Alternative Visions – “Is the ‘Labor for Bernie’ Campaign Catching Fire?’ – 09.11.15

Jack Rasmus interviews Rand Wilson, a lead organizing for ‘Labor For Bernie Sanders’ campaign on the east coast. Rand describes the latest events to build union support for the Sanders campaign, currently being organized by the core 7500 public endorsers who comprise the ‘Labor for Bernie’ group. A conference call last week by the group included 26,000 supporters, according to Rand,  who called in to listen to Sanders explain why he’s the best pro-labor candidate in the upcoming 2016 election. Already receiving significant support from white supporters nationwide in his round of speaking tours, Sanders may now be receiving notable support from at least certain segments of the unions, including Nurses, Postal, and Transport workers. Rand describes what’s going on currently in union circles to build support and endorsements for Sanders, how Sanders’ positions differ from Hillary Clinton’s, and how Sanders, unlike Clinton, refuses to take corporate money. Also unlike Clinton, Rand explains, Sanders wants to build a grass roots movement, a ‘political revolution’ in Sanders’ own words, from the bottom up.  Jack raises the question whether this grass roots movement and ‘revolution’ is just a ‘Sanders election’ effort, or whether it is viewed by the ‘Labor for Bernie’ group and its organizers as the start of something longer term, beyond the upcoming Democratic party primaries, that intends to unify not only local unions but other single issue community based protest movements.”  

Listeners interested in finding out more about the ‘Labor for Bernie’ organization and efforts, go to www.laborforbernie.org and to the Sanders website for his positions on workers rights atwww.berniesanders.com.

Rand Wilson is a member of SEIU 888 representing higher education workers, and has a long union activist history working for the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers, SEIU, Teamsters, Jobs for Justice organizing, and the AFLCIO campaign to defend against the Bush attacks on Social Security in the previous decade.