Union Members Played Big Role in Potomac Primaries

by Seth Michaels, Feb 13, 2008

Union members made up 24 percent of the Democratic primary vote in Maryland yesterday, continuing the strong union household turnout demonstrated in last week’s Super Tuesday elections. In Virginia, where union density is low, exit polls showed union households chalked up an impressive 14 percent of the Democratic primary vote. (Exit polls were not taken in Washington, D.C., and Republican exit polling did not include a question about union membership.)

Fifty-eight percent of Maryland union members voted for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) getting 37 percent of the union vote. In Virginia, Obama received 63 percent of the union vote, compared with 36 percent for Clinton, similar to his statewide results.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won another set of victories and moved closer to the Republican nomination, defeating former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in all three primaries and leading the Republican race with 812 delegates. With McCain as the clear Republican front-runner, it’s time to ask who McCain is and whether his record reflects the commitment to working families that is essential in the next president.

Here’s a quick look at his record:

• McCain voted to filibuster the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have protected the freedom of workers to form unions.
• He describes himself as a “free trader” and strongly supports NAFTA and CAFTA.
• He’s voted against protecting overtime eligibility, in support of the overseas outsourcing of federal jobs and against a clean minimum wage bill—but he’s decided he supports renewing Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
• He’s supported privatized Social Security accounts and raising the eligibility age for Medicare.
• He even crossed a picket line to appear on the “Tonight Show.”

And just last week, he didn’t bother to show up to vote on an economic stimulus package that would have extended unemployment protection and provided tax rebates to low-income families, seniors and veterans. The package failed to pass by a single vote.

No wonder he told the Chicago Tribune that “the issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.”

Obama and Clinton are both sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act, and have spoken out about issues important to working families. In his speech last night in Madison, Wis., Obama addressed key issues like health care, pensions and the economy. He criticized McCain, saying he would bring more of the same that working families have seen under Bush:

We can’t keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result—because it’s a game that ordinary Americans are losing.…It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That’s what happens when the American worker doesn’t have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that’s why we need a president who will listen to Main Street—not just Wall Street; a president who will stand with workers not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard. 

In Clinton’s speech last night in El Paso, Texas, she discussed wages, health care and the housing crisis:

As I travel around the country, I know from what people tell me that a lot of really hard-working folks are concerned. You know, they’re working as hard as they can, but they don’t feel like they’re getting ahead. They’re not getting the kind of health care and educational opportunities that they want for themselves and their children. 

While Clinton and Obama spoke abut the future, McCain seemed firmly stuck in the past. Standing beside him last night as he gave his victory speech were Sen. John Warner and Rep. Tom Davis, two Virginia Republicans who, like many of their colleagues, aren’t willing to face voters this fall. 

In August, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said it would not yet make an endorsement on a 2008 candidate, freeing AFL-CIO unions to endorse candidates for the caucuses and primaries. The AFL-CIO will continue the Working Families Vote 2008 campaign to help elect a worker-friendly Congress and president. 

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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