FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 28, 2005
FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS BACK FROST FOR DNC CHAIR
One of the nation's largest worker organizations, the 1.4 million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), is backing Martin Frost in his fight to rebuild the Democratic Party as chair of the Party's national committee.
"Working America needs a political action program that respects it values, is based in its community and addresses its needs from good jobs to affordable health care. Martin Frost has the plan to build the national Democratic Party from a grassroots base, reconnecting the party to its core beliefs, and to its state and local leaders. The UFCW enthusiastically supports Frost for Chair of the Democratic National Committee," said UFCW International President Joe Hansen.
The union's decision focused on Frost's background as a successful elected representative with a pro-worker agenda from the heart of Texas. His grassroots campaigns stripped away political labels, and concentrated on the people and their issues. For 30 years, Frost was a thorn in the side of the anti-worker establishment who could not figure out how to drive a wedge between Frost and his constituents, or how to beat him in a fair election. Only after rigging the election district could they take his seat in Congress.
The UFCW is America's neighborhood union with hundreds of thousands of members in neighborhood grocery stores. "UFCW members are part of the community. With their work at the meat counters and checkout lines at thousands of supermarkets across the country, they are connected to daily life of America. So is Martin Frost., and so must be the future of Democratic Party," said Hansen.
The UFCW is urging other unions and the AFL-CIO as well as allies at the DNC to also support Frost. His platform to build a small donor base on the Internet, develop a strategic communications plan, and to develop a new generation of leaders and candidates from the ground up is in line with union efforts to activate workers with neighborhood and workplace programs.
The UFCW is one of the largest unions in the AFL-CIO, and is one of the most active unions in member mobilization for political and issue action.
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