HILLARY PHONES IT IN FOR FAST FOOD WORKERS

Speaking to a gathering of fast food workers and voicing her support for a $15 minimum wage, Hillary Clinton said, “I want to be your champion” to the assembled group.

Well, we do know special orders never upset the Clinton Foundation. It’s also accurate to say Hillary phoned in her support.

Appearing by phone at a meeting of 1,300 workers, Clinton voiced her most emphatic support yet for the nationwide Fight for $15 movement, which is also seeking to unionize fast food giants like McDonald’s.

Perhaps more important to the multi-millionaire presidential candidate was that she paid her dues to Big Labor, including the SEIU. Campaigns and foundations do not run on bread, or hamburger rolls, alone.

Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry told the crowd that Clinton’s call shows “how powerful people around the world are listening to this movement to change our world.”

Clinton also expressed broader support for organized labor union and the right to bargain collectively.

The appearance marks the Clinton campaign’s latest attempt to shore up her left flank and de-emphasize the centrist pragmatism that marked her husband’s presidency and her own record as senator and secretary of state.

Via: Breitbart

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SEIU Thugs To Begin Knocking On Doors To Try And Sign Americans Up For Obamacare…

The nation’s largest healthcare workers union announced Tuesday plans to help President Obama with the expansive rollout of his healthcare reform law.

The Service Employees International Union will knock on doors and host community events to help people understand the Affordable Care Act before Oct. 1, when uninsured Americans will be asked to sign onto exchanges to purchase health insurance. The Obama administration has actively recruited companies, celebrities, sports teams and unions to help prepare the country as key components of the law finally go into effect, dubbing the consortium the “Champions of Change.”

“Let there be no doubt, the new healthcare law is working for working people,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said. “We are not seeing the long-predicted ‘rate shock’ but we are seeing ‘Republican shock’ as extremists fail in attempts to repeal or obstruct the Affordable Care Act and its landmark protections and benefits for working Americans.

Via: Weasel Zippers via Washington Post

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James Hoffa, Teamsters President, Says Romney 'Wants To Annihilate Organized Labor'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The way Teamsters President James P. Hoffa sees it, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would be happy if an already weakened American labor movement ceased to exist altogether.

"He wants to annihilate organized labor as we know it," Hoffa told HuffPost outside the Democratic National Convention this week. "It's on his website. I'm not making this up. He's for a national right-to-work law. The Republican Party has veered dangerously to the right. It's rather incredible, in 2012, if you think about it."

Indeed, Romney's official stance on labor isn't kind to unions. His campaign website suggests that unions have outlasted their significance, "driv[ing] up costs and introduc[ing] rigidities that harm competitiveness and frustrate innovation." He supports states pursuing right-to-work laws, which weaken the clout of unions, and his party last week approved a platform pushing for national right-to-work legislation. He'd also like to prohibit automatic union dues-deduction from employee paychecks.

Hoffa isn’t the only labor leader who visited Charlotte this week and sees a hostility toward unions in Romney's positions. Mary Kay Henry, head of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, told HuffPost earlier this week that Romney "wants to take us out."

The Romney campaign didn't respond to Hoffa or Henry's comments.

Rank-and-file union members said they often feel taken for granted by Democrats in office. Among many labor activists, the enthusiasm for the Obama-Biden ticket appears to stem in large part from a loathing and distrust of the alternative. But Hoffa, like other labor figures who headed to Charlotte, insisted the current White House has been good to unions over the past four years.

Via: HuffPost Politics

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