AFL-CIO

Efforts by the national and state incarnations of the AFL-CIO to mobilize its union membership in opposition to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) are taking another step forward tonight as national leadership from organized labor will rally activists at a Louisville event.

Former AFL-CIO Director of Organizing Stewart Acuff, who now serves as assistant to the national AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, will address the Kentucky Jobs for Justice chapter tonight at that group’s anniversary dinner and Solidarity Awards ceremony.

The national AFL-CIO says Acuff will highlight connections between McConnell and President Bush in an effort to encourage activists to continue their organizing push through the Nov. 4 general election.

Acuff is also scheduled to distribute leaflets targeting McConnell, the U.S. Senate minority leader, at worksites throughout Louisville tomorrow.

The Oregon chapter of the AFL-CIO sent out a mailer Monday morning, targeting U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith as a friend of President Bush, instead of a friend of working voters.

Organized labor is stepping up its efforts in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race this week, as the AFL-CIO is firing off a mailer denouncing incumbent U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s record on economic issues.

In what is being identified as the start of the AFL-CIO’s final push in Kentucky, 32,000 mailers will go out to union households and AFL-CIO members today. Two different pieces are being dispatched as part of the effort.

The first (right click, save as) claims McConnell (R-Louisville) “stands with lobbyists, not with us,” and criticizes to the four-term senator’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act – a union-favored bill that would remove an employer’s ability to demand a secret ballot election for union certification when a majority of employees have signed union cards.

DENVER – Kentucky labor unions are mobilizing to counteract the impact of an advertising campaign targeting Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville) for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, according to AFL-CIO Vice-President Ken Koch.

The ads attacking Lunsford claim the EFCA legislation would "take away your right to a private vote."

"The membership is outraged," Koch told PolitickerKY.com in Denver, where Koch is serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. "The facts are it's not taking a vote away from them, it's taking the power away from the corporation and giving it to the working people."

The EFCA legislation removes an employer's option of calling for a secret ballot vote on unionization and permits union certification when a majority of employees have signed union membership cards.

Koch said Kentucky unions were reaching out to their membership about the legislation and the ads, and hoping members push that perspective to others.

DENVER--AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the Oregon delegation on Tuesday that Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) was getting attacked on the airwaves by anti-union groups because of his support for workers.

It’s no surprise the Allen/Collins race is getting bloody and starting early. 

DENVER – Rita Moran, a Barack Obama delegate from Winthrop, is heading the AFL-CIO’s efforts for the Maine delegation.

The AFL-CIO is out in full force at the Democratic National Convention. Interest groups have launched an aggressive campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that seeks to make it easier for unions to organize. The AFL-CIO, which looks out for unions, wants to make sure Democratic lawmakers stay on their side.

Moran said that in Maine the AFL-CIO doesn’t have anything to worry about. Both U.S. Reps. Tom Allen (D-Portland) and Mike Michaud (D-East Millinocket) are co-sponsors of the bill. Allen is running for Senate, and Democrat Chellie Pingree is eyeing his seat. She has said that she strongly supports the bill.

Ed Gorham, president of Maine’s chapter of the AFL-CIO, had one word to describe Employee Freedom’s ads: Despicable.

“We appreciate the concern of the group that Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola is financing,” Gorham said. “But they’ve never been friends of working people.”

The argument is over the Employee Free Choice Act, which expands the options for unions to organize. Employee Freedon, the group working against the legislation, argues that the new option -- a majority sign-up -- does not include an election in the workplace, yielding an undemocratic process and opening the doors for intimidation.

The mailer against McCain: AFL-CIOThe AFL-CIO has joined the Ohio Democratic Party and Barack Obama's presidential campaign in hammering John McCain over the impending job losses in Wilmington from the UPS-DHL merger.

The AFL-CIO is mailing 100,000 "union swing voters" in Ohio a pamplet that attacks McCain for turning his back on workers. McCain is taking heat because his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who worked for the DHL parent company Deutche Poste in 2005.

The federation wants members to call and e-mail McCain's Ohio offices and ask the campaign to fire Davis.

Interestingly this AFL-CIO mailing is less than half the size of the mailing to "Meet Barack Obama," which the union made in Ohio last month to 250,000 members. 

A local union has questioned Ed O'Reilly's "working class guy" campaign persona, charging that O'Reilly has neglected to hire unionized workers.

In a letter to O'Reilly (D-Gloucester) earlier this week obtained by PolitickerMA.com on Friday, the local chapter of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, a branch of the AFL-CIO, sharply criticized O'Reilly for not hiring unionized painters to paint his campaign office.

"You have made efforts to reach out to organized labor and yet when you painted your campaign office in Amherst, you chose to hire a non-union painter," the letter, which is dated Aug. 4, states. "This action can do little more than raise the question of whether or not you are sincere in your pronouncements to support the issues important to working class men and women in this country."

"How can you proclaim your support for unions," the letter goes on, "and then not feel it necessary to hire union workers yourself?"