AFL-CIO’s Bob Haynes has never been accused of willingly supporting women candidates (for government or for union offices)…but the AFL-CIO’s endorsement list this year adds new credibility to his reputation as an anti-women union neanderthal.
Note to Flanagan, Chandler, Spilka, and Bensen:
In the next term, you owe Bobby and the boys nothing, nada, ziltch…and you would do well to remind him of that every time he tries to bully you into voting for his narrow interests.
Note to Central Mass. Labor Council and AFL-CIO locals: Get some backbone. Maybe it’s time for a change at the top of your own state organization. He’s pulling the rug out from under you.
Where is Cathy Cassavant when you really need a good union leader? Just askin’
Please share widely!
According to its website, what’s required for incumbent legislators to get an endorsement are: a 75 percent favorable voting record, completion of a candidate questionnaire and a letter requesting endorsement. Any info as to which requirement(s) weren’t met by these candidates and which votes are on the voting record for this session?
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I don’t have added info about the internal endorsement process at AFL-CIO…I’m sure they had an “excuse” for each woman they dissed…process is not important …it’s the results that count…when you diss your friends there is no acceptable excuse.
which is why the AFL-CIO should have reached out to any reps which were in danger of not following the process to help them dot their eyes and cross their teas.
another issue is that the leadership of AFL-CIO is still barking the same bombastic blathering of decades gone past. I have to tune himself out at this stage as the drama is stale and the noise is just loud. To be a progressive labor movement they need to stand and speak for more than just (grunt) jobs and fist banging. A labor movement is about inclusion, justice and equal access to work including the high paying business manager jobs. While the rank and file (who actually do the work) are suffering the “boys club” is in a huddle keeping themselves protected, well-paid and exclusive.
…which is why I thought this year’s exclusion might have something to do with voting records.
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p>But on the Boys’ Club side of things, Scott Brown also got an endorsement in 2008 for re-election to the State Senate (nothing like a Screen Actors’ Guild card to pave the way), opening the union up to the suspicion that their backing of Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate race was a “wink-wink fingers-crossed” deal.
Harlee Chandler is my state senator, and you’d be hard pressed to find a harder working senator in the state senate. She and I have had our disagreements, but no one can claim that Harlee hasn’t been in the fore when it comes to the issues that matter.
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p>Boys’ Club is right. I don’t know enough about the others, but I suspect the other women are working as hard as Harlee–who ain’t no spring chicken, btw.
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p>Think I’ll sit on my hands the next time I have to listen to Haynes vent his bombastic spleen at the next convention. No Labor Day breakfasts for me, either, and I’m in a union. Disgraceful.