Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is in high spirits at a convention where union leaders have been treated well.
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Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.
Lee Saunders is a hugger.
The president of the 1.6-million-strong American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Mr. Saunders was in his element on Wednesday, even if he happened to be inside a sterile, overly large, overly air-conditioned hotel ballroom in Chicago’s South Loop.
Before the public-sector union’s faithful, on the outskirts of the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Saunders greeted Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s young mayor and a former teachers’ union activist, as “a good friend, one of us” and sent him off with a hug.
Next came Representative Mark Pocan, a progressive from Wisconsin, where Republican leaders have decimated public-sector unions. “We’re going to get our union back in Wisconsin,” Mr. Saunders promised, before giving Mr. Pocan a hug.
Finally came Marcia Fudge, the former mayor of a suburb of Mr. Saunders’s hometown, Cleveland, a former congresswoman from the city and a former secretary of housing and urban development. Mr. Saunders hailed her as a “sister” in the labor movement whom he had known practically his whole life. She got a very big hug.
ImageMr. Saunders, left, hugging Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, at a rally in Los Angeles last week.Credit…Mark Abramson for The New York Times
Union presidents have been treated well by the Democrats at a convention celebrating the party’s new ticket.
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Source: nytimes.com
