Posted on 05/16/2008 6:49:37 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
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 must have support from two-thirds of the union's 10 million members.
Including the Steelworkers, Obama has been endorsed by nine AFL-CIO unions and four unions from Change to Win, a rival labor organization.
Clinton still has more union support, having been endorsed by 13 AFL-CIO unions and Change to Win's United Farm Workers.
Obama started the year with no major union support, but his rise in popularity among unions may be causing restlessness among some of Clinton's union supporters. Her key union backers _ the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers _ all say they will not abandon her despite the slim odds of her becoming the nominee.
(Excerpt) Read more at ksl.com ...
Unions support whomever will protect them from scrutiny, and the Magic Mulatto is already on record saying as president he would eliminate the oversight of the unions, which made the Teamsters, for instance, ecstatic.
The rank and file do not blindly vote for the candidate the union heads endorse. I’m a teamster and never voted for a democrat.
Unions support whomever they think will give them the most money. Period. I was not aware members had any sort of choice in whom their union endorsed.
I am much more worried by the Starbucks, NPR, Academic elitist idiots etc.
Unfortunately, it seems that the union leadership understands supply and demand about as well as Dick (we can't drill our way out of this problem) Durbin. I predict their stupidity will cost me my career and they will blame it on George Bush.
I don't even want to think about how the carbon credit nonsense will effect the airline industry.
Fortunately my wife has a good non-union job.
AFL-CIO is my old union, when I was still employed. Always a joy ha-ha to learn where my dues go.
Thank you Lawnguy...as a Union electrician...and a one of a few conservatives...
IIRC...the cross over union vote for Bush was around 40%...
Funniest moment for me as an IAFF member was seeing the firefighters’ union come out right off the bat this season - for Christopher Dodd!
Like he had a chance and the firefighters would push his marshmallow rump over the finish line!
I know that groupthink can lead to some pretty awful decision making, but Holy Cow. Who came in second at that meeting...Kucinich?
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