The Democratic platform committee is only allowing 1 labor group-why isn't labor part of the base?

[azurnoir]

When the Democratic National Committee announced that Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would get to pick five of the 15 people who'll write the party platform, it was seen as a small coup. But at a news conference today, Sanders revealed that the DNC had actually vetoed his nomination of a key labor ally, and said he was told not to pick anyone else from the labor movement.

“What we heard from the DNC was that they did not want representatives of labor unions on the platform-drafting committee,” he said. “That’s correct.”

In an interview Wednesday, DNC platform committee spokeswoman Dana Vickers Shelley confirmed that the DNC had not wanted labor leaders on the platform drafting committee, limiting labor's presence to Paul Booth of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/01/sanders-dnc-vetoed-union-leader-pick-for-platform-committee/

[swhisper1]

1. because the DNC is corporate owned and does not want to hear the peoples voice

in the platform. How many lobbyists are on the committee?

[Hortensis]

44. Question: How much UNION representation is needed?

This is not something I know. I'm a huge supporter of collective bargaining, but I do know that others among the rest of the 14 members also represent LABOR in many ways, just not unions themselves.

Unions are organizations and power bases, and their interests are only sometimes synonymous with worker interests.

So, what is the appropriate % of seats unions should have and what interest group or groups lose a seat to them? Do we take a seat away from teachers because a teachers' union can be considered to represent education? (It does not, of course.) How about healthcare?

[swhisper1]

57. Labor and workers rights have been systematically destroyed (and teachers)

defense is strong enough, and lobbyists have no business on a committee, nor does advocates for pay-day lenders or insurance companies, pharma or bankers.

Labor is the backbone of our economy which is in dire straits, clean water and renewable energies. I would be happy with no scavengers on that committee

[Hortensis]

66. Yes, but that doesn't answer the question of

how much labor representation is needed on the DNC platform committee? We're not talking about Republicans or anything else here. If not for Democrats, there would have been NO unions in the first place, and we're the people who've kept them from being destroyed entirely, even when the American people mostly abandoned them due to out-of-control union corruption.

We're the labor people. And we have a whole pile of other important interests that we want addressed. Which of our other interests do we bounce from the platform committee so unions, not labor but unions, get represented twice?

Again, I don't know what is appropriate. And, frankly, obviously neither does anyone else weighing in so far.

[swhisper1]

69. I agree, I do not know what is appropriate. I know what is not appropriate

I would encourage representatives of the weaknesses we are suffering- environment, labor, job production, education, infrastructure and equality are the blatant weaknesses we are all suffering from. Are these social issues represented on the committee? Do you have a list of committee members and their backgrounds?, are any of them foundation donors? lobbyists, banksters? who is the labor person, and is he/she corporate, or genuine? Is the economy person Warren? or a bankster.

We were the labor party once, but I cannot say that with a straight face anymore.

[Hortensis]

70. Oh, I can. Remember, it was the American PEOPLE

who rejected unions. We can't force them back on the nation until people want them. We can pass laws that do most of what unions would anyway, and even more.

Btw, back in the 1970s I myself refused two very lucrative and promising career-path positions because membership in extremely corrupt unions was required.

My biggest problem wasn't what I read about corrupt officials and paying into them so much, given the salaries I would have gotten in return, but they actually required people to slack and not work well. In both places the union reps came around more days than not and insisted on standing between employees and their bosses on even the simplest matters, making the unions very divisive and counterproductive forces.

One was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where other people in my department took long lunches and then went off most afternoons to spend a couple hours in the gym. I had come in as a short-term contract worker for a clerical project, so I got to see this, including the reps working very hard to create loyalty to the union alone, and not to the wonderful great-frontier projects the people worked on. (The one I was assigned to was design of the planetary grid of satellites that provide information for our GPSs.) The other two industries I observed from inside were variations on the same. That's how bad it was, appalling and disgusting, and I didn't waste so much as a half second considering becoming part of it.

Some unions have survived, fortunately, and are doing well for their people, but unions as a major national power really mostly destroyed themselves, so that all the Republicans had to do was kick the rotten legs from under the table.

[swhisper1]

78. I think the happy medium may be co-ops, which are internal unions

Bigger unions, especially national can be corrupted too easily- just another corp.

Co-ops are designed to be made up of workers who own the company. Amy Goodman brought them up, but I had to go to work so I'm not up on them yet.

Anyone?

We are off on a tangent, but its nice to discuss solutions to problems we all face

[insta8er]

79. This place begins to sound more and more like Fox News...so now we are against Unions?

[swhisper1]

80. no, I didnt say that. I want to save them. Corruption does exist in any large body

Unions do not encourage or champion corruption like other corporations, but it does occurr if not closely watched. Police unions are not citizen friendly for example. They lie like a fraternity.

[Hortensis]

81. I really like coops as yet another answer, not the only one.

Since they are worker owned, of course, not everyone could just go get a job in one, or want to commit to buying in. They need other opportunities.

First task is restoring the government regulations destroyed by conservatives, creating new ones, and repealing predatory laws. Encourage a new union movement when and where people are interested enough to want it. Eventual government ownership and/or control of some services, similar to the USPS.

Reminds me that right now some states have been passing laws making it illegal for communities to provide high-speed internet to their residents. At the urging of internet profiteers, of course, a corrupt misuse of government which makes them fair game for takeover as a basic utility as far as I'm concerned. This is only one part of a very large iceberg, of course, that has nothing to do with labor. So much to do! Obama's merely started.

[QC]

2. Too many union people will make the lobbyists uncomfortable! n/t

[Recursion]

3. Because they stopped reliably voting for us in the 1980s

AFSCME is really the one whose membership we can still count on turning out, and it's not coincidence they're the ones at the table. Hell, PATCO endorsed Reagan in 1980 and the Teamsters endorsed him twice. Why wouldn't the Democratic party start looking elsewhere?

[Florencenj2point0]

5. this is true

while the union organization may stick with the dem nominee, the workers vote for the macho white guy.

[azurnoir]

8. so you're admitting that the much ballyhoo'd union endorsements Hillary received were only

the leadership not the rank and file members?

[Recursion]

10. I never claimed otherwise (you may be mistaking me for a Clinton supporter?)

Though not all unions are alike, as I mentioned.

[azurnoir]

14. as to the Teamsters and Reagan if memory serves they cut a deal with him wherein he deregulated the

trucking industry in exchange for their endorsement and PATCO -oh my I take it you don't the air traffic controllers strike

[Recursion]

27. The strike was the reason I mentioned PATCO

Last edited Sun Jun 12, 2016, 04:03 AM - Edit history (1)

That was the President they had endorsed.

[wallyworld2]

48. I do not think the Teamsters would undercut themselves by doing that

In November 1975 President Gerald Ford called for legislation to reduce trucking regulation. He followed that by appointing to the ICC several commissioners who favored competition. By the end of 1976, these commissioners were speaking out for a more competitive policy at the ICC, a position rarely articulated in the previous eight decades of transportation regulation.

President Jimmy Carter followed Ford's lead by appointing strong deregulatory advocates and supporting legislation to reduce motor carrier regulation. After a series of ICC rulings that reduced federal oversight of trucking, and after the deregulation of the airline industry, Congress, spurred by the Carter administration, enacted the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. This act limited the ICC's authority over trucking.

Both the Teamsters Union and the American Trucking Associations strongly opposed deregulation and successfully headed off efforts to eliminate all economic controls. Supporting deregulation was a coalition of shippers, consumer advocates including Ralph Nader, and liberals such as Senator Edward Kennedy. Probably the most significant factor in forcing Congress to act was that the ICC commissioners appointed by Ford and Carter were bent on deregulating the industry anyway.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/TruckingDeregulation.html

[Ken Burch]

11. So...they have to start voting Democratic again without getting a say...

...before they get a say again...?

How is that supposed to bring them back to supporting us?

[Recursion]

13. I'm not sure there are enough union voters left for it to matter

As it is we're either picking them up or losing them largely on racial lines and I don't see that changing very much. As this primary pointed out union leadership doesn't really seem to influence membership's voting patterns much anymore.

[Ken Burch]

20. Then we need to make it clear we support the GROWTH of the labor movement.

We need to put "card-check" back on the agenda, need to make it much, much easier for people to join unions(the AFL-CIO has estimated there are 70 million people in this country who would like to join a union).

It only serves conservatism for Democrats as a party to be indifferent to the need for unions.

