H Post: After Specter Flip-Flop: Unions' Grass-Roots Campaign vs. Joe the Plumber, Shill

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/after-specter-flip-flop-u_b_180281.html

Posted March 27, 2009 | 09:17 PM (EST)

Washington pundits and even some anxious progressives pronounced the Employee Free Choice Act virtually dead because of Sen. Arlen Specter's flip-flop on the bill. But the union movement is ramping up its largest grass-roots campaign ever, and quite willing to flex its political muscle on behalf of workers' rights.

Stewart Acuff, the special assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO, points out the scope of the grass-roots campaign -- and also sends out hints that centrist and Blue Dog Democrats can't count on labor support anymore if they don't back this bill as they did in the previous Congress. Not only has the AFL-CIO alone helped generate 55,000 hand-written letters to legislators in Washington since January, but Acuff has observed:

What grassroots American movement can in the span of one week run 57 letters to the editor in newspapers across America, send 14,000 handwritten letters to 10 U.S. Senators, and simultaneously plan 35 grassroots advocacy events with workers in 10 states?


America's labor movement, the AFL-CIO, can. Now that the Employee Free Choice Act has been introduced in the U.S. House and Senate, organized labor's multi-state grassroots campaign is running at full throttle. Religious leader are speaking out for the Employee Free Choice Act to create fairness in the economy. Small business owners are sending letters, signing petitions, and testifying about the value to their business of having a union. Newly appointed Colorado Senator, Mike Bennet, says that at every campaign stop and town hall meeting, a worker asks his position on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Acuff said in an interview, "We 're going to escalate our grass-roots campaign, and there's no doubt that our campaign has overwhelmed the campaign of Big Business. I think the number of contacts between workers and workers allies with members of the Senate far exceeds theirs."

FULL story at link.

[GreenTea]

1. Cheers for a strong workers voice - Unions! Having to battle the billions in corporate lobbyist who

constantly weaken workers right, wages, steal pensions, weaken worker safety laws and avoid workers health care & benefits!

WHAT VOICE DOES A SINGLE WORK HAVE?

AGAINST CORPORATIONS SPENDING BILLION OF DOLLARS IN LOBBYIST TO WEAKEN EVERY WORKERS CONCERNS?

WORKERS NEED A COLLECTIVE VOICE SO THEIR NEEDS CAN BE ADDRESSED!

UNIONS!!