change are not triggered by this campaign. They began over the past years. I chaired a committee ten years ago on the future of our unions and what changes had to be made. Those are the changes that John is talking about in this campaign. My secretary-treasurer, who was elected with me last month, is a woman, first time in history we've had a women secretary-treasurer, so we've moved on diversity, change, new approaches to all of our problems. Our unions have to keep on doing that. We have to keep explaining ourselves far better than we have in the past to the American public.

MS. FARNSWORTH: We have just a brief moment left, and I want to ask you both to respond to this. What do you think will be the consequences for the nation if the number of unorganized workers keeps growing?

MR. DONAHUE: I think the consequences for the nation are most serious. It's already reflected in the growing division between the rich and poor, the growing disparities of income in our country in, in the years when we represented a third of the work force, we drove the wages of the entire country. We pioneered the pension programs and health and welfare programs that lots of non-union workers benefited from. As we lose that power, the employer dictates the wages, and you see what's happening to them.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay, let me--we're just about out of time. Let me just get Mr. Sweeney's answer.

MR. SWEENEY: Just look at the news that we heard this week about the two banks in New York, Chemical and Chase, talking about merger, and as part of that announcement, the fact that 12,000 jobs would be lost. Each of those individual workers, by themselves, can't do a thing to protect their job. If they were organized and if they had collective bargaining, they'd have job security, and they'd have a process where their needs could be addressed. That's just one example of what's going on, but the crisis and the pressures that workers are experiencing today, I think that workers are hungry for organization. It's up to us as a movement to find the ways to attract them and to address their issues.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you both very much for being with us. FOCUS - WASHINGTON WIRED

MR. LEHRER: Now, Congress on-line. Members of the House and Senate come back to Washington this week, but many will be staying close to home via the Internet. Time Magazine's senior editor, Philip Elmer DeWitt, reports.

PHILIP ELMER DeWITT, Time Magazine Senior Editor: Through this high speed communications link in a control room on Capitol Hill, members of Congress are reaching out to their constituents in cyberspace. More and more lawmakers are establishing so-called "home pages" on the part of the Internet called the World Wide Web. You can think of the Web as a way to publish pages of information on the Internet. The home page is like the table of contents that tells you what information is available, in this case about members of Congress. On the Web, they can make available to their constituents all sorts of information about themselves, their positions, their voting records, and their pet projects. Voters who visit their legislator's Web pages can dig deeper and deeper into issues just by clicking on key words and following the trail of data, on such issues as government reform or family violence. They can also communicate directly with their representatives by sending them electronic mail. The Internet, at least in theory, could put voters more in touch with Congress than they have ever been. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a big media splash earlier this year when he announced the creation of a congressional page on the World Wide Web called "Thomas" to be run by the Library of Congress. The library's chief of staff, Suzanne Thorne, explains its purpose.

SUZANNE THORNE, Chief of Staff, Library of Congress: "Thomas" is a legislative information system available to the public by the Internet. It helps people across the country get in closer touch with what their members of Congress are doing not only for partisan lobbying but to learn about what's going on in the government.

MR. DeWITT: Judy Stork-Kittleman is the manager of the "Thomas" Project.

JUDY STORK-KITTLEMAN, Manager, "Thomas" Project: You find the full text of bills of the 103rd and 104th Congress, as well as the full text of the Congressional Record. You can search legislation by key word, you can search by bill number, or you can browse through lists of titles by bill type. Let's enter some words and see what we get. We'll select the first one on our list. What you get back is a list of the bills that are considered most relevant to the words of your search.

MR. DeWITT: Speaker Gingrich sees "Thomas" as a way of empowering voters.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: If every citizen had the access to information that the Washington lobbyists have, we would have changed the balance of power in America towards the citizens and out of the beltway. And this program really is a major step in that direction.

MR. DeWITT: "Thomas" is only one part of Gingrich's efforts to link Congress and the people. He's assigned Congressman William Thomas, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Congressman Vernon Ehlers to come up with a system that would eventually put all members of Congress on-line, allowing their constituents to look over their shoulders on a daily basis.

