DNC host group seeks union input

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Rocky Mountain News

DNC host group seeks union input

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News
April 14, 2007

The local host committee for the 2008 Democratic National Convention has asked union leaders to recommend multiple candidates to serve on a "labor outreach" panel that will work on union issues.

"The situation is delicate so we'd like input," Denver Host Committee CEO Mike Dino said. "It's just a matter of getting buy-in from the labor community on who they'd like to see" in those positions.

At meetings with convention officials this week, labor leaders questioned why unions had no voice in the planning process for next summer's confab. They also laid out their concerns about the labor climate in Denver.

Mayor John Hickenlooper, who met with labor leaders Thursday to discuss their concerns, characterized the tone of those talks as "very positive."

Read more: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5483691,00.html

[yourout]

1. The one thing that irks me is the DNC appears to ignore unions exept when fishing for votes.

The seem to take the Union vote for granted.

[madfloridian]

2. Not the DNC under Dean as chairman. Please be fair.

He is working very hard with unions, and what you posted is not true of the DNC under his leadership.

[yourout]

3. I will grant you that.....It has been better under Dean.

But for a long stretch even in the Clinton years organized labor was taken for granted.

[madfloridian]

4. You are right....I just posted about that. It was deliberate.

The DLC's effort to win Meeks's vote was part of a vigorous campaign by New Democrats to assure legislators that business groups would replace campaign contributions from labor lost by a pro-business China vote. In The New Democrat, the DLC's monthly magazine, Washington's most powerful business lobbyist, Thomas J. Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote that even though some members of Congress risked losing the AFL-CIO's support, "business will stick by Democrats on the China trade vote."

Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

They told Democrats that business would get their financial backs if they voted for the trade agreements. And they left their traditional constituents behind for the money.

[LetsThink]

5. We Need Unions Today More Than Ever........

Unions are the answer to big business which goes after markets with little concern for those in the market 'ecosystem'. They push sales with little true concern for consumers and push for cheaper costs with no concern for those actually doing the work. This new aggressive push marketing and bully-the-worker mentality is among reasons the middle class is squeezed today and those in the lower economic brackets are falling further behind. When trustworthy and acting in a true fiduciary capacity, Unions protect the interests of everyone not part of the upper management privileged.

Yes Unions fall prey to human weakness from time to time. But we need them now more then ever. Unions are key to restoring the balance of power between those sweating on the machine shop floor, those purchasing the widgets with every shrinking real wages and the fat ones who sleeping on obscenely fat paychecks, protected by golden parachutes and royal retirement packages. With Antitrust AWOL at Commerce, and laws still reflecting the corporate reach of special interest groups……We need Unions now more than ever.

[yourout]

6. No argument here.......I say if they want to stop illegal immigration do this.

Crackdown in a big way on employers.

Try and slowdown the underground railroad bringing them in.

After things have calmed down allow those with US born children to immigrate and

MAKE DAMN SURE THEY CAN AND DO JOIN UNIONS.

Guest worker programs can NOT be allowed simply because of the effect on the US labor.


I know it kind of a random post but that is what happens when you mix a keyboard and a couple of brewskis.

[Proletariatprincess]

7. Labor Law reform is what we need.

The USA is decades behind other industrialized nations when it comes to the laws that protect workers. Further, the laws are not inforced and allow employers to ignore them with relative impunity....the cost of doing business to pay the small fines.
There would be no immigration "problem" if the Labor law was fair and well enforced. The bosses have been getting away with it for way too long and everyone in this country suffers because of it.
Democrats need to repeal the Taft Hartly Act as soon as possible and begin to create at least a semblance of a level playing field.