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News :: |
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United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Endorse Nader |
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by B-C Greens
Email: boston-cambridge-greens (nospam) usa.net |
05 Oct 2000
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Under federal election law — and given our union's policies and structure — we have no way of letting you know when our national union, or an autonomous UE local union, has taken democratic action to endorse a candidate for federal office on our website. |
Candidate Endorsements on the UE Web
www.ranknfile-ue.org
Under federal election law — and given our union's policies and structure — we have no way of letting you know when our national union, or an autonomous UE local union, has taken democratic action to endorse a candidate for federal office on our website.
Here's Why:
To post endorsements for candidates to any federal office on our website, UE would have to have a separately constituted "Political Action Committee (PAC)" that could buy web space from the national union to make such announcements. Without such an arrangement, unions are prohibited from posting endorsements on their websites.
Proudly, and unlike most other unions, UE does not have a national PAC. Why? Because our approach to politics has always been independent and issue-oriented. In short, we don't spend our members' dues money on politicians. Frankly, we know that working people can't outspend corporate America and the wealthy in buying power and influence — nor should we try. We believe the only effective way to make our voices heard in the political process is through organized and direct political action.
In our political action work, we focus on, and fight for, the issues of importance to our members (as decided by delegates to UE's annual national conventions, or, in rare cases, by the UE's General Executive Board). We depend on a mobilized membership to convey our united message to all levels of government, or, in the rare case of a UE endorsement, to encourage our members to work on behalf of that candidate (we have only endorsed four presidential candidates during all of our 65 national conventions). As a result, we do not have, nor have we historically needed, a national PAC.
Regardless, it is unfortunate that we cannot post endorsement information on our website, even when we can tell you about any other decision we make. The law in question exists only to limit the role unions can play in the electoral process — which, as should be obvious, it does. |
See also:
www.ranknfile-ue.org
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Go UE! |
by TheNewOhioGreen
(No verified email address) |
05 Oct 2000
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I'm glad to see this, thanks for posting it BC-Greens! It seemed that union support for Nader was waning out of a general terror of George W. (Not to mention the part-of-your-dues march at the debates)
Four years back I attended a Job Corps center in western Mass, and the UE was one of the unions working there to take kids under their arm and teach them the real sort of vocational skills that most high school students don't get. I heard about Nader back in 1996, partly through them, and it's stuck in the back of my head. I went off into a tech related vocation, but respect for Ralph and of worker organized unions stuck with me so much that this year I began working with the Green party to see how far we can take Nader.
If Ralph pulls his 5% this year, and UE folks want to start running for public office? |
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California nurses endorse him, too |
by Gregory Geboski
ggeboski (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
05 Oct 2000
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The 30,000-or-so member California Nurses Association has endorsed him, too. |
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Don't Trust The B-C Greens |
by anon
(No verified email address) |
06 Oct 2000
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Do not trust this post. The character of the author(s) is very questionable.
Be sure to double-check these "facts" with a legitimate representative from UE. |
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Yes, it's legitimate |
by Gregory Geboski
ggeboski (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
12 Oct 2000
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I'm a member (although not an officer or convention delegate or anything like that) of UE, and, yes, the UE has endorsed Nader. This cartoon was pulled right from the UE web site, where I saw it at least a week before O3.
Isn't this hit on "B-C Greens" a bit of overkill? Sure, take everything from "B-C Greens" with a grain (or a kilo) of salt, but this particular post contained easily verifiable/ falsifiable evidence. Even if the post had been put up by, say, Elliot Abrams (I'm trying to come up with a good embodiment of mendacity here), I wouldn't have any more reason to doubt it, if given a source to verify it. |
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