REP. VERNON EHLERS, [R] Michigan: Someone who's really interested in an issue can get on the Internet, look at the bill, read the analyses of the bill, look up on the Internet their Internet address of their own Congressman and send that, that person an e-mail message all within the space of an hour. So you can--it's a tremendous research tool and a tremendous communication tool. From that standpoint, I think it gives the people much greater access to the Congress and much greater influence in setting public policy.

REP. WILLIAM THOMAS, [R] California: Today that's almost always done through third parties. We often call them lobbyists or legislative advocates, and it's a way for people to have a direct involvement in the legislative process.

MR. DeWITT: The new Republican majority in the House isn't the only group trying to empower the voters. A few days before "Thomas" debuted, a Senate Democratic staffer, Chris Casey, launched an unofficial guide to Congress called "CapWeb."

CHRIS CASEY, Senate Technology Policy Adviser:: Even though it's unofficial, it's become de facto the starting point for finding Congress on the Web. Everybody in Washington who has a mission of getting "their" word out is very often using the Net to do so.

MR. DeWITT: CapWeb is designed to give Internet users easy access to the vast quantities of computerized data generated by Congress and the federal government.

CHRIS CASEY: Washington is awash with information developed at taxpayer expense--census data, budget data, bills, Hill reports, whatever--that for the most part is difficult for the public to get to. And if it can be delivered electronically, and it means that makes it easier, more convenient, and more widely spread as the taxpayers' data, I think that should be done.

CHRIS CASEY: Looking at this page, anything you see highlighted in blue is a clickable link.

MR. DeWITT: Casey has become something of an Internet evangelist for Democratic Senators, showing them what getting wired can do for them and for the voters back home. One of his latest disciplines is Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan.

CHRIS CASEY: A click here searches legislation from the 104th Congress that says "Levin" that you've either sponsored or co- sponsored and so on. This page I want to show you right now is the Internet guide to Michigan, and it has links to schools, businesses, universities across the state.

MR. DeWITT: The Democrats in the House of Representatives are also venturing into cyberspace. Martha Coven is helping the House Democratic leadership get on-line.

MARTHA COVEN, Director of Communications Technology: This is the House Democratic leadership home page. This has been around since the middle of March. If you click on legislation in the House floor, you get to what's called the "Whip Wind Up." It's prepared by David Bonior, who's the House Democratic Whip. He's the second ranking Democrat. And it describes what's going on on the floor, what bills are coming up, a brief summery of them, how the debate is going to go, a summary of the issues, that sort of thing.

MR. DeWITT: Anyone can create a page on the Internet, citizen or Senator, and link it to whatever information they choose, so who is going to decide what congressional information is made available to the public? And who is going to control the flow of that information? No matter who controls the flow, all the parties interviewed for this report say they are working to keep their official congressional pages, the ones funded by the taxpayers, free of political partisanship.

JUDY STORK-KITTLEMAN: It seems that everyone, including the House leadership, has been sensitive that "Thomas" should provide non- partisan information.

REP. VERNON EHLERS: Whatever we develop, it's going to be equally available to Republicans and Democrats. I regard this service as the same as providing desks, writing paper, things of that sort, and it should not be partisan in any way.

MARTHA COVEN: We have to stay within the House ethics guidelines, which say that you can't use official resources for something that's political. So we couldn't do any organizing through this; we couldn't point to the Democratic National Committee and tell you how to contribute, that sort of thing. So it all really has to be legislative information, or information about legislators.

MR. DeWITT: But some members of Congress do have links on their home pages that visitors can click on that will take them to non- congressional computers that hold partisan political information. Traditionally, Congress is heavily influenced by its mail, which when it stacks up in members' offices can have quite an impact, but it's not clear if lawmakers really want to be flooded with more mail, electronic or otherwise, or if they'll be any more responsive to e-mail than ordinary mail. But the electronic mail is going to get to them a lot more quickly.

