Blue-collar laborers rebel at AFL-CIO’s embrace of progressives

The Washington Times ^ | 9/10/2013

[markomalley]

The AFL-CIO needs to stick with representing workers and stop trying to take on social causes for the far left, said the union head for the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Harold Schaitberger, who presides over the IAFF, said there is “great value” in aligning with political groups — but only as a secondary mission, he told The Hill. And the AFL-CIO’s recent push to bring in environmental groups and progressive-minded organizations to the union cause is leading the IAFF to express concerns about politics becoming the priority, over the representation of members.

“To say that we are going to grow this labor movement by some kind of formal partnership, membership, status, place in this federation, I am against. This is the American Federation of Labor. We are supposed to be representing workers and workers’ interests,” Mr. Schaitberger said in The Hill. “We are not going to be the American Federation of Progressive and Liberal Organizations.”

[peeps36]

Where has this guy been for the last 40 years? The unions sold the working man out to liberal politics a long time ago.

[GeronL]

They embraced “progressives” back during the Great Depression didn’t they?

[cripplecreek]

This kind of crap is exactly why some 40% of Michigan union members polled supported RTW last winter. Union money being blown on politicians and causes the individual members didn’t support.

[Navy Patriot]

Unions, especially government unions, are a money laundering scheme for DemoRat campaign coffers, it's time union members admitted that and prostrated themselves properly.

[muir_redwoods]

You lie down with the dogs, you get up with the fleas. The only purpose of a union these days (and for the past thirty years at least) is to funnel money to democrats. The workers are expected to shut up and pay their dues.

[Buckeye McFrog]

In the Great Depression they had a better case for this. FDR was practically giving them everything they wanted. Has not been the case for the Dems for a long time, but they’ve been stuck in 1930’s thinking.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

40?? Try 100 years. Many labor unions were (are?) out-and-out communist run front groups.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Wow. On top of the loss of 50,000 members when the Longshoreman’s union pulled out, they could lose maybe 200,000 or more if the The International Association of Fire Fighters left.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), which has also protested Trumka’s taking of the AFL-CIO far left to support environmentalist wackos that oppose LIUNA, has about 550,000 members, and it would be a disaster for the AFL-CIO if they pulled up stakes.

AFL-CIO has only about 10,000,000 members, and it can only take so many punches before it starts to feel some real pain.

Apparently Trumka is doing his level best to kill them off.

[Gritty]

Mr. Shaitberger had best closely check his ignition switch and under his car before he turns the key. The union thugs don’t take kindly to his sort of pot-stirring...

[Oatka]

Many labor unions were (are?) out-and-out communist run front groups.

I strongly suggest people read the book "Freedom's Forge" by Arthur Herman. Mind-blowing stories of how American industry ramped up for war by forward-thinking CEOs in 1939-40 and the mind-blowing volume our factories produced.

Among them are paragraphs on the unions, CIO mentioned a lot, who were Communist-controlled and in the middle of a war, consistently went out on strike for the smallest of grievences. Herman says that at one point, the hours lost on strikes could have built another 15 Liberty ships just when they were needed the most.