WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Political observers say U.S. labor unions are getting more attention from Democratic presidential hopefuls than they have in the past 20 years.
Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told The Christian Science Monitor that candidates this year are much more "open, aggressive, and comfortable talking about and embracing the labor movement."
While union membership has fallen to 12 percent of U.S. workers, from 20 percent in 1983, new technology has made the organizations more effective at getting members to the polls.
Exit poll data show some 24 percent of voters in the 2004 presidential election were from union households. In 2006, 74 percent of AFL-CIO members who voted backed a union-endorsed candidate, a union officials told the newspaper.
The AFL-CIO said last week it would spend $53 million to mobilize voters for 2008.