REP. VERNON EHLERS: Typically, it takes five to seven days for U.S. mail to get from my district to my office. And the issue may be dead by them, whereas, as you know, on the Internet, the e-mail is virtually instantaneous, and so there's a very quick response.

MR. DeWITT: But instant access brings some concern.

REP. VERNON EHLERS: Groups that will learn how to use this system can have an inordinate impact on public policy by using the Internet to alert their members and saying, hey, there's a hot issue coming up on the floor in two hours, get on the Internet, send your Congressman a message right away and let him know how you feel about it. And we do have a republic here, where we are supposed to study the issues and make our decision on that basis and vote and not be swayed just by one particular group that happens to get their message to us faster, so I think there's a little danger there that we have to watch out for.

MR. DeWITT: Lawmakers admit that right now Congress is not receiving enough e-mail to change the way it does business, but Congressman Thomas sees this new instant access as an opportunity to redefine what makes a democracy and a republic.

REP. WILLIAM THOMAS: One of the things that people like to say about say about the system is that we are a democracy, i.e., we choose people in the democratic fashion, but we're a republic, because we have people come and represent us. That's because we didn't have the ability to hold a true democratic governing session like the old-fashioned New England town hall meetings. What the future holds is our ability to have not just a district-by-district electronic town hall meeting but a town hall meeting of the nation.

MR. DeWITT: National on-line town meetings might sound like a good idea. The idea of pushing a button from miles away to vote is appealing, but it raises serious political and philosophical questions. Should voters be allowed to vote by computer on referenda that would have the force of law? And should Congress be able to make laws on-line with the click of a mouse? That day may come.

REP. VERNON EHLERS: Some people have talked to me about, why can't we vote from our offices, some say, why can't we vote from our homes, stay in our districts, work in the office there, and just push a button to vote here?

SPOKESMAN: Those opposed to the amendment will vote no.

MR. DeWITT: Traditionalists argue that there's still something to be said for the painstaking process of face-to-face debate and for the checks and balances built into the political system that prevents voters and their representatives from making laws too quickly. It's an issue that the founding fathers would probably have debated with great passion if they had foreseen that there would ever be a medium as democratic as the Internet. CONVERSATION

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, David Gergen continues his talks with authors of books and articles that have become part of the debate over public policy. Tonight it's with Michael Barone, a senior editor at "U.S. News & World Report." For 14 years, he has edited the Almanac of American Politics, considered by many to be the definitive guide to national politics.

MR. GERGEN: It's interesting to me that in your new Almanac of American Politics, which looks at all the details, you really write about 1994 in historical terms. You obviously think it has sweeping significance.

MICHAEL BARONE, Author: Well, one of the things that I think we're going through in this period is a kind of decentralization of America. We're moving back, as it were, to the sort of America that elects, as de Tocqueville described in Democracy in America in the 1830's, a decentralized religious property-loving country, segmented into different parts of the country. We're used to this sort of unified America that we got in World War II, big government, big business, big labor. Those institutions are breaking down. Power is dispersing outwards. The presidency is less important now that the Cold War is over, and the Republicans, who are more of the decentralizing party in this era, seem to be more in line with public opinion than the Democrats.

MR. GERGEN: So the one clear lesson you draw out of 1994 was if we know anything about what we're heading--we're not heading left, we're not heading toward bigger government.

MICHAEL BARONE: We're not heading toward bigger government. We may be heading right towards lesser government, and we may be heading towards more dispersed government and things. I mean, one of the things that happened in 1994, the rejection by the political process of the Clinton health care plan, when there was still a Democratic Congress, as you remember, David, but one of the things that told us is that, in effect, this society was saying, let us keep these difficult decisions about medical care local, let us keep them--let us handle them out here. We'll do one financing system in Hawaii, another in Chicago, another in North Carolina, and we'll try and cope with these difficult questions, rather than having one person, one agency settle it in Washington, one solution for all.

