Showing posts with label AFL-CIO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AFL-CIO. Show all posts

Thursday, July 23, 2015

AFL-CIO CONTROLLED UNION INTERVENES, CANCELS TRUMP’S BORDER TOUR PLANNED BY LOCAL AGENTS

Donald Trump’s planned tour of the Laredo Sector of the Texas -Mexico border has been canceled by the national AFL-CIO-controlled union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). Border Patrol agent Hector Garza acted in his role as Local 2455 president to honor Trump by inviting him to see his section of border in Laredo firsthand. Agent Garza confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the national union had stepped in and insisted that the Laredo local back out of honoring Trump with the border tour. Agent Garza said he expected Trump to continue without the participation of the union.

An inside source with knowledge of the internal NBPC discussion over the Trump visit told Breitbart Texas, “The union is about to put out a press release saving face for the local who invited Trump and the union itself by saying they are canceling their participation because Trump said he was “being honored” and that “agents supported him.”
One Border Patrol agent who spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity said, “The union has largely appealed to the public for more attention to the dangers posed by illegal immigrants who cross the border, so it’s strange that the AFL-CIO side would take lead and try to hurt a presidential candidate for saying the same things the union always says. This kind of crap is why I left the union.” The agent continued, “The agents who actually work on the border invited him. This seems contrived.”
To understand the reasons behind Local 2455 inviting Trump to bring attention to what the agents are facing, a brief understanding of the Texas-Mexico border and the Laredo Sector’s struggles are needed.
Texas has five border sectors. from East to West they are the Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV), the Laredo Sector, the Del Rio Sector, the Big Bend Sector, and the El Paso Sector. Immediately after Breitbart Texas broke the June 5, 2014 leaked images of minors warehoused in RGV Border Patrol facilities, the State of Texas announced an effort to help secure the border. However, in that instance, Texas only sent help to the RGV Sector, largely ignoring the Laredo Sector.
Both the RGV and Laredo Sectors are worse off than most of the other sectors on the U.S.-Mexico border, largely due to the behaviors and characteristics of the specific Mexican cartels operating in these areas. Most of the border has the more professional Sinaloa Federation, an entity very concerned with keeping a low profile and staying out of the public eye. Both the Gulf and the Zetas have had leadership decimated and younger, less professional leaders take over and war with each other. Unlike the RGV Sector that received state help to handle the Gulf cartel, the Laredo Sector has largely been left to fight a losing battle against the Zetas cartel.

Monday, July 20, 2015

How workers are winning in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin

How workers are winning in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin
Hillary Rodham Clinton shed her usual sunny demeanor on Monday and snarled at Republicans in general and one presidential candidate in particular.
“Republican governors like Scott Walker have made their names stomping on workers’ rights, and practically all Republican candidates would do the same as president,” Clinton growled at Manhattan’s New School. “I will fight back against these mean-spirited, misguided attacks. Evidence shows that the decline of unions may be responsible for a third of the increase of inequality among men. So, if we want to get serious about raising income, we have to get serious about supporting union workers.”
Later that day, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka snapped, “Scott Walker is a national disgrace.”
Liberals like Clinton and Trumka have it all wrong. Workers have been waxing, not waning, under Walker. And they can thank his free-market reforms for improving their lives.
If there’s one thing workers value, it’s work. And on this score, Wisconsin’s Republican governor has delivered.
The Badger State’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 7.4 percent in January 2011 (the month of Walker’s inauguration) to 4.6 percent in May 2015 (the latest available figure).
US joblessness dropped from 9.0 percent to 5.5 percent over that period. Wisconsin’s unemployment, thus, stands well below America’s.
May’s labor-force participation rate also was higher in Wisconsin (67.9 percent) than across America (62.9 percent). These figures are down in both places, compared to when Walker arrived.
In January 2011, 69.1 percent of working-age Wisconsinites held jobs, versus 64.2 percent of Americans. This key metric has slipped 1.7 percent in Wisconsin, but has slid 2.0 percent nationwide.
Concerning ready cash, workers are faring significantly better under Walker than Obama.
According to the latest Census statistics, Wisconsin’s inflation-adjusted, median household income grew 2.7 percent, from $53,795 in 2010 to $55,258 in 2013. During those years, America’s equivalent household income shrank 1.3 percent, from $52,646 to $51,939. Indeed, under Walker, workers’ paychecks swelled by double what they shriveled under Obama.
In terms of “workers’ rights,” Wisconsinites now enjoy the right to work. In March, Walker signed a bill passed by the Republican-led legislature.
This new law recognizes a woman’s right to choose whether or not to join a union. (This statute applies to men, too.) Wisconsinites no longer may be compelled to join unions as a condition of employment. Clinton and Trumka are anti-choice on union membership.
Wisconsin’s government also stopped forcibly withholding union dues from the wages of its public employees. Labor bosses now must ask these workers for those sums, rather than snatch them even before public servants see them in their paychecks.
Ironically, Wisconsin’s new status as a right-to-work state may benefit unions as well as workers.
“Not only are right-to-work laws associated with higher economic growth, but union membership actually has increased faster over the past decade in right-to-work states than in forced-unionization states,” explains Jared Meyer, a labor economist, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, and a source for many of the data presented here.
“The reason for this counterintuitive result is that, for too long, union bosses increasingly have focused on playing politics rather than meeting their members’ needs. In right-to-work states, unions actually have to provide value to their members, since workers are free to leave unions, if they feel that the dues taken out of their hard-earned paychecks are being wasted.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Golf Channel Employees May Call Mulligan on Their Union