[Recursion]

29. I care about workers; unions are a tool for improving their conditions

As it is I see two (or more) tier contracts and a focus on protecting incumbency rather than expansion, so while I have mildly positive nostalgic feeling for them I'm not sure how relevant they are going forward.

[Ken Burch]

30. Those two-tier contracts are the product of the weakening of unions.

If we were to get real labor-law reform(at least to allow secondary picketing, so that workers could stand with each other and actually have a chance of WINNING in a strike), that would change.

If workers(and anyone who has a job is a worker) are forced to deal with management solely as disconnected individuals, we will continue on our horribly steady progress back towards the 19th Century.

[Florencenj2point0]

4. because Hillary's people

will be choosing other labor union people such as (just for example) NEA representatives.

[azurnoir]

9. so Dana Vickers Shelley was lying when she said only one labor group allowed? ?

[SFnomad]

6. As was discussed a couple weeks ago, when this was posted numerous times, both Sanders and Clinton

were given instructions NOT to forward labor union members as their picks to the platform-drafting committee ... because they already had a labor union rep on the full committee. Clinton followed the request and didn't have any problems with her picks vetoed because they were labor union reps. Sanders, the second place finisher, was being given 5 picks .. and Sanders couldn't follow directions and submitted a labor union rep anyways. When that pick was rejected, the BS cheerleaders went nuts over it.

[Ken Burch]

21. Why should there only be ONE "labor union rep" on the full committee.

Labor isn't just another special interest group. Unions are the only way working people have of defending their rights. Nothing else works. And the Eighties proved we can't just leave everything to the better angels of management.

[Recursion]

36. Organized labor is less than 10% of the population

So, yeah, it's one more of many interest groups in our coalition, and not the largest.

The lion's share of organized labor is public sector, which is mostly going to be AFSCME and NEA.

[Scootaloo]

77. But isn't that a self-creating problem?

The less influence labor has in politics, the lower the numbers for organized labor get.

[EndElectoral]

89. Aren't most GE's won by less than 10%?

[Florencenj2point0]

47. no, that is not what I said

Bernie only gets to chose one, Hillary gets to chose the others. That is my guess. Unions chose Hillary BTW, in overwhelming numbers.

[SFnomad]

62. That's not what happened

[Downwinder]

7. It is not like Labor has somewhere else to go.

[Ken Burch]

12. Keep saying that...

...and labor will FIND somewhere else to go...

[Downwinder]

23. Hope so. I go with them.

Like the Boll Weevil song.

"Just looking for a home"

[tralala]

15. The Democratic Party is not a labor party

[azurnoir]

18. well in my state the Democratic party is the DFL Democratic Farmer Labor

maybe it's an in name only sort of thing

[jwirr]

73. Totally agree.

[jillan]

16. Because the democratic party doesn't care about labor. Labor gets in the way of the lobbyists.

That’s at least 67 lobbyists who will attend the convention as superdelegates.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reason-dozens-lobbyists-democratic-presidential-delegates/story?id=37289507

[Starry Messenger]

17. They excluded Rose Ann DeMoro, the President of the Nurses Union and his super-PAC

She supported Nader in 2000, so maybe those combined negatives led her to being not desirable for a DNC platform spot.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/01/sanders-dnc-vetoed-union-leader-pick-for-platform-committee/

Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Nicholas was the first to report that Sanders had included RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, on his list of preferred platform committee members. "He told me that he really wanted me on the committee to advocate for Medicare for All, especially," DeMoro told The Washington Post today.

According to Sanders and DeMoro, the DNC nixed her, resulting in a Sanders delegation of four men, one woman (Native American activist Deborah Parker), and no one from organized labor.

"I think it was a set-up," said DeMoro. "It fed into the 'Bernie bro' narrative and meme -- oh, Bernie picked one woman, he's a sexist. As soon as the list was out, there were articles about how he chose two 'anti-Israel' people. The truth of the matter is that they were choices the DNC had signed off on."

Since an AFSCME rep was included on the panel, I don't think it was union people excluded, but supporters of Democratic spoilers. She isn't the voice of labor, but the voice of the ultra-left.