MR. GERGEN: But aren't there some serious differences between the modern America of the 1990's and say the America of Alexis de Tocqueville? For example, Tocqueville, when he was here, not only wrote about a decentralized America, but he also wrote about an America in which neighbors help neighbors, in which there was community spirit, and as we dismantle some of the federal establishment, where do we find that old spirit of community? I mean, you don't address that in your piece, and I was curious about that.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, I think it's an open question, whether we will find that spirit of community, and to some extent, we in Washington may be the last people to really know, because there are, you know, a thousand points of light, thousands of answers out there going on. I--you know--it's interesting to me that people on the right, like Speaker Newt Gingrich, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, have both been making the point over and over again, look, if we're going to dismantle this government, you people out there are going to have to do more to help people who have problems, do it in your community. I'm not sure whether that's going to really reach a clarion call or not. We've got people--you know--Americans work hard. The women in the house, as well as the men in the house, work outside the home. They come back; they're exhausted; they have very little family time. Will we find the willingness to do this or not? Open question. I think one of the things that may provide more neighbors helping neighbors is the fact that we have to a considerable extent a religious right, rather than a secular right. Now, a lot of my friends in the Washington press think this is terrible, they're going to be persecuted, they're going to be put up on stakes or something like that. That's not--that kind of thing is not going to happen in America. But I think what might happen if religious people take the religious--religion seriously, including obligations to others, to community, and the fact that they feel accountable to a higher authority, that often does result in community action, in group association of the sort that Tocqueville talked about, and of helping others in need.

MR. GERGEN: I, I think I share your view that Washington has always had a condescending attitude, almost a sneering attitude toward the Christian right, and that if people better understood many of the citizens on the Christian right, we'd have a healthier country.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, one of the exercises I think we should all put ourselves into is try and get into the heads of somebody who's in a very different place on the political spectrum from yourself and imagine what they really believe. Just spend five minutes doing that.

MR. GERGEN: Or how they live, and what kind of income they have.

MICHAEL BARONE: And how they change.

MR. GERGEN: Right. But let me come to another one of your propositions, and that is, that with the end of the Cold War, that the presidency is going to be a diminished institution and that, in fact, where we're turning to the national--natural constitutional order.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, we are literally to the constitutional order. The Constitution, Article I, is not about the President. It's about Congress. And it doesn't treat with the Senate first, even though the Sunday interview shows usually have Senators on them. It starts with the House of Representatives, with the institution that the founders expected would be closest to the people, closest in time, closest in representation. And, you know, when you read Article II, the President article, the duties in many ways are almost sort of ministerial. The one thing that really is important in the President's power is the fact that the President is commander-in-chief, but that only applies in time of war, and I think what's happened is that the presidency is less important than it was during World War II, the Cold War period, when the President could blow up the Earth.

MR. GERGEN: But is that a desirable state of things? I agree with you that the House of Representatives mentioned first in Article I is now the driving force behind certainly the national political agenda, but is that the way we ought to have this? For example, if you look back in the late 19th century, as you know so well, when the Congress was, in effect, running things, it didn't run it very well. It had a hard time leading.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, one of the problems--a Tocquevillian America, if you will, an America decentralized as Tocqueville described it in the 1830's, has a couple of potential problems. One of them is flying apart, splitting apart and fighting a war, the Civil War that we had in, in the 1860's. Now, I don't think the fight between what I call the feminist left and the religious right is going to go into overt war, but you do have things like the killing of the abortionists, you do have things--the shouting down of right wing people in the campuses and so forth--that are not entirely comforting aspects of life in America--the hint of violence there that's not good. The other danger, I think, is the danger of sort of hedonism. In a fragmented country, you're left free to seek pleasure of what you want. What are your obligations to the whole polity of something? And I think that that's something everybody in the political spectrum, left, right, and center, needs to think creatively about, and that none of them have really done enough to nurture that sense.

