Obama | STRONGER UNIONS

Our new US recruiter-in-chief: President Obama

President Obama spoke to the AFLCIO Executive Council (the equivalent of the TUC General Council) this week, and he gave a ringing endorsement of union membership, starting off by quoting his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He said:

“So FDR I think said—he was asked once what he thought about unions. He said, “If I was a worker in a factory and I wanted to improve my life, I would join a union.” Well, I tell you what. I think that’s true for workers generally. I think if I was a coal miner, I’d want a union representing me to make sure that I was safe and you did not have some of the tragedies that we’ve been seeing in the coal industry. If I was a teacher, I’d want a union to make sure that the teachers’ perspective was represented as we think about shaping an education system for our future.”

So now we know. “Join a union… Barack Obama says so!”

Posted on August 6th, 2010 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

Tom Mellish

Obama web techniques could put unions in a spin!

Just a ‘heads-up’ on a Unions21 conference taking place tomorrow, Tuesday 17th February, at the NASUWT’s Greater London Regional office in EC1. The conference will be discussing the use of the internet and similar media in the successful Obama campaign last year and what lessons unions here could learn from it. TUC’s own web guru John Wood is a contributor. Here’s the link www.unions21.org.uk/node/73

If you’re not already signed up to Union21 here’s the link to do so and catch up on the front page discussion on organising workers globally. It’s the third item down. www.unions21.org.uk/

Posted on February 16th, 2009 by Tom Mellish filed under: Union news, Unions online

Owen Tudor

Nobel laureate backs union rights in the USA

Paul Krugman, the winner of the Nobel prize for economics, says that the US needs the Employee Free Choice Act that US unions are campaigning for. Writing in Rolling Stone magazine (a journal of economic record, of course!) he says that the US economy needs unions just as much as workers do. Last time US unions were actively promoted – after the Great Depression – they managed to increase the share of the national income that went in workers’ wages, massively reduced inequality, and doubled living standards in a generation. The unions themselves tripled in size.

Posted on January 24th, 2009 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

Owen Tudor

New York Times backs pro-union laws

It’s either a sign of a more diverse media, or just how bad things have got in the US under Bush, that the New York Times has published an editorial (not just a comment article) calling for more freedoms for trade unions to organise.

Posted on January 1st, 2009 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity

Owen Tudor

Union campaigning laid foundations for Obama campaigning

I’ve just come across an interesting article in the US radical journal In These Times, by Randy Shaw, called Origins of the Obama Machine. It recounts some of the campaign history of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in the 60s and 70s in California, and shows how their campaigning work presaged the Obama campaign’s real innovation (for an explanation of why use of the web wasn’t Obama in 2008′s big idea, see Eric Lee here).

The UFW was of course inextricably linked with Cesar Chavez, and the article argues that grass roots organising was much more important in mobilising voters than the technique of lobbying, writing cheques and then sending a mailing out to members just ahead of the vote (although I can’t help feeling that no one would want to abandon those either!)

One interesting aspect of the successful approach which is highlighted is the need for really good record keeping – how many bumper stickers distributed, how many people saw billboards etc – which UK unions and the left have been traditionally appalling at and dismissive of. All power to the elbows of those annoying people who insist we record what we do, rather than just putting in the hours!

Posted on November 30th, 2008 by Owen Tudor filed under: Global solidarity