We host a debate on Big Labor’s endorsement of President Obama’s re-election between labor reporter Mike Elk and Arthur Cheliotes, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, a union that has pledged support of President Obama. This week the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization, endorsed Obama following earlier statements of support from several unions, including the Service Employees International Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers; and the Communications Workers of America. “Despite the talk of political independence that many in organized labor have been talking about for the last year, organized labor is still stuck in this Stockholm Syndrome of President Obama,” Elk argues. “We live in this real world not a theoretical world and we don’t have the luxury of standing on the sidelines,” Cheliotes counters. “We have to engage.”
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