Working Family Candidate Wins Special Election in Oregon
Oregon working families helped propel former state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D) to victory yesterday in a special election for the U.S. House in the state’s northwestern First Congressional District. Bonamici, who defeated Republican businessman Rob Cornilles, replaces David Wu who resigned last year.
Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain says not only did union volunteers make more than 10,000 phone calls and 5,000 home visits to union families in support of Bonamici, but turned out to vote at a higher rate than the general public.
During the campaign, Bonamici called for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, job creation through infrastructure investment and protection of Social Security and Medicare. She will fill out Wu’s remaining term and be on the ballot for a full two-year term in November.
Trumka: Newt’s Right, for Once
Newt Gingrich has said some pretty outlandish things over the years—the most recent was his proposal to put poor kids to work cleaning inner-city schools. But as a friend of mine was fond of saying—“sometimes even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.” Newt has an acorn.
During the New Hampshire primary when Gingrich was talking to voters about Mitt Romney’s days as a vulture capitalist—shortly after Romney said he “likes being able to fire people”—Gingrich said Romney “looted” companies and left behind “broken families and broken neighborhoods.” Then he added something that could have been uttered by any progressive or Occupier.
You have to ask the question: Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and walk off with the money, or is that in fact a little bit of a flawed system?
That got AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s attention who says:
Here are words you won’t hear from me very often: I agree with Newt Gingrich. Read the rest of this entry »
Time for Media to Scrutinize Romney’s Jobs Claims
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has question for his media colleagues that a whole lot of the rest of us would also like to ask: When the heck are reporters going to demand that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney start backing up his claims that he created 100,000 jobs when he ran the hedge fund Bain Capital?
Romney says his job creation record shows that he has the business acumen to turn around the economy. But as Sargent writes today:
As far as I can tell, only two lonely fact checking operations—one at the Post, the other at FactCheck.org—have scrutinized it. They have found that the assertion is at best unsubstantiated and that there may have been more layoffs than jobs created by Bain…When will reporters push Romney on this?
Sargent also notes that reporters have failed to grill Romney on his assertions about Read the rest of this entry »
Recall Walker Signatures Pass 500,000 Mark
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United Wisconsin, the coalition spearheading the movement to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R), announced today that volunteers have collected more than 500,000 signatures on petitions to put the recall on the ballot.
Working families need 540,000 signatures by Jan, 17, but are aiming to gather another 250,000 to offset expected dirty tricks and challenges from Walker’s supporters. This Saturday, volunteers across the state are holding a massive petition drive to collect recall signatures.
Wisconsinites began mobilizing against Walker after he rammed through legislation that eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees and made huge budget cuts to education, health care and other vital working family services. He’s also attacked voting rights and cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations. A new study this week showed his policies have cost the state 18,000 jobs.
300,000 Sign ‘Recall Walker’ in Petition Drive’s First 12 Days
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In just 12 days, more than 300,000 Wisconsin voters have signed petitions to hold a recall election of Gov. Scott Walker. The 60-day window to gather 540,000 signatures to qualify for an election ends Jan. 17.
United Wisconsin, the coalition spearheading the recall movement, says volunteers have been collecting signatures:
“on street corners and near shopping malls, they’ve knocked on their neighbor’s doors and set up drive-through recall stations alongside busy roads. They have worked hard through the wind and the rain, the snow and the cold.”
Read more from United Wisconsin here.
Walker’s support has been nose-diving since he rammed through legislation that eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees and made huge budget cuts to education, health care and other vital working family services. He’s also attacked voting rights and cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
Labor Candidates Win Big in New Jersey Balloting
In New Jersey yesterday, 34 graduates of the New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Candidate School won election to various local and state offices. That brings to 684 the union member/candidate wins since the unique school opened its doors in 1997.
Working family candidates in several closely contested state Senate and Assembly races won their battles and Democrats maintained control of both houses. New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech says the election was “a great victory for working families.”
Our success comes as a result of the outstanding effort put forth by thousands of union members and community allies working together to educate and engage voters in this election. The leaders we elected to the New Jersey State Legislature are committed to standing up for working families during these tough economic times and will make job creation our state’s number one priority.
Click here for more complete results.
Ohio Results Show Voters Say Focus on Jobs, Not Partisan Attacks
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Cincinnati Fire Fighters (IAFF) member Doug Stern says yesterday’s overwhelming rejection of Gov. John Kasich’s (R) attempt to eliminate collective bargaining rights of workers like firefighters, nurses, teachers, bridge inspectors and others shows:
[T]he citizens of Ohio spoke and they made it loud and clear that the focus of government should be on creating sustainable middle class jobs, rather than pushing a partisan political agenda.
Stern, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Louise Foresman, a member of Working America from Cleveland, took part in a telephone press conference this afternoon about the stunning victory for working families that sent Issue 2 down to a 61 percent to 39 percent defeat. Says Trumka:
Kentucky Voters Thrash Walker Clone in Governor’s Race
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Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) won a second term Tuesday, burying “a Scott Walker wannabe” under one of the largest landslides in recent Bluegrass State history.
Beshear, who earned the Kentucky State AFL-CIO endorsement, piled up 56 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Republican Senate President David Williams. Independent Gatewood Galbraith finished third with 9 percent.
Says Jeff Wiggins, president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council:
Williams invited his buddy Walker, Wisconsin’s union-busting governor, to Kentucky to campaign for him—birds of a feather. But we cooked his goose. Let’s hope the voters of Wisconsin will cook Walker’s goose and recall him next year.
As S.B. 5/Issue 2 Vote Nears, Right-Wing Money Pours Into Ohio
Right-wing dollars are showering Ohio’s airwaves and the coffers of anti-labor politicians as Election Day nears for a Nov. 8 referendum on Senate Bill 5/Issue 2. Voting “No” on Issue 2 will revoke S.B. 5, the anti-worker bill supported by Gov. John Kasich and passed by the state legislature earlier this year that effectively eliminates collective bargaining for public employees.
Billionaires Charles and David Koch are known to be substantial donors behind efforts to retain S.B. 5, according to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). A report on the CMD blog, PR Watch, reveals that one Koch-founded organization, Americans for Prosperity, is lending its support to an anti-labor group, the ironically named Building a Better Ohio, which “is expected to spend $20 million on this autumn’s campaign.”
Ohio Union Volunteers Turning Up the Heat on Issue 2
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| AFT President Randi Weingarten joined hundreds of Ohio union volunteers to mobilize to defeat Issue 2. |
AFL-CIO Field Communications Coordinator Andrew Richards files this report on the fight in Ohio to defeat Issue 2.
From small towns like Portsmouth on the banks of the Ohio River in the south to big cities like Cleveland bordering Lake Michigan in the north and all around the Buckeye State, union members are hitting the doors and the phone banks to make sure working families cast a “No” vote on Issue 2 Nov. 8.
Issue 2 would repeal S.B. 5, the law passed this spring that takes away the right of public employees to collectively bargain for a middle-class life.
In Cleveland, AFT President Randi Weingarten told the more than 800 members from dozens of unions who volunteered Saturday:
[Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, [Wis. Gov. Scott] Walker, [Fla. Gov. Rick] Scott, [Ind. Gov. Mitch] Daniels and many others are trying to strip working people of their rights, that’s their goal. But we’re not going to let that happen. We are going to fight back, give workers and the community their voice back and in the next 10 days do everything we can to bring Issue 2 home.
