NYT: Union of Government Workers Seeks to Build Political Muscle

[DeepModem Mom]

Union of Government Workers Seeks to Build Political Muscle
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: August 11, 2006

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced plans yesterday to spend $60 million more a year to campaign for universal health coverage, to unionize 70,000 workers annually and to register 280,000 union members to vote.

The union, the largest of the 53 unions in the A.F.L.-C.I.O., announced what it called a 21st Century Initiative, pledging to become one of the most aggressive unions in organizing and in politics.

With this initiative, the union appears to have taken to heart criticism that organized labor has been lackadaisical about seeking to reverse its decline.

“We looked at ourselves in the mirror and decided that we needed to change,” the union’s president, Gerald W. McEntee, said in a news conference in Chicago. He said the union planned to increase members’ dues by $12 million in 2007, $36 million in 2008 and $60 million in 2009. That would give it a far larger budget to build political power, increase public support for public services, expand the union, and intensify member involvement.

Mr. McEntee, who is chairman of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political committee and has been one of labor’s foremost critics of President Bush, said his union would get 40,000 union volunteers to work in this fall’s campaign and to ensure that 90 percent of the union’s 1.4 million members were registered to vote. Currently, 70 percent are....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/us/11labor.html

[xchrom]

1. woo-hoo! now that is good news!