MR. GERGEN: I would agree with that, but is the presidency not the institution that's better suited to focus people's attentions, to focus people's energies on issues like that, rather than the House of Representatives? Newt Gingrich is--has become an extraordinarily powerful force in our society, but I think that probably in his heart of hearts, Newt Gingrich would rather be president than be speaker.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, I guess he would rather be president than speaker. Even Henry Clay, the long-running speaker in the 19th century ran for President three times, and would have accepted the offers on other occasions had it been proffered to him. The presidency is--does remain a bully pulpit. I mean, you know, Theodore Roosevelt was speaking--used that phrase in an America which was not at war and which power was not as centralized as it was today, though it was moving in that direction.

MR. GERGEN: Yeah. In fact, the rise of the presidency came before the First World War, with Teddy Roosevelt.

MICHAEL BARONE: With Teddy Roosevelt, during that period when we were moving towards centralization. I think it takes a President who has a certain command, a certain fluency, an eloquence which President Clinton has, and also a certain moral authority, which I think he is lacking for many voters in America today, for many people, and that's a problem in his administration.

MR. GERGEN: Yeah. You said, interestingly enough, you thought that his power of speech was his strongest power, but he'd been, in effect, disarmed.

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, he's discounted his own currency, in effect. I mean, the fact is that the President is a wonderful speaker. His best medium--in a way he's an 18th century politician- -his best medium is in the room with you, David. You've been in the room with him more often than I have. I have been also. And, of course, he's tremendously--he senses what others want to hear. He understands their position. He has a feel for where different Americans come from, which is a very good quality in a politician. His obverse seems to be that then he seems to just want to tell them what they want to hear and not resolve the contradictions. He doesn't seem to have a steady compass, and he has, you know, often misspoken or said things that he ought not to, you know, lies or things that have not been able to be substantiated, changing his mind on issues. That's cost him some moral authority, and so I think--and a lot of Americans who see him on the screen anymore, they just push that clicker and the mute button, and tune him out, and I think that's unfortunate, because at least some of the things, even from a non-partisan perspective, that he has to say are very much worth hearing.

MR. GERGEN: A final question. When you come to write the American Almanac two years from now, how are you likely to look back upon 1996?

MICHAEL BARONE: Well, I think--I'm not sure how I'm going to look back on 1996. I think that one of the things I try and cultivate now is, is a sense of contingency, the fact that we don't know what's coming next, that sense that's so hard to get yourself back in the heads of people who saw the Battle of Waterloo and didn't know what was coming next, or saw, you know Appomattox Courthouse and didn't know what was coming next. I think a lot of possibilities are open for 1996. I think there's great fluidity out there, and while one outcome is President Dole, another outcome is President Clinton, I think there is very serious chances of a whole bunch of other things, including independent-- successful independent candidacies.

MR. GERGEN: Colin Powell?

MICHAEL BARONE: Colin Powell I think is a person who could be elected President.

MR. GERGEN: You do?

MICHAEL BARONE: Yes.

MR. GERGEN: As a third party candidate?

MICHAEL BARONE: As a third party candidate or as a Republican, should he get the Republican nomination.

MR. GERGEN: That would require Dole to falter.

MICHAEL BARONE: Yes. I mean, it would require a series of contingencies--presumably Dole to falter in some way, or to be judged not up to it. It would also require Gen. Powell to get the nomination over the opposition probably of the religious right or with the suspicion which is the driving force in the party. It's as if somebody wins the Democratic nomination over the opposition of the feminist left. It's not likely, but Powell is a man of considerable size and magnitude in our country at this point now. He has the sort of moral authority. He is a person who can claim to have reformed a major public institution, the U.S. military, to have played an important part in changing it from a military that wasn't working very well to a military that worked superbly when they were needed and which everyone saw.

MR. GERGEN: Well, we'll look forward to the next Almanac.

MR. LEHRER: David Gergen will have another engagement next week with someone whose writing is drawing special attention. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Labor Day, Bosnian Serbs defied a UN ultimatum to pull heavy weapons back from the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The Serbs face a resumption of NATO bombardment for failing to comply. And thousands of women met in Beijing, China, for the once-in-a-decade UN conference on women. They called for a social revolution in equality. Have a nice holiday evening. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.