Workers will hold decertification vote on July 15

A group of cameramen and other technical staffers at the Golf Channel will have the opportunity to break ties with big labor next week after a federal labor arbiter dismissed union objections.
John Gallagher, an employee at the Golf Channel, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in June after collecting signatures from more than 30 percent of his colleagues. The board, which oversees all union elections, approved his petition, and scheduled a mail-in ballot election that will conclude on Wednesday.
The union became the sole bargaining representative for the technical staff at the Golf Channel in 2013. Gallagher and his supporters had to overcome several legal objections filed by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), an AFL-CIO affiliate.
Union officials argued that they received notice outside the timeline mandated by newly minted election rules approved by the board in April. Claude T. Harrell, Jr., the director of the board’s Atlanta office, approved the petition on Monday following a two-day hearing.
He dismissed union objections, ruling that Gallagher “acted in good faith” and provided adequate notice to union officials.
“While conceding it subsequently received all the required documents from the Region and had no evidence that it was prejudiced, it argues a rule is a rule and therefore the petition must be dismissed. I disagree,” Harrell said.
The ruling raises the possibility that board employees and misunderstandings about the new regulations were to blame.
“Part of the failure to provide the documents could be attributable to the incomplete and confusing instructions the Petitioner received from the Board agent following initial receipt of the petition as to what documents were required and thereafter as to what was required regarding the Statement of Procedure form. Given the newness of the rules, the confusing instructions and his inexperience in filing petitions, it is quite understandable as to the Petitioner’s failures. Accordingly, I find he made a good faith effort to comply with the rules,” he ruled.
The workers received legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Mark Mix, the foundation’s president, praised Harrell for allowing Gallagher to move forward.
“John Gallagher and his fellow employees successfully fought off attempts by IATSE officials to stop them from even having a vote to throw out the unwanted union,” Mix said in a statement. “This case shows the bureaucratic hurdles that union bosses regularly use to hold on to their monopoly power and stifle the will of independent workers.”
IATSE represents technical staff across the country. Because camera operators and other technical staff are spread out around the country, the National Labor Relations Board is arranging a mail-in ballot campaign.
“We hope the employees wishing to exercise their rights through this election will go forward without further delay tactics by union officials; however, history suggests an appeal of the Regional Director’s decision or use of other delaying tactics in an attempt to prevent employees from even having a chance to vote would not be surprising,” Mix said.
IATSE did not return requests for comment about the board’s decision.
Voting will come to an end on July 15.

