AFSCME officially endorsed Obama this week having already announced the union intends to spend $100M on the President’s reelection. AFSCME officials also added that their ground machinery was “fine-tuned” in certain key states from a year of ferocious state budget battles.
The third largest union in the country (after the NEA and SEIU), all but a small fraction of AFSCME’s 1.6 million members are employed by state and local governments. As such, it would come as little surprise that ¾ of the AFSCME members (supposedly) polled for the endorsement support Obama’s reelection. (It’s actually more stunning that one quarter of AFSCME members do not.)
On top of the pledged $100M, the union is already running ads around the country that attack the GOP while pushing the Obama jobs bill. The jobs bill contains $140 billion in government works spending (which would largely go to employers under union contract) and local government bailout money. It’s estimated that unions spent over $1 billion on Obama in 2008 through direct donations and boots on the ground.
AFSCME is the biggest fraud against the tax payer! I was an AFSCME employee for 6 1/2 years and the union did not protect me as a whistle blower from illegal retaliation that was perpetuated by my union bullies and union steward! I am an enemy of the union because I am a minority, I actually believed I had to work and earn my pay check as a public servant! hahahahah! the union did not arbitrate my illegal firing because one of the many things I was blowing the whistle about was 3 people hired to do 1 man’s job, 2 of those people upper and middle management that foster the personnel problems that justify their otherwise useless and meaningless positions!