Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

ELECTION 2008:

Claim Palin was union member hard to pin down

Obvious sources don’t know, but that isn’t end of the story

In Today's Sun

When Sen. John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate in August, he described her as a former union member, someone who “understands the problems, the hopes and the values of working people.”

The billing would become important. The McCain campaign initially fumbled on the issue of the economy and is now trying to portray itself as in touch with American workers in the wake of a Wall Street meltdown.

During his announcement, McCain said Palin “knows what it’s like to worry about mortgage payments and health care and the cost of gasoline and groceries.” He also mentioned her husband’s membership in the Steelworkers Union, working part-time for BP in the oil fields of the North Slope.

But the details of Palin’s former union membership have proved elusive. What union did she belong to? When? What was her trade? In a politically active union town such as Las Vegas, her labor affiliation is a matter of some interest.

E-mail and telephone inquiries by the Sun to the McCain campaign’s Western regional office went unanswered last week.

So calls were placed to the national campaign headquarters. We were directed back to the Western regional office, which was no more responsive than the first time.

Palin’s office in Alaska was a bit more helpful — but only added to the mystery. “I don’t believe the governor has ever been a member of a union,” said her spokeswoman, Kate Morgan. That is, she said, “to the best of my knowledge.”

Try the presidential campaign office, she suggested. Further inquiries to the national campaign led to an e-mail from a spokeswoman who said Palin was in fact once a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

There was no elaboration, and follow-up queries about what work Palin performed as a union member went unanswered.

By now we were reaching out to Kaylene Johnson, author of the best-selling “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down.” Although she was unavailable, traveling for a publicity tour, a spokeswoman offered to research the subject. She e-mailed back, saying Palin was never a union member.

We called IBEW Local 1547 in Anchorage, the only electrical workers local in Alaska. A spokeswoman there said Palin was a member but referred all other questions to the local’s business manager, Larry Bell.

We’re still waiting to hear back from Larry Bell.

On Friday, the international electrical workers union, based in Washington, said a search of its membership database, using Palin’s maiden and married names, failed to find the Alaska governor.

On Monday, Jim Spellane, the union’s media director, corrected the record. Palin, he said, was in fact a member of Local 1547 for nine months in the late 1980s, from September 1987 through January 1988 and again from September through December 1988.

What was the nature of her work? Don’t know, Spellane said.

But maybe something can be gleaned from the fact that her membership seemed to coincide with her tenure as a sports reporter for two Alaska TV stations.

The union, he said, has at times represented on-air talent in the broadcast industry.

The union was hardly eager to embrace Palin, and has faced these sorts of questions before, notably when Vice President Dick Cheney boasted he had once been a union lineman.

“We would be much happier if some of our alumni would have absorbed some of the union’s principles and had a little more respect for working people,” Spellane said.

Sun researcher Rebecca Clifford contributed to this story.

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