White House first: President Obama is the only sitting president to attend the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day Picn
icPresident Obama will be in Cincinnati, Ohio today for the annual AFL-CIO AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic at Coney Island Park. Accompanied by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, the President will make a speech around 1:15 EST, and is expected to announce the appointment of Ron Bloom as his senior counselor for manufacturing policy.
About 10,000 tickets were distributed to union members to get into the part of the park where the President will be speaking, according to AFL-CIO spokeswoman Katelyn Hartford, although the picnic usually draws 15,000 to 20,000 people. It's the 23rd year of the annual event, and you cna watch the President's remarks on C-SPAN. Also expected to disrupt: Members of the Cincinnati Tea Party.
*Unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO include workers from airline pilots to firefighters to nurses to teachers to writers to, yes, bakery and confectionery workers. Not affiliated: The people responsible for Labor Day picnic foods, such as hotdogs and hamburgers. Meat processors and packers are in a different union, the UFCW, a relatively small org with just 1.3 million members. And many meat packers and processers have un-unionized shops, even though meat processing is a very dangerous job. Could this be part of the reason for the food safety fail rate in the meat industry?
The President's weekly address on Saturday was about Labor Day and Fair Rewards For Hard Work:
*Ron Bloom was senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as part of the auto industry task force since February. Bloom, a Harvard Business School graduate, previously advised the United Steelworkers union and worked as an investment banker.
