Labor "Still With Obama, but Worried"

[ProSense]

Still With Obama, but Worried

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: March 2, 2010

<...>

Mr. Obama has certainly taken numerous actions that have pleased labor: pushing through the $787 billion stimulus plan, naming a union-friendly labor secretary and ruling against China in trade disputes involving tires and steel.

“He really does get it,” said the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president, Richard L. Trumka. “He understands what working people are going through and he really does listen and we really have a seat at the table.”

“It’s totally unfair to say that the president hasn’t done this or done that,” Mr. Trumka added. “He’s tried on the stimulus bill. He faces tremendous Republican opposition. On health care, I give him the highest marks for tenacity.”

Mr. Trumka said that unions would not campaign for Democrats who had done little for labor, especially on issues like the card-check bill. Even though Mr. Brown’s victory denied the Democrats the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, Mr. Trumka voiced confidence that Mr. Obama and the Democrats would find a way to enact that bill, the Employee Free Choice Act.

Union leaders have adopted varied strategies toward Mr. Obama. Some criticize him to nudge him to do more, while others praise him, hoping to reassure a restive rank and file that he still deserves their support.

“We haven’t gotten everything we’ve wanted, but we sure get a hell of a lot of things from him,” said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

more

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[tabatha]

2. "On health care, I give him the highest marks for tenacity"

No-one has gotten further with a health care bill.

[amborin]

10. w/ a health care bill that harms the middle class and helps big insurance corporations, that is

[Bluenorthwest]

15. High marks for tenacity! On an issue that needs will, and ideas

praising his tenacity is like saying 'well, his work is very neat' when asked about the content. It is called damning with feint praise.
Clearly you, and the OP, are not Union members. You do not speak the language. You seem to need wee emoticons to draw a picture for you.
Tenacity in this context is like an A for attendance.

[TomCADem]

3. He Also Named Labor Friendly Appointees, Which Are Being Blocked By The GOP

I think most unions recognize that President Obama has been enourmously supportive of the issues labor cares for, and the primary impediment has been Republican willingness to bring down our nation through a record setting number of filibusters.

[burning rain]

4. Obama refuses to use recess appointments.

And Senate Democrats refuse to deploy the nuclear option. Where they've failed, they've chosen to fail.

[TomCADem]

5. The Republicans Are Filibustering At A Record Setting Pace, And They Get A Free Pass?

Also, isn't the nuclear option called the nuclear option because it should only be used as a last resort? The irony is that many of us are now advocating that President Obama act like a Republican when the real solution is for the American people to condemn Republicans for being treasonous and acting like anti-democratic a-holes.

Instead, we are attack our own because they don't act like Republicans and rely on recess appointments, and simply do away with the filibuster. Of course, if the Republicans do take over Congress and the Presidency, they could happily push the envelope further. And they will.

[burning rain]

7. Republicans aren't elected to be help mates to Democrats.

I hate them but at the same time I realize they are doing their job, that is, to defeat the other party (us) at all costs. I certainly do fault Obama and congressional Democrats for not using all legal means to steamroll those wretches.

[TomCADem]

17. Republicans Also Take An Oath Of Office...

...and to intentionally try to bring the Federal Government to its knees, and imperil the economy and our nation's security should be condemned. Let me put it this way, when Republicans vote against the bills they themselves sponsor in order to make sure no legislation gets out of the Senate, then you have moved beyond a difference of opinion into partisanship that borders upon treason, because this means that you would actually vote against ideas that you support and believe are beneficial to the country merely to score political points.

It would be like Kucinich voting against single payer bill that he sponsored merely because he wanted to make sure that a Republican President did not get credit for signing the bill.

[burning rain]

19. I agree with all that, but there's no lack of Dems & liberal pundits condemning Republicans.

What's lacking is Washington Democrats having the determination to use all legal means to get nominees and legislation through. It also pays to remember that congressional Republicans, by acting in the despicable obstructionist way they are, are pleasing their base, who are even worse. Rank-and-file Republican voters are mostly so crazy that if they fault congressional Republicans for anything, it's for being too cooperative with Obama and Democrats. Congressional Republicans are a vile lot, but I do realize that if they worked with Obama and Democrats, they'd be committing political suicide. They'd be primaried into oblivion by their even more vile base.

[tabatha]

22. +10000

[tabatha]

21. NO!

They are elected to represent the people, NOT to promote themselves. That is NOT democracy, that is autocracy.

[burning rain]

23. Write them a letter.

Tell them they should be patriotic and work with Obama and Democrats for the good of the country, and cut their own political throats by pissing off their base, who hate Obama and Democrats and demand 100% opposition to everything they propose.

Republican base voters do not want democracy. They hate it and endlessly repeat, "America is not a democracy but a republic." They want absolute property rights, no taxation (they call it "theft"), no social protections, no civil rights, no government except for the military and the police. They are fascists and reasonable compromise with them is not possible. They would in fact be happier with a Pinochet-style dictatorship than our form of government, which they see as as a scam that allows deadbeats to rob them by voting themselves a share of their income.

[Hawkowl]

6. WEAKNESS

It is Obama's Achilles heel. He refuses to stand up to the Rethuglican bullies for the powerless. He could do more, if he wanted to. He chooses not to.

[amborin]

9. exactly, he chooses not to

[amborin]

8. Obama could have, and should have, made the recess appt to the NLRB

it's just unfathomable that any president would fail to do so if they cared about helping organized labor; Obama clearly disses organized labor; look how he's allowed EFCA to be gutted; it's just one major blow after another

[amborin]

11. on the contrary, most unions recognize that Obama has dissed labor, and

acted through both ommission and commission to harm labor's interests and the interests of the middle class, more generally;

and I hope you recognize the logical contradition of your post;

you claim that Obama's appointees are being blocked by the GOP;

but then why would any prez whose goals are being thwarted by the opposition, bow down to that opposition, court it, and adopt its agenda?

the fact is, Obama could have helped labor's objectives, but chose not to

[Sherman A1]

12. Precisely

Which is why this member of labor is fed up and will not be participating in the next round.

[bread_and_roses]

14. No, most unions and their members understand that Obama is serving the monied class

The leadership is making political calculations about how to best navigate this landscape to get what scraps they can. Many of us rank and file think they are making the wrong calculation. Unless something changes, I think you'll see even our leaders having one hell of a time turning out rank and file for the enormous political effort we put out in '06 and '08.

That anyone can look at the last year and say that Obama has been "enormously supportive of the issues labor cares for" is so far from reality -

[asdjrocky]

13. Card check anyone? Anyone at all?

[Bluenorthwest]

16. The OP is not a Union member

no need to ask, it is clear. Same for some of the posters in thread. They do not even understand what is being said in the OP by the Union leadership. Because they are not Union, never have been Union, they don't understand the issues, the lexicon, nor do they share the objectives of the Union workers.

[Bluenorthwest]

18. The ariticle quotes ends with this:

Larry Newbury, a longtime member of the firefighters’ union in Traverse City, Mich., is not so sure.

Having voted enthusiastically for Mr. Obama in 2008, Mr. Newbury now says:

“He’s not what he purported to be, which was, ‘I’m going to change things, I’m going to fight for you, the average guy in the street.’ He’s not fighting. He doesn’t have the guts to push hard enough for what he believes. The ones that voted for Obama, they’re not as enthusiastic.”

[GeorgeGist]

20. Mr. Trumka ...

and you, don't get it. Obama is a coward.

[ProSense]

24. "Mr. Trumka...and you, don't get it."?

Really now the head of one of the largest unions is clueless?

Maybe he should be replaced?

Trumka likely understands bullshit when he sees it.