Obama does not support US workers or US unions, but took $$ from the owners

[amborin]

February 1, 2008 Friday

Maytag union says Obama did little to save jobs

BYLINE: By Bob Secter, Chicago Tribune

GALESBURG, Ill. _ Maytag workers whose jobs were shipped to Mexico serve as consistent characters in Barack Obama's stump speech. He employs their stories in railing against corporations that use trade pacts to replace well-paid union workers with low-cost foreign ones.

It is a ready applause line for the Illinois presidential hopeful, one that he has been reciting almost verbatim since he was a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004, when appliance giant Maytag was in the process of shutting a refrigerator plant here, putting 1,600 people out of work.

But the union that represented most of those Galesburg workers isn't impressed with Obama's advocacy and has endorsed his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Its leaders say they wish he had done more about their members' plight.

What rankles some is what Obama did not do even as he expressed solidarity four years ago with workers mounting a desperate fight to save their jobs.

Obama had a special connection to Maytag: Lester Crown, one of the company's directors and biggest investors whose family, records show, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Obama's campaigns since 2003. But Crown says Obama never raised the fate of the Galesburg plant with him, and the billionaire industrialist insists any jawboning would have been futile.

[monomach]

1. He was a Senator, not a king.

Was he supposed to order the plant to stay open? Enforce it with beheadings?

I remember him talking about the plant and the need to keep it open a lot before it closed. That's about all he's allowed to do.

[Rageneau]

3. Yeah, it's not like he's Hillary -- with the power to single-handledly start and stop wars.

[lligrd]

2. Oh, They Lost Their Jobs Under Clinton's NAFTA

and you are trying to blame Obama. Not a very good tactic if you ask me. Please keep at it.

[amborin]

9. with or without Nafta, Obama did not fight this plant closure

don't blame Nafta....corporations were moving to Mexico way before that.....

read some US history

[lligrd]

10. Please Do Keep It Coming

Read?? You mean pay attention to words? I thought Hillary said words didn't count.

[Wickerman]

4. Maytag's problems were a lot deeper than a lack of support

perceived or otherwise of a State Senator. The company was doomed since the late 80's after a series of horrendous management decisions.

[Radical Activist]

5. The decision was made before Obama became Senator.

Very unfair to blame him.

Why no link to your source?

[Radical Activist]

6. Obama has an excellent pro-labor record.

He has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and individual unions many times. Your headline is a complete lie.

[amborin]

8. Obama is a friend of corporations

more from the article:

"In his victory speech after Saturday's South Carolina primary, Obama spoke yet again of "the Maytag worker who is now competing with his own teenager for a $7-an-hour job at Wal-Mart because the factory he gave his life to shut its doors."

Beyond such talk, there is little evidence that Obama went to any lengths to fight the Galesburg shutdown. Some analysts say his ties to the Crowns _ Lester's son, James, is the Illinois finance chairman of Obama's presidential run _ leave him open to criticism.

Charles Lewis, founder of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, said in the era of big money politics there's often a disconnect between the passionate words of a politician and the financial interests of the wealthy benefactors who help bankroll their campaigns.

"It is hypocritical," said Lewis. "Democrats are often in a tricky position because they are close to labor and talk about the homeless and poor, but they need money and have to turn to the captains of industry to get it.""

[Radical Activist]

12. 96% liftetime AFL-CIO voting record.

So you're pretty much full of shit with those accusations.

One guy makes some accusations that Obama didn't do enough and suddenly that makes him anti-labor? Don't be such a sucker.

Still no link to your source? Why not?

[Bobbie47]

7. Is this

Knox county he carried all the counties except 13 and they were southern counties.

[Radical Activist]

14. Yes, Galesburg is in Knox County

[Bobbie47]

18. Thanks

she won 14 counties. Looked again.

[amborin]

11. Obama thinks unions are "special interest groups" how right wing can he get?

Public Interest Newswire
U.S. Newswire

Machinists President Chides Obama for Maytag Remarks
Dec. 31

The president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is urging Sen. Barack Obama

(D-IL) to dry his crocodile tears over the loss of more than 1,600 jobs when Maytag moved from Galesburg, IL, to Reynosa, Mexico.

"He didn't lift a finger to help those people when they needed help the most," said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, whose union represented the workers at Maytag. "Even now, he doesn't have a clue and thinks those jobs went overseas and not to Mexico."

In recent campaign speeches, Sen. Obama has repeatedly cited the plight of Maytag workers in his bid to win sympathy and support from union members battered by factory closings and lost jobs.

"This is the same candidate who recently labeled unions as ˜special interest' groups with too much influence in Washington, D.C.," said Buffenbarger. "For the last eight years, we've defended our members' jobs, pensions and health care benefits against a political agenda that's been openly hostile to unions and working families. But a Johnny come lately candidate won't solve the problem facing blue collar families."

The IAM is among the nation's largest and most politically active labor unions, representing nearly 720,000 members in manufacturing, transportation, shipbuilding and defense related industries. For more information about the IAM, visit www.goiam.org.

[Radical Activist]

13. 96% liftime AFL-CIO voting record. THAT is how right wing he gets.

Stop misleading people.

[amborin]

15. you stop misleading people...,most unions back Hillary Clinton

[Radical Activist]

16. "He has been with us on the picket lines. He has been with us in the state legislature and he has...

been with us in the fight for the right to organize. In our endorsement process nothing was more powerful than this simple fact: Our members know him because he has stood with us so many times."

SEIU endorsement of Barack Obama for US Senate in 2003.

http://www.seiu-illinois.org/news/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=1076

[Radical Activist]

19. Illinois AFSCME endorses Obama over Hillary

Bayer said Illinois AFSCME members have seen Obama stand up for working people over the past 20 years, first as a community organizer, then as a state legislator and now as a U.S. senator. Obama knows how to bridge partisan differences to get results, Bayer said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/676801,120107obama.stng

Sorry to rain reality on your bullshit parade.

[Radical Activist]

17. “Barack Obama is committed enough to walk our picket lines...

SEIU is committed enough to walk his precincts.”

http://www.seiu-illinois.org/news/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=1076

[amborin]

20. courting voters?

[Radical Activist]

21. How many picket lines did Hillary walk on when she served on the board of Wal mart?

[cali]

22. bwahahaha. Hillybot hypcrisy.

You gotta love it. There is no one more corporate than Hilly dear. Hell, she even gives her best bud, john mccain a run for the title.

[Radical Activist]

23. Any union member who votes Hillary over Obama isn't paying attention.

[CatnHat]

24. Obama is fake

Nice payback Obama. Maytag raises tens of thousands for your fake campaign, and you didn't lift a finger saving jobs. Typical, all mouth, no action.

[saracat]

25. Funny. John Edwards took the time to try to save the Maytag Plant but Barack wasn't interested?

[MercutioATC]

26. Obama has been great with NATCA (air traffic controllers' union)

He co-authored a bill to force the FAA to return to the bargaining table with the union, rather than continuing to impose work rules without a contract.

We love Obama.