Unions To Pool Campaign Spending For Midterms

Wall Street Journal:

The leaders of the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union have agreed to coordinate spending millions of dollars in the midterm elections to support pro-union candidates, most of them Democrats.

The two labor organizations say they have a combined $88 million or more to deploy in this year's election cycle. It's not clear how much of that money they will pool together.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[jazgr8]

11:32 PM on 08/26/2010

$88 million? That's a lot of money that could be used to help a lot of union workers.

[getsit]

02:43 PM on 08/26/2010

The unions can't compete with the corporations. Union dues are not allowed to be used for political purposes.

However, if you want to donate small amounts out of your paycheck to your union for political purposes, find out how.

I am SEIU and I donate a small amount monthly, over and above my dues, to their COPE fund. Not only are the funds used to help get federal worker and family candidates elected, but state and local as well. In my area, we are helping Jerry Brown for governor, a local assembly runner, and progressive candidates for supervisor.

If you want to preserve your job and your rights you need progressive candidates in office. They are the only ones that really support working families and the middleclass. The others just give it lip service then betray you behind your back.

[John Mainstream]

01:14 PM on 08/26/2010

Wish RFK were here to investigate guys like this.

[nomoredead]

08:46 PM on 08/25/2010

You should have the right to stay non-union...get less pay, no benefits and no pension. Its your right.

Keep your hands off my non-union job.

[getsit]

02:44 PM on 08/26/2010

Unions effect the safe working conditions and pay rates in the private sector. Otherwise, we'd all be working in sweat shops for low pay and at the risk of injury or illness.

[nomoredead]

05:11 PM on 08/26/2010

Notice I mention less pay, on benefits and no pension... I'm a proud union man.

[Blegoo]

04:52 PM on 08/25/2010

I find it telling that my tong-in-cheek comment from 6 hours ago it's still the first to see...
Sad, people, when all the debate is parallel to the subject.

Most of the new comments are either "unions are god's gift to the workers" or "unions are a bunch of thugs".

I propose to stick to the essence of the article:
Unions' coalition is prepared to spend 88 mil. (+) during the coming elections.

It's legal.

Is it moral?

[getsit]

02:49 PM on 08/26/2010

Corporations donate BILLIONS to worker and family unfriendly candidates and elected officials. It is legal yes.

Is it moral or ethical-NO!

Why are you against having your rights as an American Citizen along with your fellow Americans' rights protected? Doesn't seem logical or self protective at all.

So, in the interest of fairness, $88M doesn't seem so much to spend-it should be more if it was really competitive.

[Yikes11]

02:12 PM on 08/25/2010

Try doing some research you schmucks. Unions are friends of the working class, always has been. If it weren't for unions, some of you lunk heads would still be working 12 hour shifts and being paid substandard wages. What a bunch of loons. You just tow the line, and goose step to everything those kkklowns tell you.

[Blegoo]

04:18 PM on 08/25/2010

Great choice of words to attract new members...

[Yikes11]

02:10 PM on 08/25/2010

With workers recognizing the power of their employers, the number of local union organizations increased steadily during the mid-19th century. In a number of cities, unions in various trades joined together in citywide federations. The Nation Labor Union, (actually a federation- an organization of local unions) formed in 1866. The NLU eventually persuaded Congress to pass an eight hour day for Federal workers. Never very strong, it was a casualty of the sweeping economic depression of 1873.

[Yikes11]

02:09 PM on 08/25/2010

By the 1820s, various unions involved in the effort to reduce the working day from 12 to 10 hours began to show interest in the idea of federation-of joining together in pursuit of common objectives for working people.

As ineffective as these first efforts to organize may have been, they reflected the need of working people for economic and legal protection from exploiting employers. The invention of the steam engine and the growing use of water power to operate machinery were developing a trend toward a factory system not much different from that in England which produced misery and slums for decades. Starting in the 1830s and accelerating rapidly during the Civil War, the factory system accounted for an ever-growing share of American production. It also produced great wealth for a few, grinding poverty for many.

