Hillary Clinton on Aug. 9 was the first of three candidates to rally a union hall audience last week. The crowd for her appearance, more than 200 packed into a humid room, hooted and cheered when she announced that she would walk a picket line in the event of a strike.

"Let me be clear: I believe in negotiation," she said. "But if it comes to a strike, let me be clear I will be there with you."

With that comment she joined Barack Obama and John Edwards, the other two candidates who scheduled Culinary appearances last week, in promising to walk with the workers.

Because of the early Nevada caucus scheduled for Jan. 19 and the Culinary Union's power to mobilize its 60,000 members, the Culinary Union hall has been a regular platform for Democratic candidates.

Each candidate pays homage to the employees, mentioning how the Culinary Union's contract negotiations set a national example for how workers should demand a higher standard of living.

"It used to be the unions set the standard for health care, pensions and of course wages," Clinton said.

America became "deunionized," she said, and citizens are becoming poorer because of social problems such as rising health care costs.

"What you're doing here has national significance," she said. "Your fight is America's fight."

The Culinary has planned a strike vote on Sept. 12.

The union still has about 35,000 members working on expired, but indefinitely extended, contracts. This season it signed a deal for its 15,000 Harrah's Entertainment employees, but it is still in talks with MGM Mirage (which employs 21,000 members) and 15 smaller hotel properties.