Sen. Barack Obama received a huge boost one day after finishing slightly behind Sen. Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary when three important union endorsements went his way.

On Wednesday morning, the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) endorsed Sen. Obama, throwing the support of its 17,500 members behind the surging candidate.

In a press statement, Nevada SEIU Executive Director Jane McAlevey said, 'Nevada is a caucus state, and as Obama showed in Iowa, organization of every precinct is key to winning. SEIU Nevada members from Reno to Elko to Las Vegas are ready to make a difference in this state for our candidate.'

Earlier in the day, the international board of UNITE HERE voted to endorse Obama as well. UNITE HERE is a union of hotel workers, restaurant workers, and garment workers with a national worker membership of about 460,000 and more than 400,000 retirees.

Along with this endorsement, UNITE HERE affiliate Culinary Local 226, a Las Vegas union of politically active service workers and the largest union (60,000 worker members) in the city, announced its support for Sen. Obama. (Pollsters suggest that the 'union member vote' should be nearly doubled to count the voters who live in 'union households.')

In a prepared statement, D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer of Local 226 said, “Barack Obama has shown us that he understands our members' struggles and dreams. He stood with our union in every step of our recent contract negotiations and showed us that he too understands that organizing and bringing people together is how we move forward. We want to make the American dream we have established in Las Vegas a reality for the entire country and we think that Sen. Obama will take us there.'

In a statement announcing his union's support for Obama, UNITE HERE General President Bruce Raynor said, “Barack Obama began his career organizing working families who were trying to pick up their lives as their industries were leaving them behind. As he entered politics, we knew that he would understand our members and we supported him from the start.”

“Our organization and our members,' Raynor added, 'will do everything in our power to see that he reaches the White House this fall, because we know he will bring working Americans with him.”

The union's statement lauded Obama's activist and political career: Since the day he took a job in Chicago fighting for families who had been devastated by steel plant closings over two decades ago, Senator Obama has been a champion of working Americans. He marched with striking workers at Chicago’s Congress Plaza Hotel picket line as a state senator and US Senator. He spoke at the founding convention of UNITE HERE in 2004, and he has worked extensively with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada supporting their latest contract campaign. As President, he will fight for and sign into law the Employee Free Choice Act, an increase in the minimum wage, and affordable health care for every American.

“Barack Obama is not a fair weather friend to working Americans, he has been there when the going gets rough, on the picket line with hotel workers again and again and there when we need him,” said President/Hospitality Industries John Wilhelm. “Even among this impressive field of candidates, we are proud to offer him our support in this election, and eager to help him win.”

While Obama's first international endorsement doesn't measure up numerically to the unions who have lined up with Sen. Clinton (12 unions with memberships approaching 4 million), this particular union will be crucial in the Nevada caucus set for the 19th.

Raynor told the New York Times that his union sided with Obama because of the worker's dispute with Mark Penn, Clinton's lead political strategist. Penn heads a PR firm that represented Cintas Corporation.

Cintas fought UNITE HERE's efforts to organize Cintas workers. Cintas illegally threatened immigrant workers with deportation and native born workers with being fired if they joined the union. Cintas was cited hundreds of times for violating safety and health laws, and for refusing to protect workers from unsafe conditions.

Cintas also aggressively fought to break unions in plants it bought with threats of plant closures and mass firings, and UNITE HERE filed dozens of grievances for violations of labor laws against the company (such as these). Cintas owner Richard T. Farmer has given Republicans like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, George W. Bush, and numerous other ultra-right PACs well over $1 million dollars.

A clear and consistent stand on workers' rights is a crucial issue in this election campaign. The next president needs to be able to push for passage of and sign into law the Employee Free Choice Act. The next president will have to appoint a National Labor Relations Board that protects the rights of working people not just the corporate interests that have been looked after for the past seven years and more.

The next president will need to be courageous enough to fight for (and win) a living wage, universal health care, fair trade policies that keep jobs here, fair tax policies that provide working families with relief, strong health and safety oversight and enforcement, and above all an end to the Republican Party's and the Bush administration's consistent and open disregard for working families.