Monday, June 29, 2015

The Story Behind How Unions Suddenly Came To Love Obamacare

FILE -- President Barack Obama stands behind AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka before he speaks at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, Aug. 4, 2010. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)
When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obamacare Thursday, unions praised the decision, but it wasn’t always that way. The biggest, most powerful unions in the U.S. opposed the law until they were granted special exemptions.
“The decision is a victory for the millions of Americans who need financial assistance to purchase health insurance, and means that tax credits for middle class and low-income Americans will be available in all 50 states,” United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) said in a statement.
The UFCW, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) among others all released statements showing their support for the law and the highest court’s decision to uphold it. Not long ago, however, unions were adamantly opposed to President Barack Obama’s massive healthcare overhaul.
“On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans,” a union letter from 2013, which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal, detailed.
The letter held signatures from leadership in the Teamsters, UNITE-HERE and the UFCW. But since that time, unions have come to support the law, while the Obama administration has continued to grant them special privileges.
“We write to express deep disappointment that your agency has approved a final rule creating an unwarranted special carveout benefitting certain unions over other Americans,” a 2014 letter to the Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell from Senate Republicans declared. “We demand that the rule be immediately rescinded.”
The letter, signed by 25 Republicans, followed a decision by the Obama administration to release a rule exempting some self-insured health plans, such as those commonly run by unions, from a reinsurance fee written into the law. The fee is designed to stabilize the individual market if too many sick customers sign up for insurance between 2014 and 2016.
“The American people deserve answers when their own government proposes to undermine their right to equal treatment under law,” the letter continued. “Carving out some unions from a multi-billion dollar reinsurance fee, the cost of which will ultimately be borne by every other American with private health insurance, is unacceptable.”

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

McConnell asks senators to cast pro-trade vote once more


Opponents meanwhile are mounting an equally emotional push to keep Obama from obtaining "fast track" authority to negotiate trade agreements with Pacific Rim countries and others.WASHINGTON (AP) — Backers of President Barack Obama's trade agenda are imploring key senators to stand by their previous votes when they revisit the issue in a showdown set for Tuesday.
At least 60 of the Senate's 100 members must back the measure for it to clear a procedural hurdle Tuesday and complete a near-miraculous resurrection of the White House priority. In a May 21 vote, 62 senators backed fast track, but they didn't expect it to return to their chamber.
The House revived the fast track legislation last week after Democrats initially derailed it in a complicated legislative package. Republican leaders — who support Obama on trade while most of his fellow Democrats oppose him — restructured the package and then passed the key elements, with only 28 House Democrats.
Obama's allies now are counting on the 14 Senate Democrats and 48 Republicans who supported fast track in May to do so again. Lawmakers generally dislike voting both yes and no on a contentious issue, figuring it's better to draw the enmity of only one side.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged senators to stick with their May positions.
"We shouldn't let this opportunity for a significant bipartisan achievement slip past us," McConnell said Monday. "If we simply vote the same way we just did a couple weeks ago, we won't."
Anti-free-trade groups are employing ads, phone banks and other tools to defeat Obama's trade agenda. An AFL-CIO ad warns that the legislation includes "no training for displaced workers" who lose their jobs to international trade.
Such aid, known as trade adjustment assistance, was linked to fast track in the original packaging. After House Democrats, at the AFL-CIO's urging, derailed the whole package by killing the training component, Obama's allies agreed to separate the two issues and try again.
The proponents on Tuesday can afford to lose only two or three senators from the May tally. A chief worry is that a few Democrats might switch from yes to no because they're frustrated that the Republican-led Congress hasn't cleared the way to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.
It's a priority, for instance, for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Her office said Monday she was keeping her options open on fast track.
"I know Maria is very upset, and I don't blame her," Sen. Bill Nelson, a pro-trade Florida Democrat, told reporters.
Previous presidents have enjoyed fast track authority, which lets them negotiate trade deals that Congress can ratify or reject, but not change. If Obama obtains the authority, he's expected to ask Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan, Mexico, Canada and several other countries.
Unions strongly oppose the deal, saying it will cost U.S. jobs.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

