AFL-CIO Unions Mobilizing for 2006 Elections $$$$$

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/17/afl-cio-unions-mobilizing-for-2006-elections/

Legislation & Politics

Aug 17

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AFL-CIO Unions Mobilizing for 2006 Elections

When one of the teams in a football game is revved up, hitting hard and not giving the other side any breaks, announcers proclaim, “This team came to play.” Well, if the latest round of union conventions is any indication, the union movement is coming to play in the 2006 elections.

Whether you were in Chicago with AFSCME, in Sacramento with the California School Employees Association (CSEA) or in Atlanta with AFGE, it’s clear union members are mobilizing for the upcoming elections and making sure working people use their political clout to turn the country around.

The more than 3,400 AFSCME delegates took a bold step toward regaining political power and voted to create a 40,000-member army of volunteers to register 90 percent of AFSCME members to vote and turn out on Election Day.

As part of the 21st Century Initiative, a sweeping strategic overhaul of the union, union delegates also voted to increase dues to create a $60-million war chest to expand workers’ power and reclaim rights that are under assault by President Bush and the Republican-led Congress.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, chairman of the AFL-CI0 Committee on Political Education, said:

In the last six years, we have seen a newfound audacity from anti-union business leaders and the politicians they bankroll. They have become shameless in their attacks on working people. Our contracts are getting tougher to negotiate. Our middle class is shrinking. Even our basic rights to join a union and bargain collectively are now being taken away.

AFSCME delegates also voted to fund new organizing drives to expand union membership and win representation rights for 70,000 new workers per year.

In other convention news:

* Calling for an emphasis on unity, AFGE President John Gage, who was re-elected to a second three-year term, said:

It’s our turn. Our focus is now on the Nov. 7 congressional elections. We plan to help elect a Congress with men and women who are actually responsive to the needs of the American people, particularly the nation’s working families.

David Cox, formerly the first vice president of the union’s National Veterans Affairs Council, was elected secretary-treasurer. Andrea Brooks was elected to another term as vice president for women’s and fair practices. Brooks also is an AFL-CIO vice president.

* Nearly 2,000 CSEA delegates, most clad in blue union T-shirts, marched to the state Capitol Building in Sacramento to demand quality, affordable health care. CSEA is supporting a bill in the legislature that would create a nonprofit insurance plan for all Californians.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney summed up the goals of the AFL-CIO union movement last week in his address to CSEA delegates:

We have to remind voters that the sick, the elderly, the young, the poor, minorities and the middle class have been abandoned by a government that is as uncaring as it is incompetent. Our job between now and Nov. 7 is to register and educate members and family. You have to get them to the polls with the belief that, together, we can get candidates from both parties who will fight for good jobs and good health care for every single person in our country, candidates who want to turn our country around.

We will highlight more union convention action in the coming weeks.

by James Parks

tags: AFSCME, Gerald McEntee, John Sweeney, California School Employees Association, CSEA, AFGE, John Gage, Andrea Brooks

[demnan]

1. Someone here is bound to say

that the unions influence is wrong and we need to keep everything pure in politics :evilgrin: