AFL-CIO: Labor will stand by Obama - "I don't think the labor movement will be on the sidelines"

[jefferson_dem]

AFL-CIO: Labor will stand by Obama
By Michael O'Brien and Kevin Bogardus - 08/18/11 05:15 AM ET

Organized labor won't sit out President Obama's reelection campaign and let a Republican win the presidency, the AFL-CIO's political director said Wednesday.

Despite the frustration labor activists have expressed toward the administration for the deals it has cut with congressional Republicans, Obama still provides a better alternative to a potential Republican president, said Michael Podhorzer, the labor federation's top politics officer.

"I don't think that the labor movement will be on the sidelines with President Obama," he said in a sit-down interview with The Hill Wednesday.

Podhorzer said that the union is likely to announce this fall that it's creating a so-called "super PAC" that can spend and receive unlimited amounts of campaign donations. Podhorzer said the labor federation has been limited by election laws to contacting just its own members but with a super PAC, the AFL-CIO can expand its outreach to non-union voters as well.

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It's part of the revamped political strategy first outlined by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka this May, when he said that the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, would reduce its emphasis on directly helping candidates. That announcement was driven, in part, by frustration that labor-supported Democrats failed to deliver on their promises to working voters.

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http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/177271-afl-cio-labor-will-stand-by-obama-