AFL-CIO Endorses Obama for President

Members of the AFL-CIO General Board “voted proudly and enthusiastically” this week to endorse President Obama for a second term. The board includes the Executive Council members, a chief officer of each affiliated union and the trade and industrial departments created by the AFL-CIO Constitution and four regional representatives of the state federations. The vote came during the annual winter meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Lake Buena Vista, FL.

“As president, Barack Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery and to our full potential as a nation,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a statement. “With our endorsement today, we affirm our faith in him—and pledge to work with him through the election and his second term to restore fairness, security and shared prosperity.”

Trumka outlined some of the president’s first-term accomplishments, including passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Affordable Care Act and Wall Street reform. While the union movement “has sometimes differed with the president and often pushed his administration to do more and do it faster,” said Trumka, “we have never doubted his commitment to working families.”

The AFL-CIO vote comes on the heels of several other unions’ decision to support the president’s re-election, including the IAM, AFSCME, AFT, and USW.

Within hours of the announcement, the wheels of right-wing, anti-union groups were turning as many flocked to the AFL-CIO’s blog to flood the website with negative comments. Click here to add your voice and balance to the conversation.

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