Kentucky Get Out the Vote Setting the Pace for 2008

Working families’ candidate Steve Beshear greets a union volunteer during a union-run, get-out-the-vote phone bank.

Bernard Pollack, AFL-CIO field coordinator, is working on the union movement’s campaign to elect a working family-friendly governor in Kentucky, where working families’ candidate Steve Beshear is running against anti-worker Gov. Ernie Fletcher. He fills us in on the weekend’s union-member-to-union-member get out the vote walk.

The front page, above-the-fold article and photo in Sunday’s Ashland Daily Independent says it all:

Union members deliver message to community.

More than 115 union members from Communications Workers of America (CWA), Electrical Workers (IBEW), Fire Fighters (IAFF), Iron Workers, Kentucky Education Association, Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA), SOAR, United Steelworkers (USW) and Carpenters participated in Saturday’s Ashland labor walk. USW District 8 Director Billy Thompson spoke at the event and the local NBC station, an area newspaper reporter and photographer accompanied him and Steelworkers Deputy Director Spurge Mason door to door. Thompson reported the response for Steve Beshear was nearly unanimous and members were grateful to hear from their union.

Many union leaders at the event emphasized the importance of mobilizing turnout for the Labor 2007 get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operation. Says Ashland Area Labor Council President Keith Adkins:

Elections are won on the ground. The worst thing you can do is get complacent and overconfident. With a light turnout, anything can happen folks.

Across the state, dozens more union members participated in labor walks. 

Union members see 2007 as an opportunity to build momentum toward the 2008 elections. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader, pushed hard to ensure a vote never came up on the Employee Free Choice Act in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, and union members in Kentucky have not forgotten it. In fact, across the state, union members are seeking resolutions in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Two weeks ago, Boyd County, which includes the city of Ashland, passed the first of many resolutions supporting the Employee Free Choice Act—the first of many such legislative actions likely in the state. Further, as Howie Klein writes, McConnell long has been an “unofficial”—but immensely well-paid—lobbyist for China. Now, according to an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader: 

McConnell has taken at least $53,000 in campaign donations from [British arms maker] BAE’s political action committees and employees since his 2002 re-election.  

He is suspected of having taken hundreds of thousands of dollars under the table. 

Meanwhile, this past weekend, in Henderson and Calvert City, 16 walkers participated from AFSCME, IUPAT, Machinists (IAM), Mine Workers (UMWA) and USW. State Sen. Dorsey Ridley joined the Henderson walk and County Commissioner Terry Anderson joined in Calvert City.

Over in Bowling Green, 20 walkers participated, all from UAW Local 2164, while in Louisville, 24 walked participated from AFSCME, CWA, IAM, IBEW, IUEC, IUPAT, Laborers, UAW, USW and UA.

The next Kentucky GOTV kicks off  Nov. 1 in Louisville. More than 1,500 union members will volunteer as part of the GOTV push, making more than 76,000 GOTV volunteer calls and talking to thousands more union members at the door, at the plant gate and via local union mail.

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Paid for by AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund.

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