AFL-CIO Campaigns for Health Insurance, Anti-Union Groups Go on the Attack

Just as the AFL-CIO is leading a nation-wide campaign to win higher wages and more health care benefits for workers, anti-union groups go on the attack with a multimillion-dollar campaign.

The AFL-CIO is launching efforts for healthcare measure in 30 states. Labor groups have also succeeded in forcing companies to pay higher wages and provide more health benefits. In Maryland in January, labor groups helped pass a law that will require Wal-Mart and other big companies to fund worker's healthcare.

Amid such victories for working people, a new anti-labor group backed by U.S. businesses began a multimillion-dollar campaign on Feb. 12 attacking the organized labor movement. The Center for Union Facts took out full-page advertisements in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post claiming that unions were outdated. In front of the AFL-CIO's Washington headquarters, they displayed a 15-foot dinosaur.

If the union is a dinosaur, as the anti-union group claims, why spend $2.5 million to fight it. When was the last time millions were spent to attack something that was extinct? Clearly, big businesses feel a threat by labor's momentum in standing up for the middle class.

"It's no accident that this new group is forming at a time when the AFL-CIO is launching efforts for healthcare measures in 30 states," says AFL-CIO spokeswoman Lane Windam.