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AFL-CIO Statement on Specter Joining the Democratic Party |
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Sen. Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania announced a short while ago he is switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Specter’s vote on the Employee Free Choice Act has been pivotal in determining whether the critical working families’ legislation will pass. Here’s AFL-CIO Legislative Affairs Director Bill Samuel on Specter’s announcement:
We look forward to continuing an open and honest debate with Senator Specter about the issues that are important to Pennsylvania and America. We move forward with the understanding that America’s workers support elected officials based on their positions on issues that matter to working people, not political affiliations.
This is a new day for the Employee Free Choice Act and labor law reform. Sen. Specter has said all along that he recognizes the need to reform our broken labor law system and we will continue to work with Congress to give workers back the freedom to form and join unions and pass legislation that stays true to the principals of the Employee free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act is built on three fundamental principles and we believe a bill that stays true to these will become law:
- Workers need to have a real choice to form a union and bargain for a better life, free from intimidation;
- We have to stop the endless delays; companies can’t just stall to stop workers’ choice;
- There have to be real penalties for violating the law.
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Hopefully, Specter will realize that the playing field needs to be leveled. Not only is it nearly impossible to form a union without fear and intimidation by employers, but union-busting has grown into a $4 billion a year business in the U.S. alone. Companies that previously had good relationships with their union employees have been emboldened by weak labor laws. One of those is the McGraw-Hill Companies. Read more at:
http://nabetcwa54.org
I am glad to hear that Senator Spector has finallly decided to join the Democratic party. During the Bush years he was one of the few Republicans who showed any support for Labor. In recent days under the Obama administration he has been increasinly pressured by the Republicans not to support Obama’s progressive and Pro Labor policies.
A a member of the Democratic party,(the only major Political Party) that supports Labor, I welcome Senator Spector to the fold.
Did YOU Get The Memo on EFCA and Sen. Specter Today?
http://digg.com/d1pok8
TO: All Journalists
FROM: Union Activists and Bloggers
Re: The Employee Free Choice Act
The bill is far from dead. This is just the beginning of Labor Reform and Worker Rights So you better keep an eye on it.
Just today Obama signaled a big shift in labor policy by tapping three veterans of the labor movement for crucial posts within the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board.
Mary Beth Maxwell a founder of the EFCA-advocacy group American Rights at Work, as a senior adviser at the Labor Department and Craig Becker currently associate general counsel for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, and a longtime law professor and Mark Pearce labor lawyer nominated to the National Labor Relations Board.
Sen. Specter Switches Party
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/specter-to-switch-parties.html
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/specter-will-run-as-a-democrat-in-2010/
Politico: Specter switch could help labor bill: About one vote short,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21806.html
If you’ve got any questions, you can try to contact us through our newspaper blogs, twitter, think tanks or local grassroots networks, YOU can count on us to get back to you. Were NOT Going Away!
A NEW DAY IS HERE! Employee Free Choice Act NOW!
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
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Read and sign these legislative petitions please and
get hundreds of people to sign them and they will
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http://www.change.org/actions/view/i_demand_that_the_congress_and_the_president_enact_the_womens_freedom_of_choice_act_into_law
Senator Specter may succeed in weakening both parties - the Republicans by subtracting a vote from their caucus, and the Democrats by luring them away from the progressive goals we elected them to pursue.
Let’s be cautious about this. Specter has been a lifelong Republican. Make sure there is nothing devious or manipulative about his switch. The coming months will show where he really stands on issue.
Specter disappointed most Democrats, union members and progressives in Pennsylvania with his anti-Employee Free Choice Act comments at the end of his Party switching announcements.
He should not expect to continue holding Republican views on issues like the Employee Free Choice Act and expect to be the 2010 Democratic Senate nominee. Issues and values matter to Pennsylvania voters.
Specter needs to move solidly into the mainstream of Democratic policy positions including the Employee Free Choice Act or he will be defeated in the Democratic primary. Nobody in Washington is going to force Pennsylvania Democrats to field a 2010 Senate candidate who opposes the Employee Free Choice Act. It will not happen!
The Employee Free Choice Act is a deal breaker. Specter needs the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania more than the Pennsylvania Democratic Party needs him. We are not going to compromise our values or policy positions just to suit Specter.
If Specter wants to join the team, he will have to prove to Pennsylvania voters that he knows which team he is on. We do not demand complete agreement on every issue but his voting record has to improve!
Dear Labor,
Please wake up and see that Specter has only switched parties for his own personal satisfaction. He is AGAINST the EFCA. When he votes for it and stands with labor, then he we be one of us, the working class. Do not be fooled people. Lets put him to the test and make him one of the many faces of the EFCA and see if he is in agreement and travel around the country telling people what the EFCA means and about the falsehoods the rights spreads.
Then and ONLY THEN should labor back in in 2010, but labor will fold as it has done in the past.
I really think that labor supporting Specter before he helps to bring an up or down vote to the Employee Free Choice Act is foolish. If he helps to bring an end to the deadlock by voting for cloture, then, and only then, should he be given any support by organized labor. He has been a friend to labor in years past, but he has also waffled on the EFCA, after initially supporting it every other time it has been introduced (in 2005 and 2007, I believe).
No cloture, no union votes is the simplest way to frame this.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in Specter becoming the kind of senator that Democrats can rely on. He used to be the co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in 2007, but has flip-flopped and is now against the EFCA as this vital piece of legislation has returned to Congress. This latest flip-flop in party switching is being done not so much as to his supposed new embrace of Democratic ideals, but because he doesn’t have a snail’s chance of winning in the PA Republican primary in 2010. He’s pulling the same move that “Independent” Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut did in 2006. The only difference is that Senator Lieberman pulled the switch-a-roo after his embarrassing loss in the CT Democratic primary; Senator Specter is avoiding this scenario by switching now before his re-election bid next year. Senator Specter will become a Democrat, but I’m afraid that he will be a conservative, “Red Dog” Democrat.
Specter is and always has been a politican,his decisions are made on what is good for Arlen not on what is good for America.You can not trust in what he says,in the end he will do what he wants not what he says he will do.
I’m afraid I have to agree with you. This country is full of Republicans in Democrat clothing. We have scores of them in my own county. They sneak their votes in so people will think “well, that must not be too good of a bill or idea, since my Democrat leaders won’t vote for it either.”
HOWEVER, Specter is (was) one of only three Republican moderates, and he really was true to his party, so I am hopeful that he wants to be ‘true’ to the Democrat party. If he weren’t, I think he would a chosen to be an Independent.
Let’s just see how good he really is.