In this article it is reported that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney encourages John McCain to tone down the rabble-rousing at his rallies.
Yes, I know that organized labor is partisan, and there are many who would call this a political ploy. But it still is teaming with irony, isn’t it? Who would have thought the head of the AFL-CIO would be warning the Republican Presidential Nominee that he is getting his crowds too whipped up.
I was glad to see John McCain take steps to tone down his most outspoken and frenzied supporters. It was the right thing for him to do, and it was probably politically astute as well.
I met AFL-CIO president John Sweeney when he stopped by a picket line during our 40-day SPEEA (Boeing Engineering) strike. Engineers have a hard time being rabble-ish, even when they want to. We scream things like “Ya…you will never finish your finite element code for your center body structure!…so there!” and other upstart comments like that.
Does the AFL-CIO still have close ties with organized crime?
Mark
As I understand it, the AFL-CIO is more of an umbrella group that brings all the individual unions together. There was corruption at the higher levels, and there certainly is in the lower levels – the local truckers union is full graft. (In my opinion)
The corruption is getting more clever: The unions stress ‘benefits’ over pay so that they can skim off the top by managing those ‘benefits.’ The union members would notice if their paycheck got smaller, but don’t really notice the 5% yearly fee for ‘managing’ their benefits.
I did some work for some local union manager types – some of their lifestyles sure were more lavish than than their salary would indicate.