Report from the Field: Rolling Through Ohio with Working Family Candidates

Kombiz Lavasany, who works in online communications at the United Federation of Teachers/AFT in New York, is spending the final weeks before the elections at the AFL-CIO, where he is coordinating political campaign outreach among state-level bloggers. Lavasany describes a recent bus tour across Ohio during which AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson joined working family candidates (check out video clip).

Last week, candidates with rock-solid records of support for working families headed off on a bus tour across Ohio. In Toledo, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson welcomed a crowd of several hundred union members to the Steelworkers hall. She expressed the frustration stakes in the election:

We’ve had enough. Sisters and brothers, we’ve had enough with sending our kids to Iraq without the proper body armor. We’ve had enough when it comes to the scandals, whether it’s coins or illegal deals with Abramoff or protecting their own political cronies instead of protecting the teenage pages in Congress.

What do we say?

We say: We’ve had enough.

Union members and others gave a warm welcome to Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland and others at Steelworkers hall and other stops along the bus tour. But they also kept focus on their mission: Contacting tens of thousands of union members and doing the hard work of mobilizing for the election.

At phone banks, in neighborhoods and at worksites across Ohio, workers are mobilizing their co-workers, families and friends for candidates like Brown and Strickland who have a history of supporting working families. For America’s working families, the stakes are clear.

Brown, currently representing Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, voted 97 percent of the time for working families, while his opponent, Mike DeWine, voted against working families 80 percent of the time he has been in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Strickland supports an increase in the state’s minimum wage, where voters have a chance this election to boost the wage. His opponent, Ken Blackwell, opposes a minimum wage increase and will roll back prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements.

Working families in Ohio’s 18th Congressional District have been represented by scandal-ridden Republican Bob Ney, who recently pleaded guilty to corruption charges and who has voted wrong on working family issues 70 percent of the time he’s been in office. They’re working to elect Zack Space, who supports “a gradual implementation of universal health care over the next five to 10 years for every American” and who opposes trade deals that send jobs overseas.

In Columbus, working families are backing Mary Jo Kilroy, who is running against incumbent Deborah Pryce in the 15th Congressional District. Since she’s been in office, Pryce has voted wrong on working family issues 91 percent of the time.

In the 1st Congressional District, working families are supporting John Cranley in the race against incumbent Steve Chabot, who has voted wrong on working family issues 92 percent of the time during his 12 years in office.

In the 3nd Congressional District, Stephanie Studebaker is the working families candidate. She is challenging incumbent Michael Turner, who voted wrong on working family issues 78 percent of the time

Bob Shamansky is the working families’ choice in the 12th Congressional District, where he is running against Patrick Tiberi, who voted wrong on working family issues 88 percent of the time.

There’s good reason why union members are mobilizing in force and doing the hard work of pushing back the agenda of the corporate elite.

As Chavez-Thompson put it in Ohio:

In 2006, we’re going to take back Ohio. We’re going to take back the country, and you’re the ones who are going to lead the way. You can do it. We can do it.

This portion of this website is paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. 

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