One has to feel for H. Carl McCall, the state’s comptroller and the Democratic candidate for governor of New York. With his poll numbers in the tank, fundraising stalled, and 61 letters of recommendation wreaking havoc in the press, he has also to deal with the nigh complete abandonment of his campaign by organized labor. The Service Employees Inter national Union 1199 health care workers endorsed Governor Pataki early, after a $1.8 billion payoff from Mr. Pataki in the form of raises for state health care workers. The Union of Needletrade Industrial and Textile Employees has also joined the Pataki camp. The carpenters have endorsed the Republican, and the United Federation of Teachers is expected to do likewise this week.

The problem for the Democrats is that there is no longer any unified labor movement in New York State of which to speak. Unite’s president, Bruce Raynor, told to the Jewish Forward last week, “We don’t feel any allegiance to the Democratic Party.” Continued he: “The Democratic Party has betrayed us on trade. Nafta caused 675,000 jobs to be lost, jobs that were important to generations of immigrant workers. We share an allegiance to politicians who share our values and deliver for working families. The Democratic Party should have to learn to work for the support of progressives. Their attitude is, we have nowhere else to go. In truth, we do.”

This is part and parcel of a sea change in the way union politics is conducted. This column has noted previously the growing sentiment of organized labor that in order to have its interests represented it would need not to function as the treasury of the Democratic Party. Rather, it needs to force competition between the two parties for its money and its votes. Spearheading this effort at the national level has been the president of the Teamsters, James Hoffa. In announcing his union’s support of Mr. Pataki all the way back in May, Mr. Hoffa said that is was “part of a larger effort to build a bipartisan, pro-worker political consensus in our country.” He said that, “The labor movement is no longer beholden to a single political party. Today’s labor movement supports those who are proven allies in our fight for the rights of working families.”

Not everyone has been swayed. The New York State affiliate of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations has refrained from endorsing any candidate for governor in this election cycle. But the union could be endorsing Mr. McCall, and that it isn’t doing so speaks volumes in itself. As Unite’s Mr. Raynor put it to the Forward, “Our members are extremely needy and need the power and support of public policy … We will seek it from any politician who will give it.” In other words, it’s better not to alienate, in the name of partisanship or ideology, the man who will likely occupy the governor’s mansion.

This fostering of political competition has so far netted the unions not only a lucrative raise for state heath care workers at a time of a historic budget crunch but also legislation that bars employers from using taxpayer money. In the coming month labor could well see other victories. While these measures are costing the state’s taxpayers money that could be better allocated as tax cuts, it is refreshing to see labor stand up for itself, rather than function as an automated teller machine for the Democratic Party. In the long run, though, all this will create its own kind of backlash within the Republican Party and the voters who have stood with the GOP in New York State on the hope that it would be the custodian of economic principle.