WikiLeaks offers $100,000 bounty for Asian trade pact pushed by Obama

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) listens as Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino (2nd R) speaks, during a news conference at the Ecuadorian embassy in central London August 18, 2014. REUTERS/John Stillwell/pool/Files
By Krista Hughes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Whistleblower website WikiLeaks offered a $100,000 bounty for copies of a Pacific trade pact that is a central plank of President Barack Obama's diplomatic pivot to Asia on Tuesday.
WikiLeaks, which has published leaked chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating text before, started a drive to crowdsource money for the reward, just as U.S. unions launched a new push to make the text public.
"The transparency clock has run out on the TPP. No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let's open the TPP once and for all," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement.
Nine hours after the campaign was launched, WikiLeaks' website was showing $25,835 pledged by more than 100 people.
The text of the TPP, which is still under negotiation and would boost the flow of goods between 12 nations from Japan to Chile, is a classified document. The U.S. Trade Representative has increased availability of the text to lawmakers, but critics complain there is still not enough oversight.
Union group AFL-CIO led a march on the USTR office in Washington to demand to read the text, but said it found the doors locked.
Under legislation awaiting approval from the House of Representatives, the text of the TPP will be publicly available for 60 days before it is signed by the president.
But it is still unclear when the House will debate so-called fast-track legislation granting the White House power to speed trade deals through Congress, although House majority leader Kevin McCarthy has said a vote is likely this month.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Hostess's Revival: What Can Happen When You're Allowed to Start Fresh

Given how much wailing and gnashing of teeth there was in the press when the old Hostess liquidated in 2012, a mid-April story at Forbes has gotten surprising little attention. Well, maybe it's not that much of a surprise, for reasons which will be indentified here. 

Readers may recall that the final straw in that drama occurred late that year when the the AFL-CIO-affiliated Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers union called a strike after rejecting management clearly communicated final offer. The company, already in bankruptcy, was through negotiating, and chose to liquidate. The press moaned about how all of this meant the end of an era. Steven Bertoni's Forbes writeup shows how wrong they were, and what a business can accomplish when it's not saddled with legacy costs and constraints. 

Because it received no national press coverage despite affecting workers in 48 states, very few people know that the Department of Labor decided after Hostess's implosion that the company's 18,000 affected workers would be eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance. 

That's supposed to happen when workers lose their jobs because of imports, not because they walked away from their jobs and took their employer down with them. At the time, I estimated the taxpayer costs involved at about $800 million. A February 2012 Investor's Business Daily editorial accurately described the government's decision as "a reward for those who refuse to negotiate, and a sop to the manipulative unions that are most adept at gaming the system. ... It's corruption." - 

