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

Washington Times ^ | 9/10/13

[Impala64ssa]

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.”

He’s not alone in that view. Union members from the construction sector have been especially vocal against bringing environmental groups into the AFL-CIO family, viewing them as the enemy in the Keystone XL pipeline fight.

He’s not alone in that view. Union members from the construction sector have been especially vocal against bringing environmental groups into the AFL-CIO family, viewing them as the enemy in the Keystone XL pipeline fight.

“Does that mean we are going to turn energy policy of the AFL-CIO over to the Sierra Club? I have concern about that, as well as I should,” said Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, in The Hill report. “I grew up in the movement to do one of two things. We support anything that’s good for another union brother or sister, or we keep our mouths shut.

[Impala64ssa]

Finally someone high up in the ranks of organized labor making sense, instead of recycled leftist crap from Trumpka and his ilk.

[Doogle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORjMNIk_qo

[DemforBush]

“The AFL-CIO needs to stick with representing workers and stop trying to take on social causes for the far left.”

I have some friends who are union workers in Ohio. They are hardworking, conservative, pro-life folks who feel much the same way.

I’d only add that union leadership tends to frown most frowningly on anyone from the rank and file who pipes up about this subject (or much of anything else), as one of my friends discovered.

[Venturer]

Shitberger finally got something right.

[Mygirlsmom]

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. >

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAH.......ooh, that's rich! Representing the members!! Heeeeeheeeeheeeeeee..

Hey, Einstein....have you figgerd out yet that there ain't enough of you workin' stiffs left to pay for fat Trumka's lifestyle?

[depressed in 06]

dumBO has fundamentally changed the American work week into a 29 hour part time job. Unions will have the only full time work week and will be paying for health care for the rest of the work force.

[Zionist Conspirator]

About d@rn time.

[RetiredTexasVet]

What? A DUH moment by the peasants?

[The Antiyuppie]

Naturally, the Republican (A.K.A Stupid) party will not take this opportunity, and will find a way to alienate them right back into the arms of the Sierra Club.

[GreyFriar]

Remember Trumpka is a communist and has admitted it. In the old days, he would have never gotten into the AFL-CIO, let alone being given any type of leadership position. Trumpka is for political power only and does not care about the members of the union that elected him and pay his salary. Hopefully other unions in the AFL-CIO will have the same revelation and begin dropping out of it, or begin a movement to oust Trumpka.

[SunkenCiv]

thanks Impala64ssa and markomalley.

Metro union workers protest (background checks: “Doing time is not a crime”)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3066147/posts

[ek_hornbeck]

Naturally, the Republican (A.K.A Stupid) party will not take this opportunity, and will find a way to alienate them right back into the arms of the Sierra Club.

The GOP could attract blue collar workers by taking a firm stand against illegal immigration and against amnesty, since illegal third world immigrants are the ultimate scabs.

However, since the born-again politically correct GOP has embraced multiculturalism, they once again bring nothing to the table.

[GOPJ]

Union members might be conservative - but the money they give to their Unions goes to support liberal elites... and liberal elite ‘causes’. That’s not going to change.

[tanknetter]

Trumka and the AFL CIO leadership are freaking out over what Obamacare is going to do to their membership. They’re starting to look in the mirror and seeing Nicolae Ceausescu looking back at them.

[dfwgator]

They want single-payer.....that was the plan all along.

Implement something so f’d up, people would beg to implement single-payer.

[tanknetter]

I agree, single payer is the goal.

But I think they were looking at it 10-15, even 20 years down the road. When there would be no opportunity to roll back to the previous state and people would have forgotten what that previous state was anyways.

I don’t think they anticipated either how fast the f’d up nature of Obamacare would become apparant, or the inability to get bandaid revisions passed that would prop it up in the face of the initial teething problems.

[GreyFriar]

Ah, “good old” Nicolae Ceausescu. Good comparison.

[ek_hornbeck]

How did blue collar workers, who are some of the most socially conservative and patriotic people in America, come to be allied with radical internationalists, multiculturalists, feminists, and homosexual activists to begin with?

Reagan realized that there was no real ideological glue binding working class Americans, including those in labor unions, to the New Left, and he won them over in droves. For some reason every Republican candidate since then has failed to do so.

[Mr. K]

"How did blue collar workers, who are some of the most socially conservative and patriotic people in America, come to be allied with radical internationalists, multiculturalists, feminists, and homosexual activists to begin with? "

FINALLY !!!

That is the right question

[ek_hornbeck]

A lot of political coalitions are put together almost by accident. Socially conservative union workers have nothing in common with the multiculturalist New Left, radical Muslims, blacks, and La Raza hispanics have nothing in common with radical homosexuals and feminists, but they all (or mostly) vote for Democrats because the Democrats claim to offer them something.

The only thing that can be done about this is to ask which of these groups we (conservatives) have something to offer the most to and try to win them over. I would argue that most blue collar workers don't like their alliance with cultural and social radicals, and would gladly vote for Republicans if some of their economic concerns were addressed. If the GOP were to abandon its knee-jerk support for "free trade" and other pro-outsourcing policies, and put an end to its own stupid flirtation with multiculturalism (i.e. liberal immigration law and amnesty for illegals), blue collar Reagan Democrats, including those in labor unions, could be won back.