Union leader urges Democrats to work to win

Delegates here have heard from Dow Chemical Company, DTE, the AFL-CIO, various Democratic Party officials and Bob King. King is the President of the United Auto Workers and in Michigan, that carries weight.

He told them Michigan delegates that the platform approved by the Republicans at their convention calls for restricting labor’s right to bargain.

“The baby step in my mind is that they’d pass a national ‘Right to Work.’ They want to do much more than that. They want to take away the right from workers to bargain on conditions at work, their pensions, their healthcare.”

King told the delegates if they knew someone who is thinking about voting Republican get them a copy of the Republican platform to read. He argues that would change most voters’ minds.

Then switching gears, he told the Democrats they need to win, they need to change filibuster rules in the Senate that’s gridlocked the chamber and then…

“Demand and win the changes that working people and poor people and everybody in society deserves, not just the wealthy in society," to applause from the delegates.

King suggests if you want to know why there’s a wealth gap in the U.S., look at the decline in union membership.