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Clinton: Under Bush, Working People Have Been Invisible |
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| Hillary Clinton met today with union members in Detroit. | |
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Hundreds of union members gathered this morning in Detroit for an AFL-CIO Town Hall meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton, who succinctly summed up the past six years of the Bush administration:
A lot of hard-working people in this country have been invisible to this administration.
Speaking at the Electrical Workers (IBEW) union hall near downtown, Clinton said the Bush administration has ignored the problems of working men and women. The AFL-CIO, which has not endorsed any candidate for president, is holding these town hall forums as part of an intensive six-month program to engage union members and their families nationwide in the AFL-CIO’s presidential endorsement decision-making process. Each presidential candidate is offered their choice of cities for the forums and Clinton selected Detroit.
When I was asked where I wanted to go, I said one place: Detroit.
One reason Clinton chose Detroit is to highlight the nation’s need for a strong manufacturing sector. As Clinton put it:
If we don’t have a strong manufacturing sector, it won’t be long before we don’t have a strong economy.
She specifically called for the rejection of the Korea-US (KORUS) trade deal.
Clinton also heard from several workers who spoke about their personal experiences with the outsourcing of good American jobs, the difficulties workers face today when trying to form a union and this country’s health care crisis.
Janine Berry and her co-workers told Clinton about their experiences in seeking to form a union to bargain for a better life with AFT, a teachers union. After a long and difficult struggle to form a union, Berry and her co-workers won recognition. However, they remain without a union contract because the company continues to use intimidation and stall tactics to avoid an agreement.
Clinton pledged to sign the Employee Free Choice Act if she became president, legislation that will defend workers’ freedom to join and form unions and require arbitration if workers and a company can’t come to a first contract.
“When I’m president, we will have an Employee Free Choice Act, and I will sign it and I will work for it,” promised Clinton.
Jamie Fox Brown, a member of the public-employees union, AFSCME, was a medical technician at St. Johns Hospital until it recently closed. More than 1,400 employees lost their jobs—after providing years of quality health care to others, Brown and other health care providers quickly lost their access to health care.
“It’s fundamentally wrong that in a nation as rich as ours when so many are left out of a service we need,” said Clinton, calling for universal health care. She also emphasized the nation needs to address its health care crisis to remain competitive in the global economy.
Previous town hall forums have included Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Chris Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama. Upcoming town halls will include former Gov. Bill Richardson in Phoenix on June 21 and Rep. Kucinich.
Find out more about all the candidates, and get easy access to video clips, polling, the latest political news from bogs around the country and more at the new AFL-CIO Working Families Vote 2008 website.
11 Comments
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I hope the AFL-CIO brothers and sisters, and the leadership know that Hillary’s chief strategist, Mark Penn is CEO of Burson-Marsteller a PR firm that represents Union Busting corporations.
Not only that Burson-Marsteller represent the right wing Columbian government, which hired death squads to assasinate Union leaders given to them by the Columbian Presidents campaign manager.
very disturbing. read here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/08/ap/politics/main2906536.shtml
I agree with Go Unions. How soon we forget that Hillary sat on the Board of Directors for Wal-Mart and did nothing to better their record on worker’s rights. During her husband’s administration, their record for working people is even more deplorable. The composition of her current staff is another glaring example of how she doesn’t really give a damn about working people. She just views us as another source to fill her campaign coffers.
Her comments are crocodile tears. Period.
Hillary Clinton has never been a friend of the labor movement, and it’s time we started making these “democrats” who come to us for our endorsement every year work for our vote. Nothing from them, nothing for them. Personally, I think it’s way past time we began to build a mass party of our own, based upon the only truly democratic institution in this country, the labor movement.
The previous three comments were very good to expose Hillary for what she really is. So I guess i’ll throw in the fact that she is in favor of granting amnesty to between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens who drive down wages of working Americans and drain our social services.
NO Hillary, not know not ever!
Hillary Clinton has done a great deal of good work for union workers and workers who need union protection. It is all on record. We have watched all of the Democratic candidates with great attention and we feel Hillary Clinton is the most commited to the concerns of working people. She has worked relentlessly on their behalf and her attendance at a number of recent union conferences and forums proves how knowledgeable she is and how attuned she is to the concerns of union members. Hillary can, and has, identified all the issues of importance, and others that have fallen below the radar as well.
