Obama to union leaders: 'We can't do it without you'

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3738

By Mark Gruenberg
3 August 2008

WASHINGTON - Prospective Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told more than 2,500 union leaders nationwide that "we can't do it without you" if he is to win the White House this fall and advance workers' causes when he gets there.

In a nationwide conference call Thursday arranged by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Obama, speaking from Iowa, reiterated his pro-worker positions, specifically twice mentioning his determination to push and sign the Employee Free Choice Act, the legislation designed to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining.

"If I'm elected president, I'll sign EFCA because if the majority of workers want a union, they should have one," he declared.

"And we're gong to have a president who isn't afraid to say labor needs to be strong, a Department of Labor that works for workers and a National Labor Relations Board" that follows labor law, not management dictates, he added.

Obama also promised to "negotiate new trade agreements with worker rights in them, crate three million" new ‘Green" jobs – a longtime Steel Workers cause – and create 2 million jobs "building locks and dams and roads." A lot of union workers, he noted, would get high-paying jobs "aboard those earth movers" and other construction equipment in those projects.

But, drawing on his experience as an organizer on Chicago's South Side – before he entered the Illinois Senate and the U.S. Senate – Obama warned the unionists that he could not win the election by himself. Grass-roots organizing, he said, is much more important and effective than top-down commands.

FULL story at link.

[Cha]

1. Thanks, Steve...We need Unions and

it's reciprocal!