Posted on 11/18/2006 8:01:49 AM PST by george76
Unions spent more than $100 million getting out the vote, knocked on millions of doors and delivered Election Day support to Democrats running for the House by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.
Now organized labor is spelling out what it wants from the new Democratic Congress.
The priorities include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care and improving pension protections.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sees the elections as a "mandate for a union agenda."
Likewise, says Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, "we have an opportunity to push our agenda...
The AFL-CIO executive council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss various issues, including the legislative agenda.
The aggressive stance is a sharp turnaround from the past few years.
"There were days during the last six years when we were in a defensive crouch protecting 60 years of workplace advances," Samuel said.
Organized labor clearly expects the Democratic Congress to help pass pro-worker legislation after an unprecedented get- out-the-vote effort.
Organized labor spent an unprecedented amount of money for midterm elections on its get-out-the-vote-effort - $40 million by the AFL-CIO alone - with 187,000 union volunteers in the AFL-CIO program knocking on more than 3 million doors in the final four days.
Labor did more microtargeting of voters, but the most effective technique was still worker-to-worker contact.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
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When the AFL-CIO merged in the 1950s, one of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor union.
Now, only about 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.
One of the biggest in a long list of failures was the Republicans never passing Federal Right to Work laws.
Its gonna be a little hard to do since they also voted in San Fran Liberals who want open borders which in turn drives wages WAAAAAYYYYY DOOOWWWNNN!!! Anyway any wage increasw would be more than offset by the HIGHER TAXES these scum bring in. See unions you REALLY got to think these things thru, DUMBASSES!lol
and they wonder why the base is mad !
" ... never passing Federal Right to Work laws."
More of the same liberal media AP spin.
Notice there was nothing there (or in the body of the article) about Iraq or the "Culture of Corruption"...
Now they will try to do to the country what they did to GM and Ford!
A Nancy Pelosi Moment: 2 - Look for the Union Label
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PC1L03CFlrw
Veto, Veto, veto.
Union crap in budget bill, veto.
Union crap in appropriations bill....veto.
How I hate unions.
One of the things that helped turn me around politically was when I realised some of my union dues were being sent over seas to people like Nelson Mandela. It makes me wonder: how much money has Sweeney and co., sent to terrorists and Iraqi "insurgents"? I have never heard the claim before, but now I have to just wonder...
Unions can force non democrats to pay union dues and then spend the members dues on democrats.
Grrr
" Unions didn't have anything to do with the Dims winning the elections. "
do you have a link ?
The UAW has screwed up the Big 3 Auotomakers bigtime. The Dem Congress needs to reel them in.
plus the mob has gone in for their piece of the union dues, too.
Not just Jimmy Hoffa.
I am a "victim" of just that exact thing. I had to belong to the union for 8 years because of the job I had. Nothing galled me any more than for them to use my money to tell me to vote for people I would never vote for in a million years.
The day I took a different job that was not part of the bargaining unit was a very happy day for me.
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