Labor for Bernie Kickstarts Effort to Get Unions Behind Sanders With Nearly 2,000 Union Backers

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18119/bernie_sanders_unions1

BY MARIO VASQUEZ FRIDAY, JUN 26, 2015, 12:21 PM

Labor for Bernie, a new nationwide network for union members, announced today the launch of their grassroots movement to push the AFL-CIO and other unaffiliated major labor organizations such as SEIU and the Teamsters toward endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.

Almost 2,000 union members have signed onto a letter outlining the network’s goals. Labor for Bernie reports that more than a third of these Sanders supporters belong to building trades unions, with 137 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers signees alone. Other unions that showed significant representation in the letter include the Communications Workers of America, American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, Service Employees International Union, International Union of Operating Engineers, United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

"Labor for Bernie 2016 won’t be a corporate-style, staff-driven, top-down campaign. It will reflect our commitment to creating fundamental change and the urgency of stronger grassroots organizing and political activity,” the letter reads. “We call on labor leaders, union members and working people to unite behind Bernie Sanders for a voice in the presidential political process and to elect the President working families need—a President who will answer to the 99 percent!”

The network’s website includes sample resolutions for rank and file activists hoping to push their locals and state-level federations of labor into endorsing Sanders. Thus far, AFL-CIO state-level federations from Vermont and South Carolina have chosen to do so.

FULL story at link.



Bernie Sanders speaks at a #StopFastTrack rally in DC this April. (AFGE / Flickr)