At national meeting, labor leaders criticize Obama administration

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4388

By Mark Gruenberg
2 March 2010

ORLANDO, Fla. - The labor movement is pissed off, in so many words, at the Obama administration – and some leaders say, they’re only reflecting views of their members.
That’s what came through after the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting in Orlando, Fla., spent two hours Tuesday morning behind closed doors venting its frustration with a Democratic president and Democratic-run Congress whom its members played a top role in electing last year.

According to AFSCME President Gerry McEntee, who spoke publicly, and half a dozen other council members, who spoke privately to Press Associates Union News Service, frustrations ranged from failure to push the Employee Free Choice Act to Obama’s backing of the Rhode Island school superintendent who summarily fired all 74 high school teachers when their union, AFT, wouldn’t give in to her demands.

It even extended to reaction to Vice President Joe Biden’s speech to the council the day before, and their closed-door meeting with the V.P., McEntee said. Biden publicly pleaded for time to let the administration’s economic program work.

“I was sitting in the room when we discussed Biden’s speech,” McEntee, chair of the federation’s political committee, added. “There were a lot of discouraged people. They believed it was a speech they had heard a number of times before.”

The complaints are important. “The problem is that people will either sit on their hands or say we’re being taken for granted,” one state federation president told PAI. And Vince Panvini, legislative director for the Sheet Metal Workers, reminded PAI that his union is so mad at congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass EFCA that it suspended all political contributions to candidates last year – and will concentrate on issues instead.

FULL story at link.

[still_one]

1. They are right to be pissed, but they also have their share of the blame when they helped

elect reagan to his first term

As bad as the policies are for labor currently, do they really believe by sitting on their hands that they will get a better deal from republicans?

At least they have a chance with Democrats, and they can work within the Democratic party to challenge Democrats in elections who do not stand with them

They have no chance of that with the republicans

[dkf]

2. The other guy is worse will not win more than grudging non enthused personal voting.

The real motivation needed to get out the vote or to canvass or to phone bank or all the other efforts needed to win elections won't be there. Damn we are screwed.