Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. Unions Receive Healthcare Forum ThreatsThe wacky sideshow surrounding the health care reform debate certainly upstaged the main event this weekend, with Sarah Palin and Newt Gingritch, among others, issuing silly tirades, but this Huffington Post dispatch documents a more sinister turn that's been taken:Sam Stein stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting Unions Receive Increasingly Scary Threats Of Violence For Town Hall Participation First Posted: 08- 8-09 04:32 PM | Updated: 08- 8-09 11:22 PM Union officials continued to receive a barrage of threats on Friday evening and into Saturday punctuated by warnings that if organizers were sent to counter-demonstrate at health care town halls they would be met with violence. An official with the AFL-CIO, a federation of labor organizations, passed on what he described as a "pretty direct threat" to those union hands who were showing up to balance out anti-Obama demonstrations being waged at local Democratic forums. "I will be going to a local town hall this weekend, all you union members BEWARE!" an emailer wrote at 9:40 Saturday morning. "We will be waiting for you. better make sure you have arrangements with your local ER. today is the day when the goon meets the gun. see you there." The email was first sent to the media-watching organization Newshounds before being passed to Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO. The IP address used to post the email was traced back to Georgia. The AFL-CIO isn't the only labor organization to be on the receiving end of threats of violence. During a day in which a woman called up its national office threatening to use her Second Amendment rights should her First Amendment rights be repressed, officials at the Service Employees International Union continued to be deluged with emails and phone calls with ominous undertones. Read the rest of the article Labels: AFL-CIO, health care reform, labor, public option, SEIU, unions Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
