U.S. Unions Ready to Push New Laws if Democrats Win Big
According to The Washington Post:
CHICAGO (Reuters) - If the Democrats hold both houses of the U.S. Congress and take the White House in the 2008 elections, America's struggling unions plan to trade their political support for a raft of labor-friendly bills.
"It's early to say but if the Democrats were to take the presidency," as well as Congress, said Bill Samuel, legislation director of the AFL-CIO labor federation, "this could be an opportunity for historic change."
Analysts say Big Labor will push for legislation to make forming unions easier, restrict free-trade pacts, raise corporate taxes and reform the creaking health-care system.
"There is a real threat the Democrats may take the White House and extend their majorities in the House and Senate with the support of the unions," said Brian Darling, a congressional analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"In return, the Democrats would push measures like another minimum wage hike or no new free trade agreements that would be bad for the U.S. economy," Darling said.
"We are at a pivotal moment where the American people want to provide security and jobs for the next generation," said Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.
Like the 10-million-member AFL-CIO, the 1.9-million-member SEIU says it is planning the "biggest mobilization" in the U.S. labor movement's history ahead of the 2008 elections...click to continue.
