ORLANDO, Fla. (PAI) – The labor movement is angry with the Obama administration –  and some leaders say they’re only reflecting views of their members.

That’s what came through after the AFL-CIO Executive Council spent two hours on the morning of March 2 behind closed doors venting its frustration with a Democratic president and Democratic-run Congress – whom its members played a top role in electing in the last cycle.

According to AFSCME President Gerry McEntee, who spoke publicly, and half a dozen other council members, who spoke privately to Press Associates Union News Service, frustrations ranged from failure to push the Employee Free Choice Act to Obama’s backing of the Rhode Island school superintendent who summarily fired all 74 high school teachers when their union, AFT, wouldn’t give in to her demands.

It even extended to reaction to Vice President Joe Biden’s speech to the council the day before, and their closed-door meeting with the V.P., McEntee said. Biden publicly pleaded for time to let the administration’s economic program work.

“I was sitting in the room when we discussed Biden’s speech,” McEntee, chair of the federation’s political committee, added.  “There were a lot of discouraged people.  They believed it was a speech they had heard a number of times before.”

The complaints are important.  “The problem is that people will either sit on their hands or say we’re being taken for granted,” one state fed president told PAI.  And Vince Panvini, legislative director for the Sheet Metal Workers, reminded PAI his union is so mad at congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass EFCA that it suspended all political contributions to candidates last year – and will concentrate on issues instead.

Others were more caustic.   A “P-O’d” description came from an attendee who sat in on the session.  “For this we elected him?” the man asked.

Still other council members complained the Obama administration “is taking labor for granted,” overlooking that unionists and their families were approximately one-fourth of all voters in 2008 – and went for Obama by 2-to-1.  That helped the Democrat carry many key states.

“We’ve been sidelined,” another council member told PAI, with issues such as EFCA dropped from Obama’s agenda.  And a third noted there is no ex-unionist in the White House, much less on Obama’s inner staff.

When a reporter pointed out that Biden’s top economic aide is Jared Bernstein, former co-head of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, this attendee replied that strictly speaking, “There’s nobody in the White House with a direct labor connection.”  That’s just like in the Clinton administration, the attendee added.

This leader conceded, however, that Biden himself might be a conduit for unionists’ frustration.   But “once it (complaints) started rolling, it built momentum” inside the council, he said.  Frustrations ranged from the general to the specific.

“They’re still very upset about the (future) excise tax” on health insurance that Obama forced the union leaders to accept as part of the now-stalled health care overhaul, McEntee said.  And when he asked Biden whether “there would be a second stimulus bill like the first, he unequivocally said ‘no.’  We’re very disappointed in that.”

Another general complaint came over Obama’s proposed budget for the year starting Oct. 1.  It features an overall spending freeze for many domestic discretionary programs, raises for some and cuts for others.  There were even rumbles about “triangulation,” the Bill Clinton tactic of antagonizing an ally to play to the middle.

Council members didn’t spare the Senate. In Arkansas, the AFL-CIO formally backed Democratic Lieut. Gov. Bill Halter in his planned May 18 primary showdown against incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln is not a supporter of labor’s top legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, which is expected to make it easier for unions to organize.

But the administration was the top target.  “Many said their people had real angst and anger” over the stimulus, jobs, and the health care excise tax, McEntee said.   And one attendee quoted AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka as saying he would convey labor’s frustration to the White House.  “Rich said, ‘We’ve got to speak with one voice, or 57,’ and he is it.  He said someone has to take the message to the White House that unless they get off their ass, we’re going to sit on our hands,” the unionist said.