Word: elections
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When President-elect Barack Obama tapped California Democrat Hilda Solis to be his administration's Labor Secretary, union leaders across the country rejoiced. The four-term Congresswoman has spent the better part of two decades championing workers' rights, including the Employee Free Choice Act, a new bill that would make it easier for workers to organize. But some Republicans have taken issue with her legislative approach, deriding her as an unyielding advocate of environmentalists and labor groups. Solis might very well agree with the "unyielding" part: she told the Los Angeles Times in 2000 that compromising "just to keep things...
...seven weeks since Obama's victory, the President-elect has proven to be more of a pragmatist than labor envisioned. From his podium in Chicago during the debate over whether to bail out the Big Three automakers, Obama has been critical of the United Auto Workers, arguing that the union must be willing to grant concessions on its workers' hard-fought wages and benefits. Labor has also been disappointed by some of Obama's initial appointments. Rep. Xavier Becerra of California turned down the job of U.S. Trade Representative because, he told a radio station, he felt overhauling trade agreements...
Still, having spent $80 million to help elect Obama, some unions are counting on the Democrat to deliver on his campaign promise. As Gerry McEntee, head of the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees candidly told the Washington Times (much to the delight of Republicans, who broadcast his remarks in press releases), "the payback would be the Employee Free Choice Act - that would be a vehicle to strengthen and build the American labor movement and the middle class." Still, in this economic climate, payback for anything will likely be difficult...
Could an old triumph be coming back to haunt the Clintonites who are joining President-elect Barack Obama's staff? If there's one foreign policy achievement that Clintonites are proud of, it's Bosnia. Some 13 years ago, during Bill Clinton's second term, a U.S.-led military intervention stopped the carnage in the former Yugoslav republic, followed by a peace deal forged by then Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke and signed in Dayton, Ohio. The deal, which carved Bosnia into two ethnically based statelets while retaining a weak common government, was so successful that vice-president-elect...
Take Me to Your Leader. For political junkies who want to get a closer view of President-elect Barack Obama's past (or the ongoing Blagojevich scandal), The James hotel in Chicago has a "City of Hope" package. A guide will take you in the hotel's Audi on a tour of the city, including the Hyde Park neighborhood, which the Obamas' called home, and Millennium Park, where Barack Obama acknowledged his election victory and where you can take a spin around the skating rink. Return to the hotel and warm up with hot chocolate in the Lobby Bar. While...