ASHINGTON - Al Gore won endorsement yesterday from an important health-care workers' organization, the Service Employees International Union. In his acceptance, he cast Bill Bradley, his rival for the nomination, as disloyal to the Democratic Party.
AFL-CIO officials watched the straw vote of Local 250, the second-largest US health workers' union, with 46,000 members in Northern California, for signs of Gore's strength going into next week's AFL-CIO convention.
The vice president was the clear winner. He took 55 percent to Bradley's 38 percent of the vote, by 500 elected leaders in Local 250.
In his appeal to union members, Gore alluded to Bradley's retirement from the Senate in 1996, and to his brief talks around that time with independents pushing to build a third party.
''I've never been tempted to turn my back on the Democratic Party,'' Gore said. ''I've never been tempted to run as an Independent and divide the progressive coalition.''
Bradley argued to union members that they should endorse him because Gore cannot win without the independent and Republican support that Bradley appears to have.
