Not to be outdone by the big election ‘08 news of the day just reported here below, that the IAFF has endorsed Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton also scored a big union endorsement today as well.

The United Transportation Union on Tuesday endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, the first national union endorsement of the 2008 campaign.

“The UTU has a long history of picking winners early. Hillary will be a president that America’s working families can count on. Time and again, as a United States senator, she has stood with us,” UTU President Paul Thompson said in a statement.

Clinton is leading in national polls for the Democratic nomination. She said that she was honored to get the endorsement.

“America’s workers have been invisible to this administration, and it’s time they had an advocate in the White House,” said the New York senator.

The UTU’s incoming president, Mike Futhey Jr. said, “Hillary Clinton’s record has been friendly to working men and women of this country. She consistently has endorsed the necessity of a strong middle class. The UTU will encourage its 125,000 active and retired members to support Hillary and other labor friendly candidates in 2008.”

AP News reports that “several unions are expected to jump into the Democratic nomination fray as Labor Day approaches.”

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, has decided not to immediately endorse any of the Democratic candidates, freeing the federation’s 55 member unions to endorse whoever they want.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton told the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers convention at Walt Disney World that she would “make sure she appoints a pro-union executive to head the Labor Department.”

“I think we should all be on the American team, and that means we’ve got to have more unionization because we need to give workers a real stake in the future of our economy going forward,” Clinton said.

RELATED POST: Dodd Gets A Powerful Boost: IAFF Endorsement

Filed under: Democrats, Election '08, In The News, Politics | Get Permalink or trackback |