To win in November, unions will build “people power”

[Omaha Steve]

http://peoplesworld.org/to-win-in-november-unions-will-build-people-power/

by: John Wojcik
August 6 2010



WASHINGTON - AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka reminded state and local labor leaders meeting here this week that even the nation's largest labor federation, an organization that changed the course of U.S. history in the 2008 elections, is powerless without boots on the ground. More than money or anything else, he said, "union power is people power, it is about boots on the ground. Your union members are the power."

If this week's meetings are any indication, the labor movement is approaching what many here feel is its most important moment in 75 years - the 2010 elections - with a firm understanding of how to build that "people power."

Some leaders here think the U.S. labor movement really began to understand union power in this way in 2006. That was year the nation's unions moved to put the brakes on the Bush agenda. They organized a campaign that ended Republican control of both the House and the Senate.

Labor improved upon that effort in 2008, and the result was President Obama moving into the White House with big Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Labor leaders attribute that success to an AFL-CIO political program that did not exist before 2006. The federation endorsed candidates before that, but there was nothing in place like the election program that exists now, they say.

In the past the labor movement would put money into elections and sometimes send staff out in a top-down effort that didn't always pay off with results.

FULL story at link.