Free Republic

DENVER — A prominent union leader on Tuesday blamed racism for Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) failure to build a big lead over GOP rival Sen. John McCain. Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said many workers are considering voting for McCain (R-Ariz.) because of his military service and status as a hero of the Vietnam War. McEntee said several union members had approached him, saying they could not vote for Obama because of his race. He also said some local union presidents have failed to support Obama out of fear. “There are...

There’s not a single good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama. There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white.

As a congressman, senator and one-time Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've participated in my share of vigorous public debates over issues of great consequence. And the public has been free to accept or reject the decisions I made when they walked into a ballot booth, drew the curtain and cast their vote. I didn't always win, but I always respected the process. Voting is an immense privilege. That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending...

Some of the nation's largest labor organizations are calling for legalization of all the nation's undocumented workers and have conceded the guest worker issue. "There is no good reason why any immigrant who comes to this country prepared to work, to pay taxes, and to abide by our laws and rules should be denied what has been offered to immigrants throughout our country's history -- a path to legal citizenship," said Ana Avendano, assistant general counsel for the AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions nationally. The AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition, collectively representing about 15 million workers, or about...

On August 8, George McGovern had an editorial published by the Wall Street Journal that astounds for the fact that it runs counter to union aims. In it, McGovern warns the unions against their woefully misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act," the legislation that has as one of its main goals the elimination of democratic styled, secret balloting for union elections. Unions actually wish to eliminate the union member's ability to keep his vote private. This act will serve to put pressure on union voters to conform to the union's party line because, after all, every vote they make as individuals...

Voting is an immense privilege. That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor. The legislation is called the Employee Free Choice Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak....

House Vote on Card-Check.

Legislation that would make it more difficult for workers to hold a private ballot vote in unionization drives, which critics say would lead to harassment and intimidation, has spurred a pitched battle between powerful labor unions supportive of Sen. Barack Obama and big business in the presidential campaign. Seen by the AFL-CIO as a way to boost union rolls by hundreds of thousands of new members, the hotly-contested bill has become this year's No. 1 election issue for organized labor. Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has promised union bosses that the Employee Free Choice Act will become law in...

Union bosses are well aware that their days were numbered until Obama came along. And they are sparing no expense in getting him elected. The AFL-CIO and its affiliates have raised an unprecedented $250 million to put 200,000 union workers on the street campaigning for Obama in the crucial final weeks. The National Education Association has budgeted up to $50 million. The Service Employees International Union has added $100 million to pay 2,000 union members to leave their jobs and go work on Democratic campaigns. All totaled, unions are expected to spend more than $1 billion of their members’ money...

Photos from the Obama ralley in Dayton, OH (7/18/08) (waiting for doors to open)

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- A new television ad blasting likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain is only the beginning of liberal "independent group" ads, union officials say. The spot, produced independently of Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, financed by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, features a young mother with a baby criticizing McCain's determination to keep troops in Iraq. It began airing Tuesday in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, USA Today reported. Pro-Democrat labor union leaders told the newspaper they have assembled millions of dollars for so-called independent...

How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, the notion of getting rid of secret ballots is absurd. This is modern-day America. Such an idea could not be seriously considered, right? People support secret balloting for very obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her political positions public. Many would rather vote without fearing that their choice will offend or anger someone else. Secret balloting has solved another potential problem: vote buying, which they essentially ended...

Obama supporters hope his union endorsers will help bring in the white, blue-collar Democrats his campaign has been courting. The Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest, is already calling Obama "the presumptive nominee." But there is still a major union plum to be had, the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization. The AFL-CIO and its 56 unions expect to spend an estimated $200 million on the presidential and congressional elections. However, the labor federation is still nowhere close to making an endorsement, focusing its energies instead on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. To win its formal backing, a candidate...