Bertoni's Forbes article describes the "Twinkies Miracle Comeback." Readers here really need to, well, digest the whole thing, but here are several key paragraphs (bolds are mine):
Twinkie's Miracle Comeback: The Untold, Inside Story of a $2 Billion Feast
... The new factory (in Lenexa, Kansas) is bright and clean. Tight rows of Twinkies march along the $20 million Auto Bake system with the precision of Soviet soldiers in a May Day parade. Yellow robotic arms, which look like they should be welding Teslas rather than boxing Twinkies, stack snacks with hypnotic rhythm. This 500-person plant produces more than 1 million Twinkies a day, 400 million a year. That’s 80% of Hostess’ total output–output that under the old regime required 14 plants and 9,000 employees. And it’s about to get more efficient: Metropoulos and Jhawar just installed a second Auto–Bake system, this one for Cup Cakes ...
In truth, it’s more a resurrection of an American icon ... Hostess’ closing was a cultural moment across the U.S., offering proof of the dire state of American manufacturing. After over a decade of failing health that saw two bankruptcies and five different CEOs, Hostess finally died on Nov. 16, 2012 after the baker’s union pulled the plug with an ill-conceived nationwide strike. Hostess’ roots went back more than 150 years. It left behind 36 factories, 5,600 delivery routes and 19,000 jobs, creating something of a national mourning, not just for the brands but also for what the demise seemed to say about the country itself.
... How they’d do it? Cherry–picking top assets, modernizing manufacturing and distribution, doubling the shelf life of products and capitalizing on the rare place in pop culture Hostess products still held. “People walk up and thank me for bringing back Twinkies,” says ("Junk Food Billionaire" Dean) Metropoulos, who has previously rebuilt brands like Bumble Bee Tuna, Chef Boyardee and Pabst Blue Ribbon. “No one ever thanked me for saving Vlasic pickles.”
... (In 2012) With the unions myopically unwilling to make concessions necessary to make Hostess viable, the debt–holders shuttered it, engendering those “end of an era” editorials nationwide.
... the liquidation had washed away everything. Yes, the company was gone, but so were the pension costs, the union contracts and the debt. It also unbundled the brands, allowing investors to carve out the best businesses. “
We didn’t have to take on the factories or the routes,” says Metropoulos. “We didn’t have to take all the historical drags on the company.”
Metropoulos and Jhawar targeted the cake business: It had the best recognized brands (Ding Dongs, Ho-Hos and Zingers, in addition to Twinkies and CupCakes) and the longest shelf life.
... Metropoulos spent millions on R&D, working with food lab Corbion to tweak the formula of starches, oils and gums in Twinkies, finally arriving at an acidity level that would prevent staleness and discoloration. The singular goal: Make the Twinkie warehouse-friendly. And while none of this will make Alice Waters’ heart flutter, the team succeeded in making the indestructible snack even more so–it’s (sic) shelf life was more than doubled, to 65 days. Hostess switched to a warehouse system. Delivery costs dropped to 16% from 36% of revenue, and Hostess’ retail reach expanded greatly.
... In July of 2013–less than four months after Metropoulos and Apollo took over operations–the Twinkie was back.
... Fans flocked to stores. Demand was so high that large retailers waived the slotting fees they usually charge brands for shelf space. The Metropoulos and Apollo business plan had predicted $100 million worth of Ebitda (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization — Ed.) for 2014–instead they hit $178 million. Those numbers make Hostess’ $410 million price tag look dirt cheap ... “What they’ve done at Hostess should be a Harvard Business School case study on how to turn around a business,” says (Joseph) Gatto, the Perella (Weinberg) banker.
It also should be a far more visible story in the nation's press. But it isn't. Why is that?
Perhaps because the new Hostess's runaway success demonstrates what could have been accomplished if two other companies in a heavily unionized industry had been allowed to go through legitimate bankruptcies in 2009.
Instead, General Motors and Chrysler went through sham "bankruptcies" where the government deliberately picked winners and screwed the losers, blatantly violating centuries of common law and contract law in the process. It was then when columnist Michael Barone coined the simultaneously appropriate and prescient term "Gangster Government."
How much more efficient, productive, and value-adding could the entire auto industry be right now if managers as smart in their line of work as Dean Metropoulos is in his had been allowed to pick up the pieces of GM and Chrysler and assemble new car business dynamos like the new Hostess, and if other competitors had then been forced to adapt to the new reality?
Sadly, we'll never know — and all except those who were favored are poorer for it.
Via: Newsbusters
Continue Reading...

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Trumka Getting 'Grief' From Union Members Over ObamaCare

featured-imgAFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he was "getting grief" from union members regarding his support for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The calls have not changed his opposition to repeal, he added, saying the program merely needs to be "tweaked."
Trumka made the comments in response to a question from Politico reporter Mike Allen during a breakfast event hosted by the news website. Allen wanted to know if Trumka, who has been an enthusiastic backer of the law since it passed, was getting angry responses from rank-and-file members. President Obama's new law has been causing serious problems for union-run multiemployer health insurance plans, known as Taft-Hartley plans.

