An important issue for nearly all of us going into the Democratic primary is the strength of organized labor in the United States. As most of you know, strong unions lead to significantly higher wages but, just as importantly, also give workers power and job security. So regardless of who we support in the primary, the vast majority of Kossacks believe in the importance of organized labor.
Follow me past the flip.
Today in Des Moines, Barack Obama appeared before the local AFCSME council and, in no uncertain terms, laid out his unflinching support for the union movement:
Democrat Barack Obama is telling union activists he would walk a picket line as president if organized labor helps elect him in 2008.
The Illinois senator also criticized President Bush's policies toward working people.
`We are facing a Washington that has thrown open its doors to the most anti-union, anti-worker forces we've seen in generations," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday night. "What we need to make real today is the idea that in this country we value the labor of every American."
Barack Obama expressed solidarity with workers on July 16 by walking the picket line at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago, where workers have been on strike since 2003 when the hotel's owners slashed their wages and benefits.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took a couple laps on the picket line outside Chicago's Congress Plaza Hotel this afternoon, showing his solidarity with workers associated with a key union that has many members in the early voting state of Nevada.
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"I can only imagine how difficult it has been," he told the workers through a bullhorn, a translator then offering his words in Spanish. "You have been out here in the cold. You have been out here in the hot."
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Obama said that workers must stick together, if they are to get ahead.
YouTube has video from the picket line.
Was this merely a publicity stunt on the part of the senator? A local journalist tried to bring this up but Barack would have none of it. Obama's support for the workers even drew some anger from hotel management.
Obama challenged a television reporter's suggestion that the event was a publicity stunt, saying he had walked the very same picket line when he was running for the U.S. Senate. "I was here four years ago," he said.
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"It's unfortunate that the senator has chosen to involve himself in a labor dispute that was caused by this union," said Peter Andjelkovich, a Chicago attorney and chief negotiator for the hotel. "If the senator was aware of all the facts and circumstances involved with this strike he would perhaps reconsider taking sides with the union."
The "facts and circumstances", eh? You mean like the "facts" that Center for Union Facts puts out, failing to mention that they are actually a secretive front group for business and industry moguls who are afraid of educated workers? Plenty of people claim (falsely) that Barack Obama is noncommittal, but his record on organized labor proves otherwise. Obama clearly chose the side of the marginalized workers, as he has for years.
Senator Obama's support for solidarity and unions should come as no surprise, however. Grassroots organizations has been the focus of Obama's political career since the 1980s when he started out as a community organizer. Many of you know that Obama started working with grassroots movements at a young age, but how many of you actually know what role he played in these endeavors?
The New Republic has a good article on the senator's work as a community organizer:
In 1985, Barack Obama traveled halfway across the country to take a job that he didn't fully understand. But, while he knew little about his new vocation--community organizer--it still had a romantic ring, at least to his 24-year-old ears. With his old classmates from Columbia, he had talked frequently about political change. Now, he was moving to Chicago to put that talk into action.
Barack Obama used his leadership skills at the time to rally the community behind campaigns such as asbestos removal and job banks. Another issue at hand was the push for racial justice. And Barack Obama was eager to delve into such issues:
His excitement wasn't rooted merely in youthful enthusiasm but also in the psychology of a vagabond.
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After these itinerant years, he would finally be able to insinuate himself into a community--and not just any community, but, as he later put it, "the capital of the African American community in the country." Every strain of black political thought seemed to converge in Chicago in the 1980s.
So contrary to the smears of his critics, Obama never felt the need to shy away from the civil rights movement or his African heritage. In fact, he came to embrace it even more in his first years in Chicago.
But what does this have to do with the union movement? Simple - as a community organizer, Barack Obama learned to rile people up, to not only convince them that they deserved better, but to show them the way to bring about justice. Obama drew influence from a local sociologist:
His teachers were schooled in a style of organizing devised by Saul Alinsky, the radical University of Chicagotrained social scientist. At the heart of the Alinsky method is the concept of "agitation"--making someone angry enough about the rotten state of his life that he agrees to take action to change it; or, as Alinsky himself described the job, to "rub raw the sores of discontent."
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Kruglik remembers this episode as an example of why, in ten years of training organizers, Obama was the best student he ever had. He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards.
That is precisely what organized labor accomplishes. Through it, workers become agitated enough to demand change so that they can live up to their standards. And Barack Obama is, and always has been an agitator, with provocative speeches, grassroots forums, and a strong commitment to the betterment of life in the neighborhood, the city, the state, and now the country. His experience allows him to connect with constituents on both a personal and communal level.
Barack still sees himself as a community organizer above and beyond anything else:
Obama's self-conception as an organizer isn't just a campaign gimmick. Organizing remained central to Obama long after his stint on the South Side. In the 13 years between Obama's return to Chicago from law school and his Senate campaign, he was deeply involved with the city's constellation of community-organizing groups. He wrote about the subject. He attended organizing seminars. He served on the boards of foundations that support community organizing. He taught Alinsky's concepts and methods in workshops. When he first ran for office in 1996, he pledged to bring the spirit of community organizing to his job in the state Senate. And, after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, his wife, Michelle, told a reporter, "Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change." Recalling her remark in 2005, Obama wrote, "I take that observation as a compliment."
Senator Obama's belief in grassroots organization is as strong today as it ever has been. Barack was a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, which fell victim to Republican obstructionism earlier this year. From Obama's platform on fighting poverty:
Barack Obama believes that workers should have the freedom to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. Although an estimated 60 million Americans would join a union if given the opportunity, companies too often evade employment laws and deny workers the opportunity to organize and advocate for their rights. Obama is a cosponsor and strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to make the unionization process more transparent and increase penalties on companies that violate employee rights. He voted in favor of the legislation this year and will continue to fight for its passage. Obama also will fight to make the card check process more common and less difficult.
The previous statement, to Obama's credit, is too modest. Barack Obama was not simply a Senate-floor-supporter of EFCA, but he actively stumped for the bill. I had the privilege of hearing him speak alongside AFL-CIO president John Sweeney at an AFCSME-sponsored rally in Chicago for the Employee Free Choice Act. The senator displayed not only political support for the bill, but genuine personal empathy for the struggling workers who shared the stage with him at the event. It showed, for me, that Obama hasn't lost touch with those he stood in solidarity with back in the 1980s, and that his passion for grassroots organization will continue to drive his support for organized labor.
A month ago it was Obama who had AFCSME members cheering at a forum for Democrats. YouTube has the video:
Senator Obama is smart - he knows how to create consensus behind the liberal, progressive viewpoint. But when choosing sides, Senator Obama isn't on the fence. As he said in the above speech:
I like a good fight. I don't mind a good fight.
Barack Obama is going to stand in solidarity with the rest of us as we fight the good fight for workers' rights.
"So I want you to remember one thing, because you'll hear from a lot of candidates between now and January," Obama said. "When I talk about hope, when I talk about change, when I talk about holding America up to its ideals of opportunity and equality, this isn't just the rhetoric of a campaign for me, it's been the cause of a life -- a cause I will work for and fight for every day as your president."
Amen and solidarity forever!