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  1. #1
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Labor unions giving serious thought to endorsing Trump

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/la...rticle/2573359

    Labor unions giving serious thought to endorsing Trump

    By Sean Higgins (@seanghiggins) • 10/4/15 12:01 AM

    Billionaire developer Donald Trump has thrown yet another monkey wrench into the political status quo: Some major labor unions are now mulling endorsing the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

    It's a move that would have been unthinkable in previous election cycles, but Trump has fans among the union rank and file and deviates enough from the GOP platform that labor leaders are giving him a serious look.

    On Tuesday, the 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced its executive council would put off a decision on a presidential endorsement due a lack of consensus. Fox News reported that the delay was caused partly by members' support for Trump and that the union was seeking a meeting with the candidate.

    The following day, Chris Shelton, president of the 600,000-member Communication Workers of America, told Politico that his union was putting off a presidential endorsement for the same reason. "If our members come out with Donald Trump, then we're going to endorse Donald Trump," he said.


    Getting either unions' support would be a major coup for Trump and a serious problem for the Democratic candidates. The eventual Democratic nominee will need strong support from organized labor in both fundraising and voter mobilization to prevail in the election.

    The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    Representatives for both unions were tight-lipped, but did not dispute the reports of flirtations with Trump, who ranks first in the Washington Examiner's most recent presidential power rankings. However, endorsements from either are by no means assured. Both unions also are considering Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Trump appears to have done little, if anything, to court labor leaders' support.

    Teamsters spokesman Galen Munroe referred to a statement Tuesday by union President James P. Hoffa, which did not mention Trump but did say, "The Teamsters will work with and support any candidate who puts the needs of America's working families above the deep pockets of their corporate donors." Munroe said the union did not have any meetings scheduled with any presidential candidates.

    Communication Workers of America spokeswoman Candice Johnson said the union was still polling its members on who to endorse and declined to say exactly how much support had been shown for Trump so far.

    "The poll is underway now — it opened in September — and members are continuing to vote into early December, so the numbers are changing. I don't have any further breakdown at this time," she said.

    The Teamsters' interest in a GOP candidate is not unprecedented. It has a reputation of being the most conservative among the major unions and endorsed Richard Nixon in 1972. But the communication workers' interest was surprising since it has a much more liberal reputation. The union's immediate past president, Larry Cohen, is a major Sanders supporter.

    Roger Stone, a veteran Republican strategist and long-time Trump ally who left his campaign in August after a dispute over political strategy, said the potential support was not surprising. The New York-based developer has a long history of dealing with unions, particularly in the construction industry, and usually finding ways to work with them.

    "He's generally union-friendly. He plays golf with and is friendly with, on a social basis, a number of union leaders in New York City," said Stone, the author of The Clintons' War on Women.

    Trump was particularly close to Ed Malloy, former president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. Malloy died in 2012.

    The union interest in Trump is based more on grassroots support, though, Stone said. The candidate's blue-collar popularism and image as a successful businessman is appealing to regular union members, particularly in the current economy.

    "The reason rank-and-file union members are interested is because Trump means jobs. Trump means growth. Trump is a builder. To build that wall in Mexico, that means a lot of jobs," Stone said.

    Shelton told Politico that the pressure for Trump was indeed from the grassroots — and he did not sound pleased about it. "Trump is not exactly as pro-union as he seems to be. He deals with unions when he has to. He doesn't when he doesn't."

    While Trump has reversed himself on many issues, including immigration, he has a long history of backing unions, at least rhetorically. He told Newsweek in a July interview that he had "great relationships with unions." In his 2000 book The America We Deserve, he wrote, "Is Trump a union man? Let me tell you this: Unions still have a place in American society. In fact, with the globalization craze in full heat, unions are about the only force reminding us to remember the American family."

    Trump is a card-carrying union member himself, having joined the Screen Actors Guild as a result of his numerous appearances in television and in movies.

    Trade is one of the main areas of common ground between Trump and the labor movement. Like them, he is a major critic of President Obama's trade agenda, including the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which is expected to go before Congress early next year. Trump has argued Obama is giving away too much in the negotiations.

    Most union leaders favor pro-immigration reform efforts, but there is considerable internal dispute on the issue, with many opposing worker visa programs as costing jobs. It took the AFL-CIO labor federation several months of negotiations with the Chamber of Commerce in 2013 before they could unite behind even a vaguely worded common immigration reform plan. Trump's staunch opposition to immigration presumably appeals to many of those disaffected grassroot members.

    It is not clear where Trump stands on several other issues related to unions such as "card check" election reforms to make workplace organizing easier, right-to-work laws that prevent workers from being forced to support unions as a condition of employment or the Obama administration's efforts to expand the definition of a "joint employer," making corporations legally responsible for labor law violations by subcontractors and franchisees.

    Liberal critics point out that his support for unions do not necessarily extend to his own businesses. He has resisted efforts by the service workers union Unite Here to organize the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

    Getting more than token organized labor support would require Trump to address those issues in his campaign, something he has shown little interest in so far.
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    That's what we thought! This is not coming from "union leaders", it's coming from their members. Like we thought, the members don't support amnesty or "comprehensive immigration reform", it's their union leaders cutting deals with DemoQuacks.

