Take Back The Democratic Party For The Labor Movement

The anti-labor stance taken by so many Democratic Party affiliated elected officials and their staff continues to beg the question:

Why does organized labor continue to throw good money after bad supporting candidates that do not support unions?

We continue to send millions of hard earned union member contributions to "Progressive" Democratic Party endorsed candidates through union PACs in election after election, only to have those candidates throw the labor agenda under the bus after winning their election.

We need to divert some of that funding to a comprehensive, nationwide campaign to take back the Democratic Party for the labor movement.

We need a national AFL-CIO sponsored campaign to raise awareness towards promoting and supporting union members becoming local Democratic Party District Leaders in villages, towns, and cities across America.

Elections are almost never decided at the polls. In most communities the results are a foregone conclusion because the vast majority of voters support one party or the other, voting the same party ticket year after year.

The only was to effect meaningful change in this process is to be in the room where the party picks the candidates.

Support President Obama's re-election, help take back the House of Representatives, elect a filibuster proof Democratic Senate, support State and Municipal Democrats in the upcoming election. But even if we achieve these goals, don't expect anything to change very much in the short run. 

Labor will never regain the political power we have let slip away until we take back the Democratic Party from the inside.

Become a Democratic Party District Leader, urge your union sisters and brothers to do the same. Pick candidates that are union members, champions of worker rights, fair wages, and safe workplaces, and we can change the political landscape and save the American middle-class, creating a bright future for our children, our communities and our nation.



Robert Daraio is a member of the Board of Trustees in the Village of Ossining, New York, where three of the five Village Board members are also union members. Bob is a 2011 MALS graduate of the CUNY Murphy Institute for WorkerEducation and Labor Studies program and is proud to be an IATSE Local One stagehand.

Robert R. Daraio
Recording Secretary
N.Y. Broadcast Trades Council
Delegate, NYC Central Labor Council AFL-CIO

914-774-2646 cellbdaraio@yahoo.com