AFL-CIO Details Plans to Put Members in Driver’s Seat

of Presidential Endorsement

(Las Vegas – March 7) -- The AFL-CIO announced plans today for an intensive six-month program to involve union members and their families in selecting the next President and laid out a timeline for the federation’s endorsement process.  AFL-CIO leaders said that through a series of candidate forums, worker-to-worker discussions, surveys and online idea exchanges, working people would have more opportunities than ever to engage the candidates for president around their issues.

“We are asking each of our unions to reach deep into their membership and provide opportunities for working people to evaluate all the candidates -- and for the candidates to hear directly from them about working families’ concerns,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told reporters at a morning press briefing in Las Vegas, where the AFL-CIO Executive Council is meeting this week.  “This will be a very bottom-up process,” he said.  Sweeney said a number of unions are already holding forums with candidates and surveying their members. 

The Executive Council of the AFL-CIO will vote today on a policy  that asks each of its 54 national unions not to make an endorsement until the AFL-CIO General Board decides, following the six-month period of member consultation, whether or not to endorse a candidate prior to the primaries.

“We’re not going to act as individual unions,” said AFSCME President and AFL-CIO Political Committee Chair Gerald McEntee. “What we’re going to do is involve our members in the decision-making at every step of the endorsement process. Our members are more than just voters – they’re messengers. They’re activists. They’re the roots in grassroots. So they’re the drivers in this process.”

“We’re going to look at every candidate’s record, their position on the issues, the viability of their campaign and their success in motivating and inspiring our members throughout this process,” McEntee said. 

The AFL-CIO policy sets out an ambitious plan to give working families a greater voice in the presidential campaign.  It includes a series of discussions with candidates beginning in early spring in communities across the country and online to give working people a better opportunity to assess and evaluate the candidates on issues such as jobs, health care reform, trade policy, retirement security and the freedom to join unions and bargain for a better life.

In Nevada, union members are already playing a vital role in that important early voting state, said Nevada AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson.  "We plan to raise the level of the national debate on working family issues by mobilizing and educating union members and their families for the Nevada caucus, and making sure they're ready and able to fully participate," said Thompson.   The Nevada State AFL-CIO will not endorse a candidate, leaving the endorsements up to the individual member unions.  

Coming off a grassroots mobilization in 2006 in which 13.6 million union voters were mobilized in 32 states in support of working family friendly candidates, the labor federation said it is poised to make an even greater impact in 2008.

“This level of activity by union members early in the process will lay the groundwork for the greatest involvement by working people ever in electing the President of the United States,” Sweeney said.