Unlike all the other union-backed politicians who've run for president since the mid-1970s, Bernie Sanders was a labor solidarity activist long before he was elected to anything.
For the first time in anyone’s memory (and for that matter for the first time since Eugene Debs in 1920) a self-identified Socialist rallied large numbers behind an explicitly anti-corporate, anti-Wall Street, pro-working class platform.
A talk given at the "Labor for Bernie" national conference, April 1, 2016 in Chicago
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By networking the large number of signups by union, Labor for Bernie organizers have encouraged members to begin grassroots campaigns within their unions to generate pressure on leaders for “no endorsement” and/or for “broad membership debate and discussion about the candidates and their stands on the key issues for working families.”
On Wednesday night 26,000 union members participated in a phone call with Bernie Sanders.
This year the left must use the ideological opening created by the most anti-corporate political campaign in recent history to build political capacity that lasts well beyond this electoral cycle.
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