Please read this incredible endorsement of Hillary by the New York State AFL-CIO
President, Denis Hughes:
http://www.nysaflcio.org/press_releases/2007/clinton_town_hall.htm
Hillary Clinton as New York Labor’s “Favorite Sister”
Whereas, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton is one of several candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and
Whereas, as a twice endorsed candidate of the New York State AFL-CIO, Senator Clinton has consistently displayed, through countless deeds and actions, a strong commitment to the needs and concerns of working men and women, and
Whereas, through her seven years as a U.S. Senator, Hillary Clinton has worked on far reaching national legislation that would further the cause of all workers, such as supporting an increase in the minimum wage, co-sponsoring the Employee Free Choice Act and the Family Medical Leave Expansion Act, and opposing CAFTA, and
Whereas, Senator Clinton has also worked diligently on local labor issues in New York that sometimes fly under the national radar but are vital to the future of local unions and rank and file members, and
Whereas, Senator Clinton has led the fight on the aforementioned local issues, such as supporting funding for the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Health Care program, calling CEO’s on behalf of numerous local unions to help expedite contract negotiations when the employer had tried to stall talks, expressing support for card-check recognition for local workers who were seeking to form a union, and has made it a priority to be supportive of unions during organizing drives and strikes, and
Whereas, the New York State AFL-CIO represents one out of every seven union members in the country, thus providing the State Labor Federation with a significant voice concerning candidates worthy of labor’s support, and
Whereas, male candidates from a home state receiving support from a group or organization are traditionally referred to as a “favorite son”, and
Whereas, the term “labor brothers and sisters” historically denotes the unity, solidarity and shared sense of purpose amongst union members, as well as their staunchest allies, therefore be it
Resolved, that the New York State AFL-CIO will consider Senator Clinton as a “favorite sister” of the New York State AFL-CIO.
Pace to Clinton
You’re for the exportation of jobs and the importation of guest workers. All this is, is the exploitation of poverty to provide an endless supply of cheap labor for corporate profit. You are no friend of Labor either.
With all due respect, Ms. Regan, I have a sneaking suspicion, given the tone of your response, that you are a professional blogger hired by the Clinton Campaign to surf these forums and post your comments.
I believe the sooner this country realizes Washington is home to a giant, corporate, one-party system masquerading as a two-party system, the better off we will all be. It serves them well to keep us fighting amongst ourselves as it keeps us distracted while they rob us blind.
HRC’s vote to invade Iraq was a cynical and calculated political move to portray herself as a tough and strong potential commander in chief. That she won’t even admit her vote was a mistake speaks volumes about her character. As others here have pointed out, she is no friend of the working class.
For another view on the Detroit forum, check
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/…
Monday, June 11, 2007 :Saturday’s Detroit town hall meeting for Hillary Clinton, sponsored by the Detroit and Michigan AFL-CIO, should dispel any illusion that the election of a Democratic president in 2008 will put an end to the aggressive, America-first foreign policy that produced the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.
…
The AFL-CIO officials were clearly uneasy at holding a town hall meeting in the most impoverished large city in America and a metropolitan area with some of the most extreme contrasts between wealth and poverty. The audience was carefully selected to ensure that the discussion did not get out of control. Local unions distributed the tickets required for admission, and those who participated in panel discussion with Clinton or asked questions from the floor were prescreened.
Read More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/…
I look at Hillary’s record and I see something different than what a previous poster wrote. I heard her comment about the Korea trade deal, but nothing about the Colombian FTA. Most likely because her husband helped develop and support the over $5 billion plan that allowed right wing Colombian paras to become the major drug force in the world, steal land displacing millions of people, murder thousands of people including union members, massively reducing union membership and further entrenching the rich elite of the country that still maintains having over 55% living below the poverty level. She voted for the deadly war in Iraq. She won’t admit a mistake there and I don’t see her doing anything to admit that her husband made an error with Colombia. Her strategic team consists of those working against unions. Other posters have already mentioned her other flaws towards unions.
Mark Penn, Hillary’s strategist, is an expert at manipulating using half-truths and one-sided presentation. Let’s hope America see beyond that when it comes time to vote.
Too little and too late! Can Detroit, once the Arsenal of Democracy which plays a key role in defeating Japan, be saved? Toyota and other Japanese carmakers are deeply implanted (products and manufacturing facilities) in the good old USA. What a sweet revenge for a humiliating defeat in WWII. Years of neglect by the Bush Administration, coupled that with the treasonable ’stab in the back’ policies of the Republicans in Congress, have seriously eroded American manufacturing base. Like the threat of Japanese rapid industrialization and militarism in the mid-Twentieth Century, a new Asian nation has risen from being a poor agricultural country to the foremost manufacturing nation in the whole world in this Twenty-First Century.
Hillary appears to be Republican-lite. She was on the Board of Wal-Mart, she is heavily connected to the Defense and Pharmaceutical Industries, and she is no Bill Clinton. She is a threat to this country and the world and is unelectable. Senator Clinton you WILL GET US OUT OF IRAQ NOW! Most of our budget is funding Bush’s criminal war in Iraq and you Hillary are a CRIMINAL if you fund this Defense Authorization Bill. When will you shut the Government down like they tried to do to yur husband; When will you start Impeachment and trial in the Senate?