In a right-to-work state where the persistent political maneuvering of municipal labor unions tends to chafe cost-bearing taxpayers, candidates who present themselves as too aggressively pro-labor bear significant risk.

But the names of labor organizations tend to appear frequently on the financial disclosure forms of political candidates. And even candidates who are casting themselves as business-friendly office seekers want the support of the unions whose members, after all, consistently go to the polls in local elections.

So it is, then, that political aspirants who want it both ways have been known to craft their positions very carefully, depending on their particular audiences. That appears to be the case in the Nashville mayoral race, in which the candidates are maneuvering around what is perhaps the diciest campaign issue yet leading up to the Aug. 5 election—the question of how much power municipal labor unions should wield in negotiations with city officials.

The issue in question deals with “binding contracts.” Long-standing practice has union leaders and city officials sign non-binding memoranda of understanding when they negotiate pay increases or other employee benefits. Despite the fact that the current system has worked well since the inception of a consolidated Metro government in 1963, union leaders—with the aid of much of the labor-loving Metro Council—have been trying during the past few years to convince the state Legislature to make those agreements legally binding.

An informal report produced by the local Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is based on interviews with the three major mayoral candidates, indicates that former state Rep. Bill Purcell and Vice Mayor Jay West are both open to a controversial union power grab, while former Mayor Dick Fulton, apparently distancing himself from labor interests, is against it. The candidates’ responses about whether they support more negotiating leverage for the employee union are significant because, while Fulton has been consistent on the issue during the campaign, both Purcell and West have said something entirely contrary in at least one public forum—that is, that they support the balance of power between the union and the city as it stands now.

It’s an issue Mayor Phil Bredesen has been outspoken about, using a good fraction of the last State of Metro address to discourage political candidates from agreeing to “tip the balance” in favor of the employee unions. Giving in to binding contracts is seen not only as opening the city up to vulnerability in times of fiscal crisis, but city officials have also feared it could begin a slippery slope leading to the right to strike.

The apparent positions of Purcell and West have managed to get the attention of Bredesen, who still cautions aggressively against the binding contracts. Meanwhile, Fulton is leveraging the seeming inconsistency of his opponents against them.

“Some candidates have given in to the pressure to pander to particular groups by saying one thing to the business community and the exact opposite to labor leaders,” says Fulton spokeswoman Genie Dunn. “Mayor Bredesen showed continuing leadership when, in his State of Metro address, he asked mayoral candidates not to alter the balance between the chief executive and the labor unions. Dick Fulton has honored his request, while Jay West and Bill Purcell have apparently decided to challenge the mayor.”

For his part, West is on record supporting the current arrangement. “Right now, we think it is a pretty good process that we go through each fiscal year because we have to go through a bargaining with them, and it is subject to the appropriations process,” West said in response to the question of binding contracts at a recent luncheon forum.

But, West says now, the report from the labor union listing his support for binding contracts is accurate. “If they want to make it in the form of a contract, I’ll make it in the form of a contract,” because anything he agrees to, West says, he considers binding. “Otherwise, my administration would have no credibility.”

Bredesen, who spoke with West earlier this week about the issue, still remains more than circumspect about union efforts to advance labor’s standing. “I don’t think it’s responsible to tie the city’s hands in that way,” Bredesen says. “We went through a tough time this past year with sales taxes, and we were able to do what we needed to do and still honor raises that had been negotiated. But, as mayor, I don’t think it would be real responsible to get myself in a box where, in effect, spending of the city’s money could be enforced by a court.”

Bredesen says West, who has otherwise been generally supportive of Bredesen’s positions and initiatives, told him that “we would have to agree to disagree on that issue.”

Purcell’s position on the issue seems a bit murkier. While he has publicly said that he’s “comfortable” with the current balance of power, the union members who developed the report apparently came away with the indication that Purcell was supportive of binding contractual arrangements. “Basically, what he’s saying is he’s willing to work with the unions to make sure memoranda of understanding are upheld,” says Purcell political director Patrick Willard. “Now, does that mean that you get into binding contracts and that sort of thing? I don’t think he’s ever said that.”

A fourth mayoral candidate, school board member Murray Philip, wasn’t interviewed by the union, but he says he would oppose legislation to create binding contracts. “If I was mayor, they wouldn’t need that kind of legislation,”he says.

So far, just one employee union has made an endorsement in the mayoral race. That came from the Metro Nashville Education Association—the teachers’ union—which announced its support for Purcell. Don Driscoll, executive director of SEIU, says his organization will make a recommendation to its membership about the race sometime in July.

Meanwhile, the union issue is one of the first this campaign season to distinguish the candidates significantly from one another. “It’s an interesting issue because it’s the first difficult issue that I’ve seen any difference among the candidates on,” Bredesen says.

But for any of the candidates to support the union power grab “is a fundamental mistake, and my recommendation to the city and to the Council and to everyone else is to stay a long way away from that, and to preserve what arrangements were worked out in the charter and which have worked, I think, very well over the last 35 years.”

But the political dispute, he says, is not enough to change his mind about keeping a respectable distance from the campaign to succeed him. “I’m certainly, for the time being, remaining hands off,” he says.