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AFL-CIO Presidential Town Hall Forums Kick off This Weekend |
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Beginning this weekend, working families will get the unique opportunity to meet face to face with the Democratic presidential candidates and tell them about our concerns: good jobs and wages, affordable health care for their families, retirement security and a firm plan for getting out of Iraq.
In a series of town hall forums, the candidates will hear from working people about what it’s really like to live in today’s economy. Workers will have the opportunity to ask each candidate how he or she plans to make life better for working people.
The forums, part of the AFL-CIO’s Working Families Vote 2008 mobilization, get under way this Sunday, April 29, in Sacramento, Calif., with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and will be followed on May 1 with former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) in Seattle. Additional town halls with the other Democratic candidates in May and June will culminate in Chicago with a multicandidate forum in August.
In March, the AFL-CIO Executive Council laid out the road map to the union movement’s presidential endorsement that will give union members more opportunity than ever for involvement in deciding what candidate carries the union label.
Along with the candidate forums, the AFL-CIO will provide union members and their families with opportunities to engage the presidential candidates by launching an interactive website.
The AFL-CIO Working Families Vote 2008 campaign is the broadest effort yet to involve working people in the selection of a president, aiming for record turnout in 2008. The town hall meetings will help ensure that the candidates understand working people’s priorities on issues like health care reform, retirement security, jobs and the freedom to form or join a union to bargain for a better life.
In the 2006 elections, the AFL-CIO mobilized more than 13.6 million voters in 32 states in support of working family-friendly candidates. That mobilization played a key role in shifting the majority in Congress.
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Whats so great about the democratic party? The lesser of two evils perhaps, but not exactly the saviors of the working class. Instead of asking political candidates what their plan is to “make life better for working people”, why not take back what we need through grass roots organizing & activism!
I am a political consultant and I know how valuable the unions are especially during an election. I have worked side by side with some of the finest people I have ever met. They have provided an invaluable service to this country. It disheartens me to see how the unions have been brushed aside. I have never ceased to support unions whenever I can. I have walked in informational pickets, participated in candlelight vigils and I am proud to say, I have never crossed a picket line. I refuse to patronize any company that is not union friendly. The working families are the backbone of this country and without them we would indeed be lost.