On February 24, 2016, the Chapter of 1199SEIU at the Morningside Heights Campus of Columbia University met and voted to endorse the candidate whose goal is to push back the corporate doomsday rather than the one triangulating with corporate deep pockets.
The members organized and sent a message to their Union bosses which said:
“What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say ‘fuddle-duddle’? Go endorse Senator Hillary? Stomach this first: As an attorney, she sat on the board of Walmart, the nation’s largest union-buster. As a First Wife, she supported the ruinous global trade agreements of the 1990s that cost the jobs of more than 3,500,000 workers and that thus decimated the nation’s labor movement. As a senator, she voted for the deregulation of the housing market that by decade’s end had brought the world’s economy to its knees and left more than 8,000,000 workers without jobs.
So, dear Union Bosses, stop fuddle-doodle with us, and read below:“
On February 24, 2016, the Chapter of 1199SEIU at the Morningside Heights Campus of Columbia University met and voted to adopt the following resolution.
Whereas –
– the dues-paying Members of this Chapter are committed to building a broad, effective movement for democracy both in our Union and in our communities; and
– our goal is the establishment of a labor movement and a government that carries out the will of the people, not of corporations; and
– the Democratic Party’s next candidate forPresident of the United States must consistently advance these objectives ofeconomic and social reform.
Whereas –
– from joining Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, to his decades of consistent and vehement opposition to job-killing global trade agreements, to walking a Manhattan picket line in solidarity with striking Verizon workers just last October,
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has devoted his political life to economic and social justice; and
– he is a genuine and unapologetically progressive candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination who has inspired millions of Americans with policy proposals that put the interests of the labor movement front and center: a living wage of $15 per hour, Medicare for all, global trade partnerships that put American workers and their families first, and repealing laws that entrench corporate influence in our democracy at the expense of workers’ well-being and empowerment; and
– he is the strongest, most viable candidatet o defeat the disturbing trend in the Republican Party towards reactionary social policy and plutocratic economics, such as the mass deportation of non-White American citizens and tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent.
Whereas –
– Senator Hillary Clinton of New York during the 1980s sat on the board of Walmart, the nation’s largest union-buster, supported the ruinous global trade agreements of the 1990s that cost the jobs of more than 3,500,000 workers and that thus decimated the nation’s labor movement, and voted in the 2000s for the deregulation of the housing market that by decade’s end had brought the world’s economy to its knees and left more than 8,000,000 workers without jobs; and
– she in this election has vowed to oppose a living wage of $15 per hour, to oppose single-payer health care, and has accepted tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the very corporationst hat have destroyed and impoverished the livelihoods of tens of millions of American workers and their families; and
Be it therefore resolved that –
–We, the undersigned Members of this Chapter of 1199SEIU, issue an endorsement of Senator Sanders for President of the United States, and urge the Executive Council of 1199SEIU to reconsider its nomination of Senator Clinton.
So, I am asking the Executive Council of 1199SEIU: now, after having read this, what is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen , still ‘fuddle-duddle’ the paying member?
The Rt Hon Pierre Elliott Trudeau might disagree with you.
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