On union square

The two speeches delivered continents apart highlight the delicate balance the senator, a dedicated free-trader, is seeking to maintain as she courts two competing constituencies: wealthy Indian immigrants who have pledged to donate and raise as much as 5 million for her 2008 campaign and powerful American labour unions that are crucial to any Democratic primary victory.

Despite aggressive courtship by Democratic candidates, major unions such as the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters have withheld their endorsements as they scrutinise the candidates8217; records and solicit views on a variety of issues. High on the agenda of union officials is an explanation of how each candidate will try to stem the loss of US jobs. During the vetting, some union leaders have found Clinton8217;s record troubling.

8220;The India issue is still something people are concerned about. Her financial relationships, her quotes 8212; they have both gotten attention,8221; said Thea M. Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Clinton and her advisers have used closed-door meetings with labour leaders in recent months to explain her past ties to Indian companies, donors and policies. But the Clinton camp has been pressed by labour leaders on her support for expanding temporary US work visas that often go to Indians who get jobs in the United States, and it has been queried about the help she gave a major Indian company to gain a foothold in New York state. That company now outsources most of its work to India. 8220;They8217;re obviously defensive about it,8221; said Lee.

Clinton declined repeated requests for an interview about her views on outsourcing. Her campaign advisers, however, say she believes there are no inconsistencies in the comments she has made here and in India or in her actions as a senator.

They say she opposes legislative measures 8212; such as trade barriers 8212; to slow the loss of American jobs if they would restrain free trade. And they say she has supported the expansion of the temporary-worker visas because US companies have repeatedly told her the visas are needed to maintain a ready workforce.

At the same time, they say, she has worked hard to secure money to assist workers who have lost jobs to outsourcing.

Her rivals for the Democratic nomination have monitored her every comment on the issue. Last year, the India Abroad newspaper reported that she joked to a group of Indian American donors that she could easily win a Senate seat if she were running in Punjab. An aide to her chief foe in the Democratic contest, Barack Obama Illinois, parodied those remarks in a document distributed to reporters; it listed her political affiliation as 8220;D-Punjab.8221;

Obama and former senator John Edwards, who trail Clinton in the polls, have sought to attack her record on outsourcing while arguing that they support more direct government intervention to protect US jobs.

Clinton8217;s camp counters that Obama and Edwards have acknowledged that some loss of American jobs is inevitable in a global economy. Edwards, for example, told a New Delhi conference in 2005 that outsourcing was 8220;an economic reality8221;. And Obama said just two months ago: 8220;We know that we can8217;t put the forces of globalisation back in the bottle. We cannot bring back every job that8217;s been lost.8221;

When Clinton told a union-sponsored debate last month that the nation needed a 8220;better approach8221; to globalisation and trade, Edwards railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement that President Bill Clinton8217;s administration signed in 1993, saying it compromised 8220;millions of jobs8221;. Obama chimed in that 8220;people don8217;t want a cheaper T-shirt if it8217;s costing us jobs.8221;

Clinton8217;s positioning on outsourcing dates to the 1990s, when her husband8217;s administration aggressively pursued free trade agreements such as NAFTA.

8220;Just look back,8221; said Sanjay Puri, who heads the nation8217;s largest Indian American fundraising committee. 8220;The Clintons made a special effort. They reached out to Indian Americans at a time when no one else had done that.8221;