. . . Before the April and early May primaries, cultural and racial politics seemed to throw the Obama campaign off its stride, especially as the controversy over Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, smoldered, then flared again. It angered Don Lutes, a retired steelworker and union official from Griffith, Ind., who voted early for Clinton. "All this came out with the Rev. Wright and this [former Weatherman] Bill Ayers deal," Lutes says. "I can't believe he knew this Ayers. They bombed the Capitol. How could he associate with people like that? That really turned me off. And [Obama's]...

The Labor Department’s seven-year effort to improve financial reporting and disclosure by unions could come to a screeching halt once President Bush leaves office. Sen. Barack Obama’s support for ending federal oversight of the Teamsters is the clearest indication yet of how a Democratic administration would treat labor unions. Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton wooed the Teamsters in hopes of securing its coveted endorsement. But only Obama went so far as to say that government oversight had “run its course.” The union endorsed Obama in February. Since then, Obama’s ties to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa have grown stronger....

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.... The developments left the former first lady with 271.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama. Little more than four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, she held a lead of 169-63....

Almost every week, a new damaging story emerges about Barack Obama. Lucky for this wounded "messiah" that his disciples in the mainstream media neglect, until the last possible minute, their duty to investigate these reports. This week, there's a brand-new one, which has surfaced too late to affect the critically important Indiana and North Carolina primaries, but demands scrutiny nonetheless. The Wall Street Journal -- admittedly a mainstream media outlet, save the editorial page -- has started the ball rolling on this one with a May 5 article examining the possible reasons behind the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' endorsement of...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

Maryland Democratic Party Vice Chairman Lauren Glover is fielding calls from Sen. Barack Obama. Jim Leaman, executive director of the Virginia AFL-CIO, is being inundated with personal letters and e-mails from supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. And D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. just wants be left alone. Pressure is mounting on the 67 Democratic superdelegates from the District, Maryland and Virginia to choose between Obama and Clinton in the most heated presidential nomination fight in a generation. With neither Clinton nor Obama likely to win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination, the 793 superdelegates nationwide will have...

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com ***** By Jennifer Skalka The AFL-CIO is dropping a tough mailer in PA today noting that while John McCain's war service is admirable, his political views -- on the Bush tax cuts, NAFTA and overtime pay, in particular -- are out of sync with the needs and values of working Americans. "

The ILWU: Back to its Marxist Roots March 12, 2008 At a time when even Russia and China are rejecting their Marxist past, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union still plans on celebrating the birth of communism by taking “May Day” off. These are people, by the way, who earn six-figure incomes, generous benefits, and pensions for putting in fewer hours on the job than their dock-working comrades anywhere in the world. That measure of failed solidarity notwithstanding, the ILWU is also asking the AFL-CIO to join them in the work stoppage. Is it any wonder why many shippers are...

Clinton Supporter Says Anti-Obama Campaign in the Works--- Rick Sloan says he doesn't want to see the Democrats get "Swift Boated" again this time. So the communications director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers has sent a couple of dozen friends — union leaders and Democratic activists, mainly — an urgent plea to pay attention to Sen. Barack Obama's connections with the 1960s anti-war group, the Weather Underground, and other leftist thinkers. debate Democrats "can't be an ostrich on this" with their heads buried in the sand, Sloan said in an interview. He sent a copy of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday won the endorsement of the country's largest postal workers union in a fresh boost to his 2008 nomination race against rival Hillary Clinton. "Senator Obama's message is one of hope and change," American Postal Workers Union (APWU) president William Burrus said in a statement. "We believe he will be a president who will strongly represent the interests of working Americans," he added. The union represents more than 300,000 postal employees and retirees. The support follows last week's endorsement of Obama by the National Union of Hospital and Health...

WASHINGTON - A loose coalition of liberal and labor organizations expects to spend about $150 million this fall to push its causes and help Democrats win the White House and strengthen their grip on Congress. Participants include the two main labor coalitions — the AFL-CIO and Change to Win — as well as MoveOn.org and voter mobilization groups for minorities and young people. Organizers were announcing the effort Tuesday during conference sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future. Liberal and labor strategists say an animated Democratic electorate and a dispirited Republican base have created a political environment tailor-made to...