[azurnoir]

19. they said only 1 labor group, moreover it seems rather vindictive of the DNC to go back 16 years

as a reason to exclude someone

[Ken Burch]

22. So, if you supported Nader, you can expect to be blacklisted unto your tenth generation?

How do we get the former Nader voters and those they have influenced to switch to us(which we need to do to build a long-term progressive majority)if we take that view?

We can't just permanenetly anathemize everyone who had anything to do with Nader.

[azurnoir]

25. I think former Nader voters switch long ago Nader hasn't run in 16 years

and I could be mistaken but it wasn't the Republican vote he drew

[msanthrope]

31. If you supported Nader, you really should not be drafting anything for Democrats. Nt

[Ken Burch]

32. Even though that was sixteen years ago and this person has been back in the party for ages?

It's bad that the 2000 result happened, yes.

But it's not as simple as saying Nader shouldn't have run. The party needs to address its responsibility for causing the Nader candidacy by basing its approach in the Nineties on demonizing and silencing progressives(except for a tiny handful who were allowed to speak because they were politely half-liberal on issues that didn't threaten anyone's profits or privilege)and giving many of them the impression that there was never going to be any reason for them to believe they'd have a say in what the party stood for. Bill Clinton created the despair that led to Naderism.

The left wasn't to blame for the losses in the Eighties and didn't deserve to have the party freeze it out and abandon almost everything the left cared about.

And the path forward involves reaching out to everyone on the progressive side of the spectrum. What worked in the Nineties will never be needed again, and the party needs to officially move past what was done then.

That is why we should welcome in those who were made unwelcome. What happened in 2000 would never have happened if the party hadn't made those people unwelcome in the first place.

[msanthrope]

51. No one caused Nader's run but his egotism. That you do not see the sheer opportunism

of that man, 16 years later, is not surprising.

[Ken Burch]

82. It serves no purpose to pretend it was that simple.

Nader only got the support he got because the party had decided to treat the left as the enemy, to make it clear that progressives and activists(other than on safe, nonthreatening issues)were not welcome.

Gore could have had those votes, but he refused to reach out. That's on him and the party.

[cui bono]

34. That's ridiculous. Nader's positions are in line with the roots of the Democratic Party.

[msanthrope]

49. His union busting activities are not in line with us. Nt

[cui bono]

75. No, that would not be. Neither are the Clinton's.

When you side with corporations, as both Bill and Hillary do, you are against unions. Bill Clinton made the Democratic Party another corporate funded party with the DLC and we all know about Hillary's corporate speeches, we don't know enough about them, but then the fact that we don't tells us exactly what we need to know.

I will have to look into Nader's actions as I do not know of them. Do you have a link?

.

[azurnoir]

35. To reach back 16 years seems a bit vindictive IMO

[msanthrope]

50. It's smart. People who fell for Nader have no business leading Democrats. nt

[cui bono]

76. Nor do people who support the TPP, private prisons, compromising a woman's right

to control her own body, warhawks, who take millions of dollars from corporations for speeches whose contents they keep secret, who would cut SS, who support fracking... etc... etc... etc...

Anyone who falls for this has no business in the party at all really as these are all Republican positions.

.

[Ash_F]

41. The NNU are good people.

[msanthrope]

52. No....they aren't. The Green/Republican alliance in PA proved that. nt

[Ash_F]

72. ...

[Fumesucker]

39. Welcome to DU

Here's your vuvuzela.

[senz]

26. Because labor represents workers and the DNC represents management.

Working Americans are not represented in either political party.

[Juicy_Bellows]

37. Bingo!

Labor? Fuck those serfs.

[cui bono]

33. Because Bill Clinton sold labor out when he embraced the DLC and corporate money.

[Live and Learn]

64. + a gazillion. nt

[jwirr]

74. Truer words were never spoken. Thank you. Just think about

the TPP and who gets to decide what is going on in this world. The workers have little to say about their own working conditions.

[B Calm]

38. The political party that labor built is no longer representing labor. My dad is rolling over

in his grave!

[dmosh42]

54. I second that as a life member of CWA!

[Fumesucker]

40. In retrospect the eventual course of labor in America was set by the Hardhat Riot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Hat_Riot

It was clear then that organized labor supported the war that was grinding up their children for no good purpose beyond national vanity and some profits to connected people. They couldn't or wouldn't see that because of "patriotism" and that was their loss, I didn't want to be part of a movement that clearly hated me.

