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butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2269

WASHINGTON - Unions spent more than $100 million getting out the vote, knocked on millions of doors and delivered Election Day support to Democrats running for the House by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.
Now organized labor is spelling out what it wants from the new Democratic Congress.

The priorities include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care and improving pension protections.

Union workers voted Democratic in the House races, 67 percent to 30 percent. And others in union households voted almost as strongly Democratic, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sees the elections as a "mandate for a union agenda." Likewise, says Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, "we have an opportunity to push our agenda for working families."

Organized labor will press for an increase in the minimum wage - the most likely item to be passed because President Bush may go along with it if certain benefits are included for small businesses.

Labor also:

• Wants changes in the Medicare prescription drug program to introduce price negotiations with pharmaceutical companies.

• Seeks to change bankruptcy laws that allow companies to abandon pension and health care commitments to workers.

• Opposes trade agreements that don't protect workers' rights.

The unions also will push for improved mining safety laws, increased retirement protections and expanded health care.

"One of the best ways we can address stagnating wages and lost pensions and health care is to restore the bargaining power of workers," Samuel said.

The most effective way to restore that bargaining power, he said, is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow formation of a union once there is majority support and increase penalties for management violations of efforts to organize.

Current procedures that call for an election can be drawn out by managers to allow time to campaign aggressively against formation of a union, he said.

The AFL-CIO executive council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss various issues, including the legislative agenda.

The aggressive stance is a sharp turnaround from the past few years.

"There were days during the last six years when we were in a defensive crouch protecting 60 years of workplace advances," Samuel said.

Organized labor clearly expects the Democratic Congress to help pass pro-worker legislation after an unprecedented get- out-the-vote effort.

Organized labor spent an unprecedented amount of money for midterm elections on its get-out-the-vote-effort - $40 million by the AFL-CIO alone - with 187,000 union volunteers in the AFL-CIO program knocking on more than 3 million doors in the final four days. Labor did more microtargeting of voters, but the most effective technique was still worker-to-worker contact.

After a union split in 2005 that some projected would cripple the labor movement, the seven breakaway unions in the Change to Win federation also put together an ambitious election program, some of it coordinated with the AFL-CIO. The aggressive political effort comes at a time that organized labor has been shrinking.

When the AFL-CIO merged in the 1950s, one of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor union. Now, only about 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

"Activists from Change to Win welcome their new leadership but with an expectation," said Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change to Win.

"These new leaders must do their part to restore the American dream - a paycheck that supports a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement and most of all, a better life for our kids."

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http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0%2C2777%2CDRMN_23916_5153050%2C00.html