There is power in a union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/12/there_is_power_in_a_union.cfm

Posted by:
Economist.com l WASHINGTON

Categories:
Labor

ORGANIZED labour leaders open up to the American Prospect on their hopes and dreams for the Barack Obama era. They're awfully optimistic. Says Bill Samuel of the AFL-CIO, "We're talking about a $500 billion jobs bill. No one is talking about free trade as the answer to our economic crisis." Says Anna Burger of the Service Employees International Union, the much-desired Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for employees to unionise, "won't cost the government a dime".

You can see why some labour organisers are worried about the Rod Blagojevich scandal. The fact that the corrupt governor had used a (still unknown) SEIU member as a conduit to the the president-elect's transition team, coupled with Mr Blagojevich's interest in a job with the Change to Win coalition (of which the SEIU is part), is a problen at a time that the union wants to be moving full steam ahead. The official spin from Change to Win is that Mr Blagojevich's job hopes had "no basis in reality". But as the New York Times points out, Mr Blagojevich had paid the SEIU favours such as allowing them to organise state child-care workers, and the union had spent more than $26m to elect Mr Obama to the presidency. (Walk past its office today, and a large flatscreen TV still plays a sunny video documentary about all the work the union did for Mr Obama.)

The union still might come away from the scandal with minimal damage, but this is the last thing it needed as the Democrats move into power.