Posted on 07/09/2004 12:14:38 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Service Employees International Union, the nation's biggest member of Big Labor, plans to spend $65 million to defeat President Bush.
Most of that, $40 million, will subsidize 2,000 members acting as full-time political organizers.
"The union's anti-Bush war chest is a huge sum, given that the AFL-CIO will spend only $44 million," the July 12 issue of BusinessWeek reports.
"We're going to build the strongest grassroots political voice in North America," said SEIU President Andy Stern, who backed John Kerry for president only after first choice Howard Dean destroyed himself.
How Edwards Harms Kerry
Meanwhile, zillionaire trial lawyer John Edwards could prove to be a costly running mate for Kerry.
Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, vowed before Kerry made his pick that if Edwards got the nod, the chamber would abandon its traditional neutrality in the presidential race and "work feverishly" to defeat the Democrats.
"We'd get the best people and the greatest assets we can rally," he said.
The Wall Street Journal quoted one Fortune 100 chief exec as saying Edwards "is the one we fear the most" - even more than Kerry, Dean and Dick Gephardt.
The Journal's Alan Murray wrote that Edwards "is a trial lawyer. His campaign for the presidency was financed by trial lawyers. And there is nothing that makes America's CEOs see red these days like America's trial lawyers. ...
"The nation's top executives view the plaintiff's bar as modern-day mobsters, shaking down corporations by bringing endless lawsuits that are too costly and too dangerous to litigate and that result in settlements costing billions to the corporate bottom line. The antipathy, while not new, has never been greater."
To bad the Service Union won't let its members decide where parts of their own fees should go in support of political candidates. Like most other unions....many of their members are furious that they are forced to send their budget to a candidate they don't back.
To bad the Service Union won't let its members decide where parts of their own fees should go in support of political candidates. Like most other unions....many of their members are furious that they are forced to send their budget to a candidate they don't back.
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