Earlier this afternoon, Oregon AFSCME voted to endorse Barack Obama for President. Previously, the national AFSCME organization had endorsed Hillary Clinton. Oregon AFSCME becomes the only state organization in the country - other than Illinois AFSCME, in Obama's home state - to break ranks with the national.

There’s nothing new about the AFL-CIO’s recent attack campaign on Senator John McCain. Instead of focusing on hard-working families, the Big Labor group is practicing the same old attack-and-destroy politics, fighting dirty instead of giving their members the truth. They picked the wrong candidate to attack. Senator McCain’s positive campaign and optimistic agenda will prevail, no matter how much money they throw into their negative campaign. Just as in 2004, when the AFL-CIO and its affiliates spent a total of $150 million against President Bush and Republicans, so it will be in 2008. The Republican presidential candidate will stand strong...

Teamsters Set to Back Obama By Steven Greenhouse In a surprising boost for Senator Barack Obama, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will announce this afternoon that it is endorsing him, a top union leader said. With the Teamsters’ move, labor leaders said, Change to Win, a five-million-member coalition of unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., will likely vote on Thursday to endorse Mr. Obama. The seven unions in that coalition — the service employees, the food and commercial workers, the Teamsters, the carpenters, the laborers the United Farm Workers and Unite Here (which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers)...

As the Democratic presidential contest moves to the distressed industrial Midwest, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ratcheted up their antitrade, anticorporate rhetoric. The candidates have made broad attacks on corporate wealth and tax cuts they say tilt toward the rich, along with more specific attacks against health insurers and oil companies, among other industries. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton began airing a TV spot in Wisconsin in which she says, "The oil companies, the drug companies, have had seven years of a president who stands up for them.... It's time we had a president who stands up for all of...

February 13, 2008 Dear xxxxxx, All knew that Tuesday’s news of Virginia’s Presidential primaries would dominate Wednesday’s front pages. The Governor chose this day to announce his budget cuts, including cuts to K-12 public education? Coincidence? Undoubtedly, the Governor did his best to spare K-12 given the constraints he perceives. But, given the fact that Virginians hold education to be the most important issue before the General Assembly, should he challenge the constraints that bind him? Is his decision the best one for Virginia’s children in the long run? At the Governor’s press conference revenue projections were downgraded. Anticipated increases...

In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world's largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers. Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her. Wal-Mart's anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton's fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of...

Score a big behind the scenes victory for Obama’s California campaign today. Word is leaking out that CTA’s (California Teacher's Union) membership staged an outright mutiny at Los Angeles’ Bonaventure Hotel and bucked its own Board’s attempt to railroad through an early endorsement for Hillary. CTA’s elites apparently got a big wake up call when their effort to crown Hillary as the official choice of California’s teachers was upended by overwhelming resistance from rank and file Obama supporters. The vaunted pre Feb 5th CTA endorsement – which was widely expected to go Clinton’s way – appears to now be postponed...

Clinton beats Obama as candidates bicker over the final delegate count. Will the ethnic tensions inflamed by a rough caucus fight haunt the Democrats? Hillary Clinton won the Nevada popular vote, and Barack Obama's campaign is claiming he won more delegates, but it was hard not to worry that the Democratic Party could wind up the loser as I sat watching a nasty caucus battle at the Paris Hotel and Casino Saturday afternoon. At the end of the day, having called around to Democrats and reporters who were at other caucus sites, I'm pretty sure I witnessed one of the...

A federal court yesterday dealt a bad hand to Hillary Rodham Clinton, smacking down an effort to stop Nevadans from caucusing at Las Vegas casinos like Caesars Palace and the Flamingo hotel. The Nevada teachers union, which has strong ties to Clinton, sued with other plaintiffs in Las Vegas this week to halt an effort to let casino cooks, maids and card dealers caucus at nine downtown casino sites. The effort to create "at large" precincts - backed by the state Democratic Party - was aimed at getting more low-wage workers to participate in the election process. Clinton and Barack...

