100,000 Activists Will Join ‘Final Four’ Push

by Mike Hall, Nov 1, 2006

The Final Four is coming a little earlier than usual. No, not college basketball’s March Madness, but the AFL-CIO’s massive four-day push to reach millions of voters during the last four days of this election campaign.

Beginning Saturday, more than 100,000 union volunteers from AFL-CIO affiliates, including volunteers from Working America, start the last round of worksite contacts, neighborhood walks and phone calls to voters with a special focus on the 2.6 million union voters who went to the polls in the 2004 presidential election but didn’t vote in the last off-year election, 2002.

Overall, the AFL-CIO’s get-out-the-vote (GOTV) program is the largest turnout program in the nation of any organization other than the two major parties. It’s focused on electing candidates who will champion working families’ priorities. In the final four days, the AFL-CIO’s 100,000 union volunteers will knock on more than 3.5 million doors, make 5 million calls and reach 1.75 million workers on the job.

As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

Working men and women are ready to change the direction of our nation and they will be the foot soldiers who will shift the balance of Congress on Nov. 7.

Along with the AFL-CIO’s huge effort, Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, will add 500 paid canvassers in three critical states that will have a huge impact on who controls Congress—Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They will knock on hundreds of thousands of doors in Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District and make more than a million phone calls.

In Ohio alone, the AFL-CIO and Working America will deploy thousands of volunteers who will knock on 280,000 doors and make more than 1 million phone calls, targeting 500,000 drop-off voters in the final four days.

While drop-off voters are the key Final Four target, GOTV is focused also on the more than 13.4 million union voters in 32 states with pivotal election battles.

So far, the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2006 mobilization has made more than 10 million phone calls and sent more than 11 million pieces of mail urging union voters household, including drop-offs, to get to the polls Nov. 7.

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