Organized labor turned an entire generation against them with their attitude about Vietnam. I certainly never looked at union members as being on my side in much of anything, it's very easy to see them as only caring about their own paychecks.

So in the end the demise of the unions can be attributed to "hippie punching" on the part of the privileged union workers. Oh no, not entirely of course but that sort of attitude drove young people away from unions and from the Democrats.

Good thing nothing like that is going on today to alienate young people.

[Scuba]

42. We're not about working people anymore. Now it telecomm, insurance and payday loan corporations.

[swhisper1]

59. if we ever address infrastructure, labor will experiencing a boom

[Scuba]

63. If giving monopolies to telecomms is "addressing infrastructure" we're doing a great job!

[swhisper1]

65. I'm completely against monopolys- another flaw in Clintons administration

as is Monsanto and many pharmas. You can call banks monopolys too, certainly corporations. These trade deals will create global monopolys. I was talking about how to bring unions back from extinction. Jobs for labor, local labor.

[Scuba]

67. Sorry, my cynicism meter has been redlined for a couple weeks now.

[swhisper1]

68. I'm afraid you are not alone

[Demsrule86]

43. Bernie got four terrible picks that could have gone to labor.

But instead he picked people like West.

[swhisper1]

60. they told him what he could not pick, labor being one, please keep up

this is a serious discussion

[Demsrule86]

85. Labor had already been picked and is represented as I posted in another post. nt

[azurnoir]

71. The DNC allowed West and rejected the head of the nurses union-why would they do that?

[Demsrule86]

84. Union leadership is represented on the full platform committee...this is the reason

and Hillary as the winner go her pick...Paul Booth

[Beowulf]

45. The Democratic Party began abandoning labor in the 70's.

The new, more favored group was professionals - doctors, lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs but not teachers - they were considered labor, unskilled labor among some. It was thought labor had nowhere else to go, but Reagan proved that wrong. NAFTA was the final blow. After 8 years of Bill Clinton, I'm not surprised a labor leader would support Nader.

Judging by the comments in this thread, I'd say that the Clinton camp and the Party have learned nothing this primary season. They think Hillary's apparent win is vindication, a sign of strength in beating back the challenge. There may be some very short term truth in this, but longer term, that thinking will be disastrous.

[ms liberty]

55. This. n/t

[LWolf]

46. Because neo-liberals don't represent labor. nt

[EndElectoral]

90. By their trade deals they have lost a lot of union support

[MrMickeysMom]

53. They're only confirming in THIS convention what they started to do in the 1980s...

Get rid of the base....

Meet the new base.... Same as the old base, except they're brainwashed into forgetting why it was important to build upon the old base.

Go to school... That's the answer!

Pay no attention to that giant sucking sound of the electronics industry, the clothing and car manufacturing industry, the tech bubble and it's off-short tech support industry...

Go BACK to school... Get in debt... Don't worry about the age discrimination... That's the answer!

Bigger corporations are Better!!!

Collective Bargaining is SO last century!!!

Pay no attention to that starving wage and dead end for the majority of the working class over there!

Yay DNC! ... RNC! ... PNAC!!!

[99Forever]

56. The establishment Democratic Party threw unions under the bus long ago.

I no longer kid myself that they will ever give a shit about working Americans again, only about manipulating us into voting for them.

[Octafish]

58. Because 1-percent own half the country.

Maff.

[ChiciB1]

61. OMG People, Please WAKE UP! n/t

[LiberalFighter]

83. If you are going that route than another question to ask is why each state

only has one labor union member on their state central committee as DNC members?

The reality is that the DNC attempts to have different groups represented on the committees. As a labor union member I am not about to demand labor unions should have more representation which would prevent other groups from being represented. Especially, if those other groups would be representing other related interests.

[azurnoir]

86. seems a big deal that the Communication Workers of America now support Hillary

or is it that they rescinded their support Bernie that makes it importanT?

[ibegurpard]

87. Because Labor is an impediment to corporate profit

[AgingAmerican]

88. Unions created the middle class in this country

Every country with a large middle class has strong unions, no exception. Unions are the great equalizer.

Before there were unions, there was an upper class, a small middle class and a vast lower class, like we see in third world countries.

[azurnoir]

91. Interesting that the AFL-CIO endorsement of Clinton is being so strongly touted

all things considered