AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to switch gears for a minute and turn to labor issues, also, to say the least, very skewed coverage in the corporate media. FAIR did a study, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, looking at the number of business reporters there are in the major United States dailies, something like a thousand. And labor reporters? I think we’re talking a handful, perhaps five or six. When on Nightline industry or the economy or business is discussed, less than 1% of the time are labor people interviewed.

Well, in the last few days, I’ve been going to some of the parties, and one of those parties was the Republican party for Jimmy Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters. And, well, I just asked him what he was doing there.

JIMMY HOFFA: Well, I mean, I think that we’re challenging both parties to be responsive to working — working families, whether it be these trade bills that send jobs overseas. We want to challenge them to fashion bills that help union members and working families. And I think that’s the challenge here. But I just think it’s good to cement these relationships and to talk about the people that have helped us in the past. And I see that the trends in America today, we have more and more rich people, and more and more people that are basically treading water. And I think that we want to make sure that everybody, you know, benefits in the great bounty of this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Any chance you’ll endorse Nader?

JIMMY HOFFA: I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see. I’m not ruling anybody in and ruling anybody out, although I think Ralph Nader has some of the most — more original ideas in the campaign, and I’d like to have more people listen to some of the new ideas that he has.

AMY GOODMAN: What are some of those ideas?

JIMMY HOFFA: Well, sending a six-month notice on NAFTA to cancel it, reforming — he’s got a complete amendment for Taft-Hartley. Other people are not thinking that way.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the AFL-CIO was much too early in endorsing Gore?

JIMMY HOFFA: I have said that on many occasions. I said that if we had not endorsed Gore, we would not have had Chinese PNTR.

AMY GOODMAN: Some said that the reason you stood with Nader, almost a near endorsement, was actually to serve the Republicans, that it clearly is a challenge to Gore, weakens Gore.

JIMMY HOFFA: That’s not true. That’s not true.

AMY GOODMAN: And that it serves the Republicans.

JIMMY HOFFA: I’ve known Ralph. We’re working with Ralph Nader on China, and we’ve worked on trade bills with him, and we’ve worked very sincerely with him. And we have formed a coalition to go to Congress to fight PNTR. And we worked extensively with Ralph Nader. And I have a lot of respect for Ralph Nader. And whatever we did was very sincere when we met with him.

AIDE: We have to go.

AMY GOODMAN: On the issues that you care about — 

AIDE: We have to — we really have to go.

AMY GOODMAN: — union issues, do you think the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans?

JIMMY HOFFA: Well, it’s not a matter of bad or good, but I think there has to be more sensitivity to things like NAFTA and trade bills and issues that affect us all. I’d just like to see more innovation with regard to labor law reform, and you’re not seeing that. We have to have new thinking. That’s why I want to challenge them. I challenge both parties.

AMY GOODMAN: Why not support Nader? Why not actually endorse Nader?

JIMMY HOFFA: Well, we’ll have to wait and see what happens. We’re not endorsing anybody today.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jimmy Hoffa. Now Jim Nicholson, who is head of the Republican National Committee, who was also at the party.

AMY GOODMAN: You did feel about Hoffa standing with Nader. Did you think that was a good thing for the Republicans?

JIM NICHOLSON: [inaudible] just had for him, in the speech he gave.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are you hoping? Are you hoping that Hoffa will endorse the Republican?

JIM NICHOLSON: Yes, I am. I hope very much that he’ll endorse Governor Bush. We want their endorsement the old-fashioned way: We want to earn it. And I think we are by fighting for working families in America. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the stance on NAFTA? He’s very much against NAFTA.

JIM NICHOLSON: Well, you know, you don’t have to agree on everything to agree on who should be your leader. We all have differences. There are 50 million Republicans, and they don’t all agree on everything. But we agree on our core principles.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jim Nicholson, chair of the Republican National Committee, at the Republican party for Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters. Juan, surprised?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: No, not at all. The reality is, for people who do not follow the labor movement, is that the Republican Party has — that the Republican Party has always — for several decades, was able to count on the Teamsters union in local races, sometimes even in national races, because under some of the former corrupt Teamster leaders, the Teamsters were very good at parlaying their enormous clout and finances into staying out of jail by backing Republicans. Jimmy Hoffa, who supposedly — who defeated the reformer Ron Carey because of shenanigans that some of Carey’s people got into in financing their campaign, is at this point feinting to the left and claiming to support possibly Ralph Nader, precisely as a way to weaken the Democratic Party, get some concessions out of the Gore campaign. And I think that the Republicans love that. They love that, because that gives them an opportunity to tear into some of the Democratic vote. Unfortunately, some of the reformers that are around Jimmy Hoffa now believe that it’s actually sincere. I don’t. And I think it’s sort of a meeting of opportunism, the opportunism of the Republican Party and the opportunism of Hoffa.