The American Postal Workers Union announced that they were endorsing Sanders.
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One issue that won the union over: Sanders’ backing of postal union reform and opposition to postal privatization.
The union represents more than 220,000 postal workers and retirees and 2,000 private sector mail workers. The union represents 200,000 employees and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Sen. Sanders has led the fight against the Republican push to privatize the postal service.
“Applying that criteria, Sen”.
“The Postal Service is under constant and vicious attack … the Postal Service is not going broke”, he said, according to a union transcript of the event.
The APWU endorsement recalls the historic “reward our friends” calculus, as Sanders has for years been an ardent congressional advocate for postal workers and the United States Postal Service.
“Although Restaurant Associates settled these charges by promising to end further unlawful intimidation, it has been reported that within weeks, Restaurant Associates’ President Ed Sirhal took advantage of the Senate recess to hold a meeting with workers to discourage their organizing campaign”, the senators wrote. “No other candidate has his record of standing with workers on picket lines, fighting for a $15 per hour minimum wage, for free public college tuition, and advocating for veterans’s benefits”, he said.
Larry Cohen, a senior adviser to Sanders’ campaign and the former president of the Communications Workers of America, said the campaign welcomed the support.
The postal workers will be well served by a president that would see public funds directed towards any government program regardless of performance or efficiency- a socialist revolution to ensure government and its cronies remain well positioned no matter how inept or wasteful.
Sanders’ largest union endorsement yet is welcome news as a NY Times/CBS News released on Thursday shows rival Hillary Clinton maintaining her substantial national lead, 52 percent to 33 percent. “My debate prep today is to stand with workers who are trying to get a living wage from a contractor with the United States government”, Sanders told CNN as he walked back to his Senate office from a rainy rally on the issue at the Capitol.
Labor for Bernie, a volunteer group of union activists working to nominate Sanders, has sought to slow or even halt the flow of Clinton endorsements by national unions so labor leaders have more time to evaluate Sanders. The fight for the support of unions and their members will go on.
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Sanders is also playing catch up after Clinton has enjoyed a strong few weeks in the media.
