January's Political Roundtable Focuses on the Democratic Party and How to Make the Labor Movement's Voice More Heard

Thursday January 21, 2010 was this years’ first C.O.P.E. Political Roundtable and it proved to be as spirited and informative as many expected. Over fifty union activists attended the meeting which convened two days after the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the passing of the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

Mass. AFL-CIO Political Director Bob Bower welcomed everyone to the meeting by giving an overview of organized labor’s tremendous efforts to elect Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate.  Click here for details. He also discussed the political landscape heading into what will undoubtedly be a very busy political season with state legislative, constitutional and congressional elections this fall. There are also two special elections for state senate this spring; one to fill the seat left vacant by U.S. Senator-elect Scott Brown in the Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex District, and one to fill the seat left vacant by Anthony Galluccio in the Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex District.

The Roundtable was next visited by Steve Grossman, CEO of Grossman Marketing Group in Somerville, MA. Grossman, a Democrat, is running for State Treasurer and spoke to union activists about his campaign. He began by touching on his relationship with labor and how he plans to create jobs as State Treasurer. “The main focus of this campaign is creating jobs, getting back to financial stability, and challenging the banks,” said Grossman. He also stated that he is for expanding gaming in Massachusetts because of the many jobs it will create and the significant increase in revenues that will ease the burden on cities and towns struggling to maintain services.

Tim Sullivan, Legislative and Communications Director of the Mass. AFL-CIO took the floor to update the delegates on recent happenings at the State House. Sullivan informed everyone about the recent education bill that Governor Patrick signed on Martin Luther King Day. The bill that was signed took away collective bargaining rights for teachers in chronically underperforming schools and districts. Also, the bill removed the union role from what are supposed to be collaborative Horace Mann charter schools, allowing for 14 of these schools to be created statewide without any union role in the process. Sullivan mentioned how the education bill followed the pattern of all major bills in the past year. Most major bills had amendments adopted by the House and Senate that protected workers’ rights and then the final conference committee report did not hold on to the workers’ protection language. He also discussed the need to begin preparing for the important debate on the expansion of gaming and economic development bill in the state of Massachusetts. Lastly, Sullivan informed the crowd that the state budget will require $1 billion more in cuts in FY11 then it did in FY10.

The primary issue on this month’s agenda was the Massachusetts AFL-CIO’s initiative to elect union members as delegates to this year’s Democratic State Convention. Brian Muldoon and Gloribell Mota of the Massachusetts Democratic Party spoke about the process of running for delegates. They informed the crowd about how to get delegates elected and what rules must be followed when attempting to do so. The two discussed the caucuses that will be occurring all over the state in the coming month and when and how to register for them. This year’s Democratic State Convention will nominate candidates for statewide office, and will be held on June 5th at the DCU Center in Worcester. Please click here to find out how to attend this year’s convention as a labor delegate.

Bob Bower wrapped up the segment on the Democratic State Convention by reiterating the importance of organized labor having a strong presence at this year’s convention so that labor’s issues and priorities are heard loudly and clearly, and to highlight how much of a boost Democratic candidates and elected officials receive by organized labor. This opened up a spirited and at times heated discussion over the current actions (or lack there-of) of elected officials both in Massachusetts and across the country. Many are frustrated by elected officials not delivering on their campaign promises, and this frustration was clearly taken out in Tuesday’s election.

The Roundtable was concluded by Paul Feeney of IBEW Local 2222 reminding everyone of the Jerry Leary Family Fundraiser on January 29, 2010. He mentioned the $10,000 raffle that tickets can be bought for and other details of the event. “Jerry was a great man and was the sole provider for his big family so every bit of help is appreciated.” To read more about the Jerry Leary Family Fundraiser click here.

The next C.O.P.E. Political Roundtable will be held on Thursday February 18th at 1:30PM at the Massachusetts Archives Building between the JFK Library and UMass Boston. Please stay tuned for more details.