Hillary Clinton Is Pulling Away From Bernie Sanders With Union Endorsements

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Despite Sanders' decades as a champion of labor, the big unions are gradually lining up behind the front-runner.


WASHINGTON -- When it came time to think seriously about endorsing a presidential candidate for 2016, Paul Feeney says it wasn't a hard decision for members of his union.

Feeney is a shop steward for a local union of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Massachusetts. His fellow members haven't forgotten the time they were in an ugly contract battle with Verizon back in 2003. One day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) showed up and joined the workers on their picket line. He delivered one of the trademark fiery speeches that, more than a decade later, the rest of the country would come to recognize.

"They remember when Sanders stood up on the back of a pickup truck and addressed our members," Feeney said. "The person who went to bat for them the most was Bernie Sanders. And that means something to people."

The endorsement from Feeney's local union council says a lot about organized labor in the Democratic presidential primary. Three months out from the Iowa caucus, some of the biggest unions have already lined up behind front-runner Hillary Clinton, believing the former secretary of state has the best chance of defeating whoever Republicans end up nominating. And yet there's a deep, abiding passion for Sanders among much of the liberal rank and file, no doubt because he's been a relentless proponent of collective bargaining throughout his 25 years in Congress. The zealous support for Sanders says as much about Clinton as it does about the self-described democratic socialist.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-union-endorsements_564677a2e4b045bf3def3588

[litlbilly]

1. How about the Post Office? keep trying

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. If X has 200, 000 jelly beans and Y has 6,000,000 jelly beans , who has more jelly beans?

"keep trying"

[RandySF]

5. How many other unions?

[RandySF]

2. .

[Thinkingabout]

3. Backing Clinton makes good sense.