Grassroots Labor Pressure on Specter: “He Knows When There’s a Fire Under His Ass”

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.theittlist.com/site/ittlist/ind/grassroots_labor_pressure_on_specter_he_knows_when_theres_a_fire_under_his_/

Unflagging grassroots lobbying pressure on the newly-converted Democratic Senator, Arlen Specter, who previously said he couldn’t support the bill, led Specter over the weekend to promise union activists he’d support a compromise version of the bill that would please them. It’s a sharply different tone than he took after abandoning his earlier support for the legislation in recent months, both before and after he switched parties.

State AFL-CIO leader, Bill George, summed up what’s at stake for him:

“I’ve got to tell you, Arlen Specter knows what pressure is,” George said before Specter took the stage of a pro-Employee Free Choice Act rally, having invited himself to attend the night before. “He knows when there’s a fire under his ass, and you build that fire.”

State activists, including faith leaders and other progressives joining union members in this strong pro-labor state, have generated since the early spring over 150,000 letters, faxes and phone calls to all of Specter’s office in Washington and around the state. On top of that, over 400 small business leaders in Pennsylvania have signed up to back the bill, viewed as essential by supporters to reviving the middle-class and generating consumer spending on their businesses. AFL-CIO communications staffer Marty Marks, who has helped organize the campaign, says he was never deterred by the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that the bill was dead: ” I never accepted it for a moment. It’s too important, too much of a movement and it’s going forward. Something’s going to happen, and we’re not going to move on our core principles.” He says of Specter: “My sense is that he’s coming home,” to his pro-labor, Democratic Party roots.

At a rally for the Employee Free Choice Act that was held before Specter spoke to the state Democratic party, the Senator faced a mixed reaction, and the pressure was palpable (via PA2010):


During his ten-minute remarks to a couple hundred union workers assembled outside the Westin Convention Center, Specter sought to focus attention on his past support for initiatives important to organized labor, and in what is becoming a familiar talking point, he touted his role in helping to pass President Obama’s stimulus package. As workers chanted for him to “pass the vote,” he said he was working on a compromise for the “card-check” bill.

“I’m committed to find an answer which will satisfy you, and I’m optimistic we can do that,” Specter said.

But that wasn’t good enough for many rank-and-file union members in the crowd—some groaned in displeasure, some booed, and at least one hurled an epithet at Specter.

“You want my vote? I want yours!” John Heinlein, a retired ironworker, shouted repeatedly until Specter was forced to acknowledge him.

FULL story at link.

[drm604]

1. Good for you!

:applause: Now pressure them on health care!

[Help_I_Live_In_Idaho]

2. I sent him a scathing letter...

giving him my deepest feeling that he sucks beyond belief. Maybe some of the letters got to him. He needs a come to Jesus moment - or hes just another corporate prick.