[Yikes11]

02:08 PM on 08/25/2010

The roots of our country's trade unions extend deep into the early history of America. Several of the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were working craftsmen. Captain John Smith, who led the ill-fated settlement in 1607 on Virginia's James River, pleaded with his sponsors in London to send him more craftsmen and working people.

Primitive unions, or guilds, of carpenters and cordwainers, cabinet makers and cobblers made their appearance, often temporary, in various cities along the Atlantic seaboard of colonial America. Workers played a significant role in the struggle for independence; carpenters disguised as Mohawk Indians were the "host" group at the Boston Tea Party in 1773. The Continental Congress met in Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia, and there the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. In "pursuit of happiness" through shorter hours and higher pay, printers were the first to go on strike, in New York in 1794; cabinet makers struck in 1796; carpenters in Philadelphia in 1797; cordwainers in 1799. In the early years of the 19th century, recorded efforts by unions to improve the workers' conditions, through either negotiation or strike action, became more frequent

[Blegoo]

04:17 PM on 08/25/2010

Oooh, the Liberal-Democrat History Chanel...
:-)
Why don't you start with ancient Roman Empire?

[getsit]

02:52 PM on 08/26/2010

I appreciate the knowledge but obviously other don't. All they need to know the can see on Faux Fiction News. No fact need apply.

[SilenceDoGood1776]

12:19 PM on 08/25/2010

The hypocrisy of unions. They hired non-union workers to protest hiring of non-union workers.

[Tim McCown]

12:16 PM on 08/25/2010

Its about time organized labore got organized. The only reason we had a strong middle class in the 1950's and 1960's was the strength of organized labor. Unions balanced all the money of the rich so we didn't have a greedocracy. For the past year on my blog Philadelphia Progressive Examiner I have talked about a unionized form of globalization that forces living standards up with higher wages, safety, and medical benefits, along with environmental protections and the extension of democracy, if you want an open border with the US when it comes to trade. Since Reagan the trade deals we have made would be called suicidal tendencies not Free Trade. As a worker I will tell you right now if work wasn't more like a bannana republic than a democracy I would ould join a union in a heartbeat but if you want a job in this economy you don't dare excercize your rights.

[SilenceDoGood1776]

12:28 PM on 08/25/2010

How did that work for the USSR? It was a labor party. There was no middle class.

[Blegoo]

04:15 PM on 08/25/2010

Yeah... GOOD IDEA!
Let's have mandatory unionizing!!!
That will bring back the middle class... and all environmental protection, the wages and health care from the fifties...

Or... much simpler... let's get a time machine... and get back to the golden unionized era...

[ForObamaInDallas]

12:02 PM on 08/25/2010

Part of the dismantling of unions was the systematic vilification of them to the current and next generations.

[blueman00009]

12:32 PM on 08/25/2010

Yep, same with the term Liberal. If the fools would look up the definition of a liberal, how could such a person be so vilified? Makes no sense. But that is the right wing for you.

[SilenceDoGood1776]

12:49 PM on 08/25/2010

If only liberals acted like the definition. Problem is, they don't.

You must totally agree with libertarians then. How can you be against liberty and freedom.

[kmichal456]

11:57 AM on 08/25/2010

Why is 8% of the nation made up mostly of freeloaders trying to influence my future?

[hedylamarr]

11:56 AM on 08/25/2010

A good product sells itself. If union membership is so good for you, why do so many people revile the concept as much as bedbugs? Price controls, whether it is via labor wage controls or setting prices on goods and services, is a recipe for economic unsustainability and is another form of Ponzi scheme because it depends on a sufficient number of people not belonging to the same union club and asking for the same high wages. Next time a union worker goes out to buy that Chinese made digital handcam to take to the Big Ten football game, I expect they will tell the fellow at the camera counter at that big box retail store that they want to pay DOUBLE the price to raise the wage of the Chinese laborer to something closer to your American union wage level.

[lazercat2008]

11:27 AM on 08/25/2010

It's about time the Unions got smart and realized they are an endangered species.