Press Release:
Following a meeting of its Committee on Political Education (COPE)
Thursday, the Illinois AFL-CIO Executive Board made endorsements for the
upcoming March 18 Primary Election.
Top of the ballot Democrats U.S. Senator Dick
Durbin and Governor Pat Quinn were endorsed. Durbin is unopposed in the primary
and Quinn has an opponent. Other statewide candidates tapped for endorsement
were incumbents Lisa Madigan (Democrat, Attorney General), Jesse White
(Democrat, Secretary of State), and Judy Baar Topinka (Republican,
Comptroller). State Treasurer Candidate Mike Frerichs was endorsed early by the
organization in September in the Democratic Primary.
"We spent two days looking at the
political environment in Illinois and how labor can best engage our membership
in the political process," said Illinois AFL-CIO President Michael T.
Carrigan. "There were nearly 100 members of the COPE Committee from all unions
and all areas of the state here to give their input. Considerable time and
deliberation went into the endorsements by the committee and the executive
board."
Additionally, the board passed a resolution to engage union
members to defeat GOP candidate for Governor Bruce Rauner. Rauner, a
billionaire private equity magnate, has advocated for a minimum wage cut and
made his disdain for unions a centerpiece of his campaign.
"It's critical that we not only advocate for who we think
will be the best candidates for working families, but that we also make sure workers understand who is using them as
scapegoats for the state's problems," Carrigan said… [Read this last
sentence again! Is this an ironical and ludicrous statement?]
"Unions, organizations formerly steeped in the doctrine of class
struggle and filled with those who sought broad social and political rights for
the working class, have been transformed into domesticated partners of the
capitalist class. They have been reduced to simple bartering tools. The social
demands of unions early in the twentieth century that gave the working class
weekends off, the right to strike, the eight-hour day, and Social Security have
been abandoned” (Chris Hedges).
A Commentary by Fred Klonsky:
The Illinois
AFL-CIO, which includes the Illinois Federation of Teachers, announced
their endorsements for the March primary races. The Illinois Federation, made
up of member unions representing 1.5 million workers – with many members being
state employees whose pensions have just been stolen, endorsed Squeezy Quinn
who was a leader of the pension thieves. Even though he is running with only
token opposition.
Many union
members who face more than a 60% decline in their retirement earnings will not
understand the endorsement by Labor of the man who claimed God told him to do
it:
[“I didn’t create the problem,” Quinn said at a Chicago news conference. “But I’m here to solve it. I know that I was put on earth to get this done” (Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2012)].
[“I didn’t create the problem,” Quinn said at a Chicago news conference. “But I’m here to solve it. I know that I was put on earth to get this done” (Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2012)].
I will not vote for Quinn. Ever.
But what
possible excuse can AFL-CIO President Mike Carrigan give to those dues paying
members who watched as Squeezy signed Senate Bill 1 only to discover that their
political action donations will fund his campaign – and nobody is running against him in the Democratic Primary that
could possibly win?
The Illinois
Education Association is not a member of the AFL-CIO. IEA members will be
watching closely to see if IPACE, our political action committee, will make a
similar endorsement.
I know I
write for many who oppose a Quinn endorsement, both in March and November. This fiasco again points to the need for a
union leadership willing to create a progressive alternative to the state’s
Republican and Machine Democrats.
from The State’s Unions Endorse Pension Thieves by Fred Klonsky
from John
Laesch:
I talked to some
friends about the endorsement session in Burr Ridge. Apparently it was a heated
discussion with lots of verbal arguments. The folks in the building trades
still love Quinn because he passed the capital bill. This is a clear reflection
of where labor is at – division. I wonder if it was like this during the first
death blows dealt to manufacturing unions post NAFTA – did the public sector
and building trades wish to carry on endorsing democrats despite the fact that
their brothers and sisters had just suffered a heavy ax blow at the hand of
Bill Clinton?
I am
convinced that we in the building trades will be the last unions to go, but
they too will go. The low-end wage earners in the service sector, and heavily
Latino unions seem to be the only unions having any success as they fight for
wages better than $8.25.
I have tried
over the last few years convincing my fellow brothers in the carpenters union
and other building trades members that what is happening to public sector
unions is bound to happen to us sooner, not much later. To some degree, it
already did. When there was a crash in the housing market, our union was forced
to increase the amount of money (a full $1/hour that we worked) that we
contributed to our retirement plan. And, we know that union membership is on
the decline which means that fewer members are paying into the system.
How much longer before the system becomes insolvent and some hedge fund managers come in to tell us that we have to shift over to a 401K direct contribution style plan while they cut up the profits and take a hefty percent for their “services?” Beware the crisis.
How much longer before the system becomes insolvent and some hedge fund managers come in to tell us that we have to shift over to a 401K direct contribution style plan while they cut up the profits and take a hefty percent for their “services?” Beware the crisis.
It is true
that we will never get what we deserve in life, but that we get what we
negotiate for, and the only way for working people to negotiate a better deal for
themselves is through unity.
I think that
you and I agree that “unity” is the best path forward, but that we should be
unified behind something other than the lesser-of-two evils. It would be nice
for the lesser of two evils crowd to recognize that even though they have
chosen to tow the line “off the cliff,” that the path still takes us ALL over
the cliff.
A
statement from Henry Bayer, executive director of American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees Council 31 in the Chicago
Tribune on November 1, 2012:
“…Here
in Illinois, public employees and our unions are standing up for a better
future for all — and citizens are joining us... When Gov. Pat Quinn set out to slash jobs
and vital services while demonizing public workers, their pay and their
pensions, he soon found himself among the least popular governors in the nation…”
Illinois AFL-CIO President Michael T. Carrigan is a mealymouthed traitor. This endorsement is just an attempt to put another nail in the coffin of the worker. WORKERS UNITE AND RISE UP BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!!
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AFL-CIO IL Endorsements
By endorsing Quinn, Carrigan's message to union members and their families is that the working man and woman of this state no longer matter to union leaders. And even though Quinn advocates support of SB1 which illegally steals one-third of a retiree's income, apparently Carrigan and other labor leaders have no problem with this since apparently this will not adversely impact them and their own families
ReplyDelete"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last."
ReplyDelete- Winston Churchill
To answer a question asked of me in several emails:
ReplyDeleteI cannot vote for either Quinn or a republican candidate. I am angry at the union leadership for not financing and supporting an alternative candidate like Ralph Martire. It appears evident there was no foresight on this matter regarding the gubernatorial race.