Clinton, in another sign of her clout, won the endorsement Tuesday of the 2 million-member Service Employees worldwide Union, giving her the backing of a labor power that supported President Barack Obama in 2008. Other major unions like the AFL-CIO and global Brotherhood of Teamsters have not yet endorsed a candidate. With the SEIU endorsement, she now has unions representing roughly two-thirds of the country’s unionized workers supporting her.
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SEIU has been a chief organizer of the “Fight for $15” movement that advocates for increasing the minimum wage above the $7.25 an hour federal level.
Kefauver said the SEIU’s endorsement also provides Clinton money, organizational infrastructure and volunteers.
Sanders’ campaign also questioned the reasons behind Clinton opposition to his Medicare-for-all plan, citing support she has received from pharmaceutical companies. Her Democratic primary opponents, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, have both endorsed SEIU’s Fight for $15 movement and the call for a $15 per hour minimum wage.
“As President, I will be proud to stand with SEIU and fight alongside them-to defend workers’ right to organize and unions’ right to bargain collectively, to raise incomes for working people and the middle class, and to ensure that hardworking Americans can retire with dignity and security”, Clinton said in a statement released by her campaign. And union leaders at SEIU and elsewhere are anxious about the possibility of losing the White House at a time when their organizations are under siege in Congress and at the Supreme Court. They see Clinton as a more viable contender in the general election, and they want to start doing what they can now to strengthen her candidacy. “That is what the Democrats in the Senate have put forward as a proposal”, Clinton said during a candidate debate Saturday.
Now that she has secured the SEIU, Ms Clinton can count on the support of 9.5 million unionised workers out of 14.6 million in the United States.
The Democratic front-runner said Sanders’ approach would “eliminate” major pieces of the health care system, including private insurance, Medicaid, the Tricare system for veterans and other coverage. “Yes, of course taxes would go up to pay for health care”, he said.
SEIU’s resources are formidable. “As a result”, he added, “Clinton well be the beneficiary of a fine-tuned get-out-the-vote machine that will be critical on Election Day”.
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After struggling during the summer, Clinton’s campaign has built a large lead over Sanders in national polls and has an edge in Iowa, the home of the first presidential caucus. “So if I said to you, ‘Well, you’re not going to pay Blue Cross $12,000 a year but you’re going to pay $10,000 more in taxes, are you going to be crying? No”.
