VIDEO: Unions step up to fight for Secretary of Labor nominee Solis

By GottaLaff

Go unions!

Increasingly frustrated by Senate Republicans stalling the confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as Labor Secretary, unions are preparing to amp up a national campaign for the nominee.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) blasted a web video to 60,000 online activists Friday asking them to support Solis’s confirmation. In the video, SEIU President Andy Stern asks viewers to sign a petition to back the California Democrat for the Labor position. [...]

The web video is the beginning of a national push by unions for Solis as her confirmation process stumbled since her hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last month. [...]

“We are going to ramp this up as much as we need to ramp this up to see Rep. Solis confirmed,” said Ramona Oliver, SEIU’s communications director.

The union, the nation’s largest with 2.8 million members, already has an impressive nationwide apparatus to turn to in support of Solis.

Announced last month, SEIU started the “Change that Works” campaign, which is pushing in 2009 for health care reform, the economic stimulus bill and the EFCA. The union has committed 30 percent of its staff and financial resources to the campaign, costly roughly $50 million.

“We have a nationwide field operation. That could quite easily be tapped into for this,” Oliver said. “We could pull anything from that toolbox.”

This is who the Republicans want to destroy. They not only represent hard-working citizens, they also represent more Democratic victories. That's a big part of what this is all about.