Obama Supports Pro-Worker Policies—and Union Members Support Obama

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/07/24/obama-supports-pro-worker-policiesand-union-members-support-obama/

by Seth Michaels, Jul 24, 2008

In his video introduction submitted to last year’s AFL-CIO Presidential Candidates Forum, Sen. Barack Obama laid out some of his personal history and connected it to why he’s running for president. It’s worth watching again now that he’s the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee. As he said:

I worked as a community organizer for a group of churches, helping to turn around neighborhoods that were devastated by the closing of steel plants. By bringing people together, we set up job-training and after-school programs, and we taught people to stand up to their government when it wasn’t standing up for them. That’s the kind of organizing we need today.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MsCCSC68-hg

In the video, Obama said health care, good wages, a secure retirement and the freedom to form unions are at the heart of the change the country needs, and he’s continued to focus on these issues in the general election campaign.

This is why the AFL-CIO endorsed Obama last month: because he’s a candidate who understands, cares about and will fight for working families.

Around the country, union members are responding by getting involved in the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 program, a historic effort to mobilize millions of workers, retirees and family members to elect a pro-working family president and Congress. They’re carrying out the most effective kind of mobilization—union member-to-member contacts, at worksites, doors and union meetings.

With close races in swing states around the country, union voters will make the difference this fall. Every vote will be important.

FULL story at link.

Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

[Coexist]

1. Teamsters left the ANWR Coalition for the hope Green Jobs bring:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=367&topic_id=12843&mesg_id=12843

[panader0]

2. A question Steve: as the leading labor expert on DU:

What percentage of unions, or voter numbers, are in Obama's camp? In my mind, it would be all of them. Why would unions support mcain?

[Omaha Steve]

3. I live in a red state

It is about 50-50 at my plant. In the local, I'm not sure. But unions made the difference in 06. I looked up these Super Tuesday numbers. I think there will be a repeat.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/06/super-t-super-union-turnout/

by Seth Michaels, Feb 6, 2008

Union members turned out in big numbers in yesterday’s Super Tuesday 23-state primary election. According to exit polls in California, union households made up 32 percent of the vote in the nation’s most populous state. Union voters made up 33 percent of the vote in Connecticut, 30 percent in Delaware, 38 percent in Illinois, 27 percent in Massachusetts, 27 percent in Missouri, 35 percent in New Jersey and 40 percent in New York.

CNN noted that last night saw a record-breaking turnout in Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Key to understanding the primaries is the difference in party rules. In the Republican primaries, the winner takes all delegates in a state. In the Democratic primaries, delegates are apportioned through various combinations that allot delegates based on the percentage of the vote statewide and assignment based on victories in congressional districts.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) won eight states, including the largest states, California and New York. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) won in 13 states.

FULL article at link.