Politico reported AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter to union officials in August saying that there would be no skyboxes, no delegate meetings and no major contributions on the part of the AFL-CIO at the DNC this year. By contrast, the organization gave an estimated $100,000 to the DNC for the 2008 confab in Denver. This time around the organization will focus on grassroots efforts, but keep the purse strings mostly closed.
Labor adviser Victor Kamber said the Obama campaign can expect support from labor unions but not with the level of excitement seen in 2008. Instead of donating cash directly to the campaign, Kamber said some unions that endorsed Obama "made the decision to pour the money into their own internal efforts to get out the vote."
"Unions are the American public," Kamber said. "They're not a different species." And just as polling shows a divided and less enthusiastic public, "that translates to organized labor the same as any other group virtually."
Kamber expects that despite the "slippage" Obama experienced in the hearts and minds of union workers, labor organizers will still put forth the money to educate members and "remind them what's at stake" in this election.
"The Republicans have made it very clear both by their actions for the last two years as well as their platform," Kamber said, alluding to high-profile legislative campaigns in Wisconsin and Ohio that have aimed to break public sector unions. "They would like to weaken if not destroy organized labor in this country."
WOW The Union bosses must be feeling the pinch after the results of their all out assault on Scott Walker. And the losts they got from Obama when he stopped all the jobs that would have resulted in the XL Pipeline plus the jobs outsoursed in the Oil field when he sent two billion dollars to Brazil and shut down Off Shore drilling in the US. .
This is not good for the DNC and