The radio ad aired by one of Obama's labor allies re-injects ethnicity into the Democratic primary contest in sharp terms. "Hillary Clinton does not respect our people," the ad says in Spanish (original and Clinton campaign translation after the jump), referring to the lawsuit that failed today to shut down special caucus sites on Las Vegas' strip. "Hillary Clinton is shameless." "Sen. Obama is defending our right to vote. Sen. Obama wants our votes. He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan is 'Si Se Puede.' Vote for a president who respects us, and who...

‘I Get a Little Wonky’ It was not a smart assumption, the senator says in an interview, for her or her staff to think voters knew the real Hillary Clinton from her Senate campaigns. By Jon Meacham NEWSWEEK Updated: 4:04 PM ET Jan 12, 2008 In a nondescript classroom on the grounds of the Electrical Training Institute of IBEW Local 11, amid the stuff of a campaign-event holding room—bottles of water, tea, a Sharpie laid out next to a few placards and photos that need autographing for local supporters—Hillary Clinton sat down with NEWSWEEK's Jon Meacham for an interview that...

Rudy Giuliani's plan to ride in a Miami-Dade firetruck in Sunday's Three Kings parade has outraged some firefighters who say the presidential candidate has ''lied'' about his 9/11 record because he did too little to equip and protect emergency workers. The controversy -- unwittingly set in motion by County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa -- has politically pitted firefighters against one another in Miami-Dade as well as in New York. To quiet the feud, the IAFF's local Miami-Dade chapter, 1403, will cover its numbers on the union-owned firetruck by draping it with an American flag. Giuliani's campaign said he will probably ride...

LAS VEGAS — In what has become a proxy battle between the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the large hotel workers union in Nevada on Saturday attacked a lawsuit by another major union that would make it more difficult for hotel workers to vote in this state’s hotly contested Democratic caucuses. Filed Friday in Federal District Court here, the lawsuit comes just days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Mr. Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. In the lawsuit, the 20,000-member Nevada State Education Association and six residents of the Las...

Hillary Clinton was hugging babies and posing with grandmas while canvassing door-to-door in a working-class Hispanic neighborhood one evening when a man in a checked flannel shirt and wool cap waved her into his pocket-sized yard. "You are going to win!" Jose Velasco, 47, a porter in the Mirage casino who is bucking his own union's endorsement of Barack Obama to support Clinton, said last week. "I will, with your help," she replied with a wide grin. Hispanics make up only between 12 and 15 percent of Nevada's Democratic electorate, but Clinton has spent virtually all of her time since...

The teachers union has drawn knives on the Culinary Workers, deepening the potential political rifts over Nevada’s Jan. 19 Democratic caucus. A lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court seeks to stop the Democratic Party from holding caucus meetings at nine Strip hotels, which would diminish the influence of casino workers and hamper Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign. The complaint, with the state teachers union and some party activists as plaintiffs, came as Obama accepted the endorsement of the Culinary Union. The timing seemed designed to cloud the good buzz from his campaign, which could only help Sen. Hillary Clinton’s...

Candidate charms voters at union hall, school gym From the back of the Culinary union hall on Friday, all that could be seen were hundreds of upraised hands -- black, brown and white -- clapping to the chant "Sí se puede." They were clapping along with Geoconda Arguello Kline, an immigrant from Nicaragua who came to Las Vegas for a low-skilled job in a hotel. She learned English. She saved enough to buy a home for the family she was raising. She took advantage of job training programs to move up in her work, and she became active with the...

From the back of the Culinary union hall on Friday, all that could be seen were hundreds of upraised hands -- black, brown and white -- clapping to the chant "Sí se puede." They were clapping along with Geoconda Arguello Kline, an immigrant from Nicaragua who came to Las Vegas for a low-skilled job in a hotel. She learned English. She saved enough to buy a home for the family she was raising. She took advantage of job training programs to move up in her work, and she became active with the union. Now Kline, "Geo" to the union's members,...

LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s state teachers union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for many members of the state’s huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19 Democratic caucus in Nevada. The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama addressed the Culinary Union at their hall earlier Friday. The lawsuit argues that the Nevada Democratic Party’s decision, decided late last year, to...

BRENTWOOD — Most Saturday nights, the warehouse facility owned by District Council #35 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades sits empty, but this Saturday it reverberated with cacophony of a crowd in good cheer. It was a capacity audience of more than 1,000 people to hear former President Bill Clinton make the case for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Links * New Hampshire Primary “Of all of the candidates, Hillary Clinton best represents the concerns of the union,” said Bill Doherty, a business representative with District Council 35. “We had a national ballot sent out, and the choice among...

January 4, 2008 Gerald McEntee International President AFSCME 1625 L St. NW Washington, DC 20036 Dear President McEntee: We are writing to protest in the strongest terms the negative campaign that AFSCME is conducting against Barack Obama. We do not believe that such a wholesale assault on one of the great friends of our union was ever contemplated when the International Executive Board (IEB)made its decision to endorse Hillary Clinton. In fact, when the vote to make a primary endorsement was taken by the IEB, there appeared to be widespread agreement that we had a strong field of Democratic candidates...

DES MOINES — Spurred by a recent Supreme Court decision, independent political groups are using their financial muscle and organizational clout as never before to influence the presidential race, pumping money and troops into early nominating states on behalf of their favored candidates. Iowans have been bombarded over the last few days with radio spots supporting John Edwards that were paid for by a group affiliated with locals of the Service Employees International Union, which just kicked in $800,000 — on top of $760,000 already spent. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, rolled across Iowa on Monday in a...

This is from the National Education Association's Email received today: We are engaging in a comprehensive presidential recommendation process designed to ensure that NEA's candidate recommendation won't be based on personalities or partisanship. It won't be about who is more liberal or more conservative. It will be about what's best for students; what's best for educators; and what's best for public education, our communities, and our nation. NEA's recommendation process is fair, bipartisan, and open. A candidate's political party is never taken into consideration, and all presidential candidates, whether they are Republican or Democrat, are invited to participate. To be...

Once again, in this upcoming Election of 2008, none of the prominent Democratic candidates for President deserves our support or our votes. We continually hear that the leadership of the Democratic Party is dominated by leftists. There are conservative Democrats and Union members who need to immediately begin to organize and speak out for conservative change in the Democrat Party. We need to start a nationwide "Talent Search" to find suitable candidates for the Democrat nomination, and for the other offices that will be up for election in 2008.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A televised debate set for next month among the Democratic presidential candidates will be canceled to avoid a potential conflict with striking Hollywood screenwriters, a source close to organizers said on Wednesday. The decision by the Democratic National Committee came after several candidates said they would refuse to cross picket lines of the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike against major film and television studios since November 5. A debate among eight Democrats running for the White House had been scheduled for December 10 at the CBS Television City studio in Los Angeles,...

A potential strike by CBS news writers imperils a debate among Democratic presidential contenders in California.In a statement Wednesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would not cross a picket line to participate in the debate, scheduled Dec. 10 in Los Angeles. Most of the other candidates quickly followed.CBS is to broadcast the debate, which is co-sponsored by the Democratic National Committee."It is my hope that both sides will reach an agreement that results in a secure contract for the workers at CBS News, but let me be clear: I will honor the picket line if the workers at CBS News...

John Edwards said today that he will cancel a television appearance next week because of the writers' strike and also won't cross a picket line next month to participate in a presidential debate. Edwards, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, was scheduled to appear next week on "The View" with his wife, Elizabeth, his campaign said. But he said in a statement they will instead honor the strike by the Writers Guild of America. He said he also would honor any picket lines at CBS News, up to and including the presidential debate Dec. 10. The debate is...