"Am I getting grief about that? Sure, I am getting grief about that. Do I want to see Obamacare scrapped? Absolutely not, because it is a good start," Trumka said.
Asked what the disgruntled members were telling him, Trumka replied, "The typical: 'What are you doing, you idiot, you dummy?' You know, the typical stuff."
The structure of Obamacare has caused many unions to fear that employers will pull out of Taft-Hartley plans or limit the coverage of members. At its quadrennial convention in September, the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution calling on Congress to amend the law. Some union leaders have talked openly of repeal.
Trumka and other Big Labor leaders have held private talks with the White House to amend the law as it applies to unions, and recently received an exemption from Obamacare's reinsurance fee, which caused the fee to be raised for others.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Administration accused of giving unions 'special treatment' with exemption from ObamaCare fee

The Obama administration is being accused of giving labor groups "special treatment under the law" after formally proposing a change that could exempt union health plans from a pesky ObamaCare fee. 
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who flagged the obscure rule change after it was filed in the Federal Register (see page 70), blasted the exemption as "crony capitalism at its worst." 
trumka_la_090913.jpg"Unions are now experiencing the ugly reality of this law, and they want out," he said in a statement. 
Indeed, the AFL-CIO has fought against what is known as the "reinsurance fee" in the Affordable Care Act. The temporary fee would kick in next year and is meant to raise $25 billion over three years, to help pay for the cost of people with pre-existing conditions signing up for coverage through the ObamaCare exchanges. 
The proposal filed Monday would exempt certain self-insured plans -- those that do not use a third-party administrator for core functions -- for 2015 and 2016. 
Republicans charge this is aimed at unions' so-called Taft-Hartley plans, though union officials had downplayed the change and suggested some of their plans wouldn't be eligible anyway. 

Thursday, November 14, 2013

California: Brown’s “School Reform” Morphs into Union Payoff

cft-with-backgroundIn 2013, maybe more than ever, the key to figuring out how California works is understanding that by far the most powerful forces in state politics are the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers and the 500,000 people they represent and collect dues from.
So when a Los Angeles Unified teacher feeds semen to his students and has to be bribed to quit, instead of enacting rules to make it easier to fire classroom sexual predators, the Legislature passes a fake reform that would have actually increased protections for pervert teachers.
So when a judge says districts must follow a state law requiring student performance be part of teacher evaluations, instead of compliance, we see the state cancel the standardized tests whose results could have been used against bad teachers.
And now here is the latest example of teacher unions’ hegemony in California: A much-trumpeted education reform enacted earlier this year is being hijacked in brazen fashion, further propping up the teacher-favoring education status quo.
The reform I refer to is Gov. Jerry Brown’s seemingly successful push this summer to divert school funding specifically to English-language learners, foster children and disadvantaged children because of his concern that they will lead difficult lives unless they get more out of school, with grim implications for the state’s future workforce. Brown didn’t say it, but these students are the biggest victims of the CTA/CFT chokehold on public education. Instead of having a school system devoted to getting the best teachers to where they’re most needed, we have a system devoted above all to protecting veteran teachers’ compensation. If minority kids suffer, the establishment ultimately doesn’t care.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Latino donors set sights on GOP lawmakers who oppose immigration overhaul

A network of Latino donors that played a pivotal role in raising money for President Obama’s reelection is now focused on a new campaign: an effort to oust lawmakers who stand in the way of overhauling immigration laws.
The Latino Victory Project, a new political advocacy organization modeled after the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, is planning to spend as much as $20 million on campaigns targeting members of Congress who have sizable Latino communities in their districts but oppose comprehensive immigration reform.
At a private meeting for about 30 donors, fundraisers and union leaders Friday, leaders of the group laid out a strategy to make the issue central in next year’s midterm elections if Congress does not pass a bill, identifying 10 House Republicans who would be vulnerable to pressure from Latino constituents.
Members of the group agreed to spend $1 million to $2 million in each of the targeted districts. The effort will begin in coming weeks with a campaign aimed at persuading the lawmakers to back an immigration measure this year. If that fails, the group plans to run a barrage of radio and TV ads against them next year.
“We’re all very united,” said Amalia Perea Mahoney, an art gallery owner in Chicago, who joined donors from Washington, Florida, Texas, California, New York and Massachusetts at Friday’s gathering at a hotel in the District. “I think it’s a pivotal moment.”
Tom Snyder, the AFL-CIO’s immigration campaign manager, said, “There was agreement in the room that if we don’t see action in the House, we know who we’re going after.”

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