The AFL-CIO’s General Board, which includes the presidents of all 56 international union affiliates, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) for president of the United States on June 23. In its endorsing statement, the Board noted that Senator Obama “has secured the nomination of his party in a campaign that has energized millions of Americans and spoken to the hopes and dreams of people from every corner of the nation.”

Many of the dozen AFL-CIO Executive Council members who had endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) during the primary contests stepped forward to express their wholehearted support for Obama. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, chairman of the AFL-CIO Political Committee, who had been one of Senator Clinton’s top financial supporters, pledged to “work our hearts out for Barack Obama.” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised Obama as a “champion for working families.”

To help educate union members about Senator Obama’s background and his pro-worker record, the AFL-CIO ia launching a new website, “Meet Barack Obama.” It features videos, downloadable flyers and a briefing book that lays out his positions on issues of concern to working families.

Senator Obama’s campaign will be the beneficiary of the AFL-CIO’s financial support and the thousands of union volunteers who will be campaigning, door to door, at worksites and in communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Nevada and other battleground states, where he did not do well among blue-collar workers and union members in key primaries.

Senator Obama will also profit from the AFL-CIO’s full-scale attack on his rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz). In the past several weeks, union volunteers have knocked on 60,000 doors and delivered 1.5 million worksite flyers that criticized McCain’s economic record. Nearly a half-million mailers on McCain’s economic positions have been sent to union swing voters in battleground states.

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