2008 in Review: McCain Revealed and McCain Reviled (March-April)

[Omaha Steve]

by Mike Hall, Dec 28, 2008

Here’s the second part in our series taking a look back at 2008. Check out Part 1 here.

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March-April


The job loss hits kept coming—63,000 in February and 83,000 in March. But President Bush and congressional Republicans kept up their fight against extending unemployment insurance benefits to workers who run out of benefits before finding new work in a crumbling economy.

In April, more than 400 central labor councils begin dedicating their monthly meetings to educating and mobilizing their members around health care reform for the coming elections. Most saw huge turnouts.


Ignacio “Nacho” Meza, foreground, and his co-workers fought for two years to win a voice at Rite Aid.


Union members continued making endorsements in the primaries, many selecting Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) or Barack Obama (D-Ill). But they were unified in their opposition to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and showed up at campaign stop after campaign stop urging him to meet with workers. He never did.

Meanwhile the AFL-CIO launched McCain Revealed, a website detailing McCain’s long anti-working family career and dangerous policy proposals.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed to the Employee Free Choice Act as a vital part of restoring the nation’s economy. The AFL-CIO Executive Council launched a Million-Member Mobilization to pass the Employee Free Choice Act., with affiliated unions committing to securing a million pledges from their members for the fight to pass the workers’ rights bill.

FULL story at link.