New Post: Labor Movement Rallies For Hillary Clinton In Primary #IACaucus

Iowa Starting Line ?@IAStartingLine 2h2 hours ago

In today's post: handy list of unions backing Hillary compared to who endorsed & when in 08: http://iowastartingline.com/2015/11/22/labor-movement-rallies-for-hillary-clinton-in-primary/ …


Iowa Starting Line ?@IAStartingLine 3h3 hours ago

New Post: Labor Movement Rallies For Hillary Clinton In Primary #IACaucus
http://iowastartingline.com/2015/11/22/labor-movement-rallies-for-hillary-clinton-in-primary/ …




Labor Movement Rallies For Hillary Clinton In Primary

Hillary Clinton scored a major victory this past week by gaining the endorsement of SEIU, the healthcare workers union that represents over 2 million workers. That bumped the total membership of unions backing her candidacy to over 10 million. With the endorsements of 13 labor unions so far, including the heavyweights of AFSCME, the NEA and SEIU, Clinton has dominated the race for labor support. Most notably, several unions on her list either back Obama or Edwards in 2008, or stayed neutral.

Clinton touts a shared agenda with the labor movement, and her campaign highlights her 94% lifetime voting record with the AFL-CIO, along with her past sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act and co-sponsorship of Ted Kennedy’s Overtime Compensation Protection Act.

Labor’s presence in support of Clinton has been increasingly visible the past several months. They were some of her loudest cheerers at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in October, with seats right near the stage. AFSCME is in the process of opening a number of AFSCME for Hillary field offices around the state to organize their members to caucus for Clinton.

Sanders secured the endorsements of two major unions so far: the Postal Workers Union and the National Nurses United union. The Postal Workers represent more than 250,000 members; Nurses United have around 185,000 members. The nurses union have already joined Sanders on the campaign trail, leading a march of Sanders supporters nearby Drake’s campus during last week’s Democratic debate there.

A few major outstanding unions yet to make their decision include the UFCW and Teamsters, who backed Obama in 2008. The transit unions of ATU and UTU, along with the office professionals union of OPEIU, which all supported Clinton in 2008, also haven’t weighed in yet. Another major undecided is the Steelworkers, who originally backed John Edwards in September 2007, then switched to Obama in May 2008. The Firefighters union, always a sought-after prize (they endorsed Dodd for 2008), also remains unaligned. And of course there’s the AFL-CIO, which remained neutral in 2008 for the primary, and cautioned some of its locals from backing Sanders early on this cycle.

To get a sense of Clinton’s strength with labor, here is a list of all her endorsements so far this year (in order of when they endorsed), compared to who they backed in the 2008 cycle and when:......................