    I hope the voting by the members goes well for Trump, then their union leaders will have to endorse the candidates they choose, hopefully that will be Donald Trump, because without all the other union issues mentioned in the article, union members will benefit tremendously from the Trump platform of stopping illegal immigration, his goal to stop/reduce legal immigration, and deporting illegal aliens from the job market plus what he'll do in unraveling these hideous Free Trade Treason Agreements.

    And it's just wonderful to hear that the Communication Workers of America and the Teamsters are interested in supporting Trump.

    Thank you Communication Workers of America and Teamsters Unions! Hopefully more will think about it and do the same! The Unions do a great job getting out the vote, too, they are really hard workers.

    So all you pundits and pollsters and British Bettors! It's a long road ahead, and many of you have sadly cast your pens and pencils to the wrong deck of cards choosing to support your own arrogance and elitism instead of what's best for the people of the United States.
    Last edited by Judy; 10-04-2015 at 06:09 AM.
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  3. #3
    MW
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    Judy wrote:

    That's what we thought! This is not coming from "union leaders", it's coming from their members. Like we thought, the members don't support amnesty or "comprehensive immigration reform", it's their union leaders cutting deals with DemoQuacks.
    This is not new news. To my knowledge it has always been a well known fact that union leadership, not membership, were the big pushers of comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty). It's leadership that has an interest in growing membership.

    The low-skilled labor unions will not support anyone that doesn't support illegal immigrant amnesty. I think that is a well understood fact because the low-skilled unions, such as the Service Employees International Union, are full of illegals and folks with illegals in their families. Besides that, they see all illegal immigrants as recruits, which is no small thing to them considering how low their membership ranks have declined over the last couple decades.

    Unions that represent low-skilled labor to some degree:

    - The SEIU represents janitors, security officers, superintendents, maintenance workers, local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers and child care providers.

    - The UFCW represents grocery store workers, packinghouse employees, food processor workers, drugstore employees, poultry processing plant workers, retail store workers and factory workers.

    - The Teamsters union represents airline employees, bakery and laundry workers, food processors, construction workers, freight employees, port workers, rail workers, tankhaul drivers and warehouse workers. Yes, even the Teamsters represent some low-skilled labor jobs. However, their numbers are smaller than the SEIU and UFCW.

    With 3.2 million members, the NEA is the nation’s largest union and represents public school teachers, administrators, substitute educators, higher education faculty members, education support professionals, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers. I don't know this as a fact, but I would think it's safe to say the NEA, is probably hardcore in its support of comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty).

    I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that Trump could get some union support, however, if he does, I think it will be minimal. Of course all of this is just my opinion.

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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    I have been preaching to anyone who will listen, in today’s political environment when the Marxists dominate our entire culture, the way to political victory is to appeal to the working class, good old-fashioned populism. And the conservative grand dame Phyllis Schlafly agrees with me (great minds think alike).

    The Republican Party does not need more Hispanic voters it just needs more voters.

    No one even acknowledges or talks about the existence of the Blue Collar, Reagan Democrats. This entire group has disappeared from discussions of voter demographics. Of course they still exist; they are simply ignored. So now we have the spectacle of Republicans trying to compete with Democrats for votes among those groups (Hispanics, Blacks, etc.) that are inherently predisposed to vote Democrat.

    The silent majority that Donald Trump has talked about are mostly Blue Collar workers.

    There area about 93 million White voters and about 36 million non White voters. Blacks voted 93% for Obama, Hispanics 71% for Obama, Asians 73% for Obama. If Whites voted like the other ethnic groups do, e.g. about 70% for Republicans, they would get about 61.5 million votes or 600,000 more than half of the total votes and win every election even if the other ethnic groups voted 100% for the other candidate.

    The lesson is obvious—isn’t it? Of course we should welcome votes from everyone, but instead of chasing behind the Democrats, pursuing votes from the latest trendy “minority,” how about seeking to increase the number of Whites voting for our politicians? We will get a much better return for our time and effort. And why is it that White voters do not matter? Isn’t that inherently racist?

    Last edited by csarbww; 10-04-2015 at 01:28 PM.

  5. #5
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    We may not need them, but we want American Hispanics and Latinos to support our candidates, and I believe a great many Americans of Hispanic and Latino descent will support Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, because they are as fed up as anyone with losing jobs and businesses to illegal aliens. Hispanic and Black Americans are the first line of Americans to be harmed, cheated, murdered, raped, robbed and harmed by illegal immigration and excess legal immigration.

    American Hispanics are like our union members, whose leaders are selling them out. It's time to stand up tall and yell loudly, we want it stopped, we want our borders secured, we want illegal aliens deported, we want legal immigration stopped/reduced, we want our country back, we want our jobs, wages,hours and benefits back.

    They know it doesn't matter what Trump calls illegal aliens especially when Hispanics know it's true that illegal aliens are criminals who broke our laws and many of them are drug runners, scammers, frauds, drunks, thieves, gang-bangers, murderers and rapists. They're people who couldn't or wouldn't try to make it in their own countries, as Trump said, illegal aliens are not the best people. If they were, they wouldn't be here violating our laws to begin with. American Hispanics know this.

    It's time they stood up and spoke out, because this isn't about what the ethnicity or race of illegal aliens, it's about the numbers of people willing to violate the law entering our country in violation of the laws of the nation they want to live in.

    Who would support such a preposterous goal? Stupid people.
    Last edited by Judy; 10-04-2015 at 02:49 PM.
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