EW ORLEANS - Al Gore and labor leaders yesterday clashed over the Clinton-Gore administration's plan to grant permanent trade status to China, but both sides agreed on one goal - getting the vice president elected president.
Meeting with AFL-CIO leaders for the first time since the powerful labor group helped his campaign last fall with its endorsement, Gore sympathized with their opposition to the administration's push to establish normal trade relations with China, according to some who attended the two-hour closed door meeting here.
Repeating previous statements, Gore promised that as president he would require future trade agreements with China to include the labor, environmental, and human rights provisions in the core agreements - as the unions want - rather than in side agreements - an approach President Clinton has taken.
''The vice president has committed himself to being stronger on core labor standards in future trade agreements when he's president,'' said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
Asked how Gore could join Clinton in pushing the current agreement with China while promising to be stronger if elected president, Sweeney said, ''That's the difference between being number one and number two.''
Before Sweeney spoke to reporters, Gore's press secretary, Chris Lehane, made clear that the vice president supports the current trade agreement with China ''and is optimistic that it will get through this legislative session.''
While not offering specifics on how Gore will aid Clinton in promoting the bill in Congress, Lehane added: ''He's the vice president. He'll work with the administration in the appropriate way. As we move down the road, we'll see'' what the appropriate way is.
George Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America, said labor unions would launch an all-out campaign to get the legislation on China delayed until next year in hopes that Gore will be elected president.
''Labor intends to see that this is defeated,'' Becker said. ''We would like to give the Gore administration the opportunity to deal with this.''
Gore can ill afford alienating union members, a majority of whom support core labor standards and environmental protection as part of future labor agreements. Their turnout will be crucial to Gore in several states in the March 7 primaries - including California, New York, Ohio, Maryland, and Massachusetts - and they were decisive in his victory in the Iowa caucuses.
Leaders of two unions - the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers - which have not endorsed Gore, did not attend yesterday's meeting. About 400 union leaders attending the 13-state Eastern regional meeting of the Teamsters hosted Gore's rival for the Democratic nomination, former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, at a meeting in Atlantic City earlier this week, giving him a standing ovation and an impromptu endorsement.
Before his meeting with labor leaders, Gore shook hands with workers during an early-morning shift change at the Avondale shipyard, where workers last fall won a six-year campaign to unionize. Later, he made the first trip of his presidential campaign to Mississippi, addressing several hundred supporters on the topic of health care for children in Jackson.
