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View Full Version : Does the working class in Illinois need a billionaire to represent its interests?



ckaihatsu
2nd August 2017, 14:08
Does the working class in Illinois need a billionaire to represent its interests?

The Illinois Federation of Labor has hit bottom.

WGN today aired the IFL's new political endorsement campaign video, backing J B Pritzker against Bruce Rauner in the next gubernatorial election.

Pritzker is a Billionaire, same as Rauner. Instead of our state’s union leadership searching for ways to independently break from the Democratic Party of Clinton and imperialism, they sink further into the quagmire of corporatism. (Penny Pritzker, another billionaire in that family and notorious for her role on Mayor Emanuel's Board of Education, was the money bags behind the sudden viability of Obama’s run for President, for which she was rewarded when he appointed her Secretary of Commerce.)

But the labor movement is too weak to create a third political party of the working class and its allies! Absolutely false.

To quote Alan Benjamin, San Francisco Labor Council Executive Committee member:

Just in the 2016 presidential election, the unions spent $400 million to support Clinton; SEIU alone put up $70 million. The unions mobilized tens of thousands of canvassers and knocked on 9.5 million doors, according to the AFL-CIO. They spent $40 million alone in registering new voters.

The labor movement in 2016 had half a billion dollars and formidable organizational resources to micturate down the drain for the Democratic Party and Clinton. That kind of money and energy is there for a new, 3rd political party. But the union leadership that is married to the Democratic Party is apparently doing everything in their power to strangle this potential, this now with the IFL’s insolent and provocative Pritzker endorsement.

Illinois and Chicago-area unionists should immediately begin democratic discussions and meetings that will lay the foundation for a new, third party. We must publicly rebuke the IFL’s Pritzker announcement. We don’t need a billionaire to defend us; untie our hands so that we may defend ourselves!

Larry Duncan
member CWA 14408/Chicago Typographical 16, retired


https://s1.postimg.org/f4zz1oycf/20170801_JB_Pritzker_being_cheered_on_by_the_UFC.j pg (https://postimg.org/image/es8kvig2j/)
JB Pritzker being cheered on by the UFCW

ckaihatsu
2nd August 2017, 14:21
Illinois unions note: Pritzkers opposed hotel workers organizing Hyatt. Labor Beat video from 2011


Illinois unions note:

Pritzkers opposed hotel workers organizing Hyatt

Labor Beat video from 2011

Apparently Illinois Republicans are exploiting the fact that the Pritzkers attacked union organizing efforts at their Hyatt hotel chain. Rauner and the Republicans are using this to undermine Democrat J. B. Pritzker’s campaign for governor, now endorsed by the Illinois Federation of Labor. And the allegation is true. What a fiasco for the Democrats and the Illinois Federation of Labor, who are supporting J. B. for governor! Illinois unions should demand that the IFL immediately withdraw its endorsement for a member of this union-busting billionaire family. How outraged they would have been at this protest back in 2011 (see video below) if it had been announced at the end of the march and rally that their state federation of labor in 2017 would be campaigning for the billionaire J. B. Pritzker to represent them in Springfield. (And how much money from union dues was spent on the recent, expensive Pritzker campaign video?)

Here’s Labor Beat’s video from 2011 on the Hyatt vs the hotel workers.

-Larry Duncan


Labor Beat: We Are One - Illinois
https://youtu.be/dOntwNsWHac

https://youtu.be/dOntwNsWHac

As part of the national We Are One actions in early April, a number of rallies took place around Illinois and culminating in Chicago on April 9, 2011. We begin first at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the banks of the Chicago River as teacher unions teamed up with the hotel workers. They shared a common foe: the super-rich Pritzkers, who own the Hyatt and also play the same role in Illinois as the Koch family plays in Wisconsin, bankrolling legislators to attack public sector unions. Afterwards, the action moved down to Daley Plaza where some 10,000 unionist heard speeches comparing what is happening in Illinois to Wisconsin. Includes scenes from downstate rallies in Decatur and Springfield. Speakers and interviews: George Schmidt, Substancenews.net (http://substancenews.net/); Jackson Potter, CTU staff coordinator; Sandra Miranda, Hyatt housekeeper; Dan Montgomery, President of Ill. Fed. of Teachers; Ken Swanson, President of Ill. Education Association; Bill Lucy, President of Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Jen Johnson, Chicago public school teacher; Mahlon Mitchell, President of Wis. Fire Fighters Union. Length - 12:54