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Unions: August rally in Philly "no slap at" Dem Convention

Union leaders are planning a massive "Workers Stand For America" rally on Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Aug. 11, where they will unveil a "2nd Bill of Rights." The idea is to get elected officials at the national, state and local level to sign on to the document. Then unions will tell their members which politicians signed up.

Union leaders are planning a massive "Workers Stand For America" rally on Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Aug. 11, where they will unveil a "2nd Bill of Rights."  The idea is to get elected officials at the national, state and local level to sign on to the document.  Then unions will tell their members which politicians signed up.

Ed Hill, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, first spoke about the event in March after the winter meeting of the AFL-CIO.  Then, like now, union leaders were furious that the Democratic National Convention will be held in union-unfriendly Charlotte, N.C.

Hill, who is boycotting the Charlotte convention, today claimed the Aug. 11 rally here was never meant to be "a slap at the Democratic National Convention.  He spoke about the Philadelphia rally with Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Hill said union anger about Charlotte and plans for the Philly rally were both discussed at the AFL-CIO's meeting.  But that doesn't mean they're related issues, he added.

"One didn't germinate the other one," Hill said. "When it came out, people put them together and said X led to Y. That's simply not the case."

We first wrote about this back on April 25, the day after the primary election.  It sure sounded then like the two events were related.