Barack Obama readies the organized labor card

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080727/COLUMNS03/807270328/1043/business04

Morris Beschloss • Special to The Desert Sun • July 27, 2008

With powerful labor heavy states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana pivotal to victory in November's presidential election, Barack Obama is getting ready to play the union card.

Organized labor has traditionally provided the bedrock of the Democratic Party's electoral strength, since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. This power block has supplied not only massive voter turnout, but has provided major financial support to the Democratic presidential, as well as congressional, campaigns.

Even though Obama lost by a wide margin to Hillary Clinton in the big industrial states in the primaries, labor unions look to be in play as the unions see an opportunity to regain the power they have been losing since organized labor's shift to the right in the 1980 ouster of Jimmy Carter by then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan.

With a massive number of high paying industrial jobs now being outsourced to the world's low-cost manufacturing centers, organized labor sees an opening that may give them a rare opportunity as the political winds point to a congressional sweep.

If a labor-friendly president can make this a trifecta victory, labor — whose remaining strength is primarily centered on public unions — may be itching to seize the opportunity to slow outsourcing and regain some of the benefits that have been negotiated away, such as universal health care and decent pensions.

With membership tumbling in the private sector, labor wants an end to the rule that obliges workers to hold a secret ballot for ratification of unionization. This change would have to be approved by the National Labor Relations Board, which tends to reflect the leanings of the political party in power.

FULL story at link.