Posted: February 15, 2008 4:43 PM
Coveted Labor Unions Vow to Labor for Obama
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Sen. Barack Obama, riding the momentum of his eight-contest wins since Super Tuesday, recently welcomed the support of two of the nation’s most important labor unions, the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union and the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers.
The endorsements from the active unions will boost Obama’s campaign not only in voter support for upcoming contests but in fundraising.
The SEIU “has about 150,000 members in the upcoming primary states, including Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer and “represents workers in health care, building services and other industries,” the Associated Press reported. “It has donated more than $25 million candidates in the past two decades, most of it to Democrats.”
SEIU representatives said they chose Obama because of his continued support of their causes.
“There has never been a fight in Illinois or a fight in the nation where our members have not asked Barack Obama for assistance and he has not done everything he could to help us,” Union President Andy Stern told the AP. Food Workers President Joe Hansen said the union was inspired by Obama’s “message of changing hope into reality,” the AP reported.
Both Obama and his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, fought hard for the endorsements of both unions, but Hansen felt Obama would be the better candidate to address the issues most important to union workers.
“While both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have a vision to change America, we believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to build a movement to unite our country that will deliver the type of change that is needed for good jobs, affordable health care, retirement security and worker safety,” he said.
Many state affiliates of the SEIU had earlier backed former candidate and senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who dropped out of the race on Jan. 30.
Clinton, however, was not completely shunned by unions. The New York senator welcomed an enthusiastic endorsement from the United Farm Workers Union — which has more than 27,000 members — last month.
“She will be able to tackle our nation’s toughest problems – health care, improving the economy for working people and repairing our country’s standing in the world,” UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said in a press release.
-- By , NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | Comments | Link
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"Clinton, however, was not completely shunned by unions. The New York senator welcomed an enthusiastic endorsement from the United Farm Workers Union — which has more than 27,000 members — last month."
A euphemistic turn of the pen? "Shunned"? Besides last month, and besides so many education persons, United Transportation Union, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Transportation Communication Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, International Union of Painters and Allied Trade, SEIU Locals 1199 and 32BJ, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts Union, American Nurses Association, IATSE Stage Employees Local 720, Amalgamated Transit Union, Sheet Metal, Air Rail and Transportation Workers, New York's UFCW Local 1500, Michigan Operating Engineers Local 324 ...
Barrack came out of all his years in Illinois without any union endorsements. Wonder why they really signed on? Seems like there were a lot of difficulties in Nevada when the union didn't go with who their membership really wanted .. that is, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Let's keep it straight as to who's really been carrying the union support. And not get carried away, in the moment, from the bigger picture.
ally R
I believe that Obama�s legacy is now tainted, and many people's views are not printed except for the benign ones And that is against my free speech. Memories and Ignorance should be an equation of the political process. He is guilty by association in the following ways. His main backers have tainted legacies. Oprah Winfrey's legacy is tainted when she opened her South African Girl's School, and the headmistress was accused of sexual abuse. She flew to South Africa to clean house, and said that she was not guilty. In my state if a day-care center is accused of the same, that person is punished with a jail sentence, and Oprah should have been sent to jail for the same crime.Ted Kennedy's legacy is also tainted: He was responsible for the death of the beauty queen, Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick. Now JFK�s love child is coming to claim his Kennedy parentage. Their backing does not give Obama any credence or experience to claim the highest office of the land.
However, the most telling is that Obama has donated the most monies to the Super delegates. Three times as that of Hillary. Now, I ask you, does that not seem like he's trying to buy the highest office, and isn't that illegal in some way? The reason he has gotten this far, is because he has that cult-like quality, mixed with his Muslin background of living in Indonesia and Kenya, and can sway voter's mind. The media and newscasters has given him a free ride so far. All his earmarks as a junior senator in Illinois.Nothing negative.The republicans are out,for sure. The page scandals, Tom Delay's scandals, and the lost of 4,000 soldiers, and the squandering of trillion of dollars. McCain will say the surge is working, but it is due in part of our military presence. He's out.
Most say that Hillary's health care does not allow for choosing your own doctors, but we have managed care, and can't choose our own doctors now, so that is erroneous. She is the only true viable candidate for the White House. I am sorry to say that if Obama cannot choose the moral high ground on the way to the white house. He will not be able to "CHANGE WASHINGTON"
Are we wanting and getting a Chavez in this country? Time will tell. On next Tuesday, the country is watching on Wisconsin, the world is watching on Wisconsin, and the history is watching on Wisconsin. It might just become a turnning point in American history: Whether this country will remain a prosperous, stable place, a democratic beacon in the world , pround with strong middle class, a stablizing rock base in American politics, proud with freedom of independent thinking, a core value in American society, Or this country is becoming a Venezuela of north america, where people choose cult-like populist person like Hitler or Chavez, follow him mindlessly and frenetically, probably influenced and manipulated by a biased media propaganda, and destroy middle class and freedom of independent thinking all together as a result, where this election may just become the last fair election of this country in the many years to come. The stake on Tueday 2/19 is high, and will Wisconsin and its people stand up and take the historical responsibility for its country, a backbone that can be proudly shown to the generations to come? God bless Wisconsin.
I see a total train wreck coming if Clinton can get the Super votes. It will be a racial conflict if she wins; but a double standard if Obama wins. I believe Clinton still maintains the stonger older union votes.