In early 2004, I was working in the Chicago area for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, a state branch of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT is very much my family union, and it has been a big help to both my mother, who in 1972 was fired from a middle school English teaching job for being pregnant, and to me, as the AFT helped organize my graduate school and then gave me a job after that, at over the past thirty-five years. As such, When the AFT endorsed Hillary Clinton, their endorsement meant a lot to me, even if at times I have disagreed with the direction of the union. My mother is a big Hillary Clinton backer herself, and given the union's demographics I have little difficulty believing that the membership as a whole supported their endorsement.
When I was working for the AFT, on three separate occasions in a three-month period we worked on new organizing campaigns were a local state branch of the National Education Association was the main opponent, rather than any school administration. The nastiest and most difficult of those three campaigns took place at a local community college in Cook County, which was so close that it required a second election (only one vote separated the two unions in the first election, and the five votes for "no union" necessitated a second election). During the second election, on more than one occasion I heard a teacher I was canvassing say a variation on the following: "you know, the problem with the AFT is that they are affiliated with the AFL-CIO." It was coded language for stating that the AFT was bad because it associated with blue collar and service unions, rather than being a professionally focused organization like the, at the time, non-AFL-CIO affiliated NEA. This new, loaded, class based messaging worked for the NEA in the second election too, as they cruised to a twenty-vote victory the second time around (about 150 people voted in both elections, so a twenty vote victory is big).
The teachers union has drawn knives on the Culinary Workers, deepening the potential political rifts over Nevada's Jan. 19 Democratic caucus.
A lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court seeks to stop the Democratic Party from holding caucus meetings at nine Strip hotels, which would diminish the influence of casino workers and hamper Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.
Whatever the details of the lawsuit, which Jeralyn Merit thinks might have some validity, I am with Josh Marhsall in finding the timing of the lawsuit extremely suspicious. While the NEA hasn't endorsed Clinton or anyone else, considering the demographics of their union I would be shocked if most of their members, and nearly all of their leadership, did not support her. If this lawsuit was based purely on civics issues, then it would have been filed months ago when the at-large precincts on The Strip were first introduced. Instead, this strikes me as nothing more than a class-based power play by one large union against another large union, based entirely as a counterattack against the recent UNITE-HERE endorsement of Obama in Nevada. It is yet another form of the identity politics in this campaign getting ugly, especially when coming from Clinton surrogates and supporters. I'm not that Clinton hasn't had to put up with a wave of sexist bullshit, just that I once again agree with Josh Marshall in that, over the last four or five days, I think the talk from Clinton supporters has been particularly nasty.
It is really disgusting to see anyone try to disenfranchise anyone else, but for a Democratic-leaning union to do so in a primary against hotel and casino workers on socioeconomic grounds is particularly revolting. I hope the Clinton campaign works to help defeat this lawsuit, because no Democrat should stand for this kind of bullshit. Right now, the Clinton campaign appears noncommittal on the lawsuit. Disenfranchising Democrats has been a long-standing tactic of many conservative organizations and Republican campaigns. If we don't fight against it when it happens in our own party, our efforts to prevent it in general elections become all the weaker. Shame, shame on the NEA, and cheers to anyone who meaningfully fights against this lawsuit.
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