Afl Cio

The AFL-CIO and its unions said they would spend an estimated $200 million on the 2008 elections, with the nation's largest labor federation devoting a record $53 million exclusively to grass-roots mobilization. In addition, the AFL-CIO said it would deploy more than 200,000 volunteers leading up to the election, with special focus on battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.

A divided AFL-CIO on Wednesday deferred making a Democratic presidential endorsement and freed its 89 individual member unions to back any candidate they like. "If during the primary season a consensus emerges, the AFL-CIO may still make an endorsement," said Lane Kirkland, president of the 14.2-million-strong federation. "We will review the situation from time to time as circumstances develop." "For now, affiliated international unions will work for the candidate of their choice," he said.

The AFL-CIO plans to invest $700 million in housing and other projects to help rebuild New Orleans, which was left with housing shortages and other infrastructure problems after Hurricane Katrina. The money will come from the union federation's pension fund and its lenders, investments that should make money for the fund while aiding the city, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. It also will create union jobs in a region with an enormous number of construction projects.

The AFL-CIO stepped into the debate over the troubled nomination of Alexis M. Herman as secretary of Labor, demanding the Senate hold hearings on the issue immediately. Her nomination by President Clinton has been mired in the controversy surrounding the Democratic National Committee's fund-raising efforts and no Senate hearings have been set to consider her Cabinet position.

Reps. Maxine Waters and Julian Dixon joined community leaders last week in recognizing the efforts of the AFL-CIO in helping local families and community organizations since the April-May riots. In a ceremony at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO office at 2130 W. 9th St., Waters (D-Los Angeles) presented the federation with a congressional resolution praising its efforts. The federation represents more than 700,000 union members.

The AFL-CIO's Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance has scheduled its biennial convention next month Downtown at the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers. About 500 Asian-American union members from all over the country are expected to attend the Aug. 19-22 convention, which will help tourism here, said Art Takei, a vice president of the alliance's Los Angeles chapter.

The head of the largest labor group in the United States said he had accepted a senior Chinese official's invitation to visit China and see for himself the conditions that workers face. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a letter to Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi that he was available to lead "a small delegation of American workers and international trade union leaders" to China as early as August.

The AFL-CIO said the National Education Assn., with 2.8 million members, would allow local affiliates to join the labor federation, which was hurt when major unions defected last year. Reg Weaver, president of the nation's largest teachers union, said the partnership would give educators more muscle when they campaigned for candidates for local political office and advocated legislation. "This is about two organizations coming together to meet the needs of working families," Weaver said.

Officials in Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's government are fuming because the AFL-CIO is giving substantial help to the miners strike in the U.S.S.R. The American unionists are aiding the Soviet miners openly, not covertly as they did for much of the 1980s when they provided crucial help to Lech Walesa's union, Solidarity, which finally brought down Poland's Communist government. The U.S.

The AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. labor union, plans public protests against Charles Schwab Corp. and Wachovia Corp. because the companies back President Bush's plan for private Social Security accounts, a union official said Tuesday.