When Working Families Vote, Working Families Win

by Mike Hall, Nov 7, 2007

One out of four voters in Kentucky were union members and 77 percent of those cast their ballots for Steve Beshear.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine joins Virginia AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Doris Crouse-Mays (left), AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Virginia AFL-CIO President Jim Leaman in an election night victory for working families.

In an off-year election season, what happens when thousands of union volunteers take to the neighborhoods, worksites and phonebanks to talk with union family voters about issues? Dan Duncan, president of the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council had the answer yesterday.

We’re seeing presidential year turn out!

The union movement’s week-after-week, get-out-the-vote effort in Virginia,  Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere paid off  big time for working families on Election Day this year.

In Kentucky, anti-worker incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) is looking for a new job. Bluegrass State union members voted in former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear, whose support for working family issues contrasts sharply with those of Fletcher, who cancelled collective bargaining rights for state workers, privatized the state’s Medicaid program and attacked workers’ wages.

Union voters supported Beshear by a margin of 77 percent to 21 percent, according to an independent election night survey. Union household voters were estimated to be one in four voters at the polls. Fifty-eight percent of voters cited the economy, education, or healthcare as their top reason for voting for Beshear. (Find out what else Kentucky union voters have to say here, where we highlight the election night survey results.)

Says Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan:

Kentuckians were sick and tired of a governor who didn’t stand with them. From the beginning Gov. Fletcher stood in opposition to all working family priorities.

Here are some amazing facts and figures about the Kentucky volunteer efforts of more than 7,000 union members who took part in Labor 2007.

• Union members distributed more than 465,000 worksite and door leaflets—including 65,000 on Election Day.
• In the “Final  Four” days push to get out the vote, 2,100 union volunteers made  75,000 GOTV phone calls.
• This past Saturday alone, 440 union members knocked on the doors of more than 8,000 union homes. That’s in addition to the thousands of other union volunteers who walked the weekends leading up to the election or the union movement’s Bluegrass Express bus tour that criss-crossed the state, with participants distributing 45,000 worksite fliers along the way.

Faye Lieberman, a retired member of the Communications Workers (CWA) told a  post-election tele-press conference she is worried that her three daughters can’t afford quality health and the cost of education may be out reach for her nine grandchildren. That was why she volunteered for Kentucky’s Labor 2007 mobilization.

I volunteered my time to get candidates elected who understand what my family is going through…Now I look forward to ditching Mitch McConnell in 2008.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told reporters:

Yesterday’s elections showed how energized working people are to change the course of our country. Working people are driving a major change in the political landscape that’s growing larger every day.

We’re on the cusp of a shift that could redefine American politics for decades to come. Working people want real health care reform that covers every American.  They want their freedom to form and join unions restored.  They want to stop the hemorrhaging of good, middle-class supporting jobs out of the country and they want a secure retirement.

In Virginia, working family voters played an instrumental role in defeating four incumbent state senators and ending more than decade of extremist Republican control of the state senate. Says Virginia AFL-CIO President Jim Leaman:

Working families roundly rejected the anti-worker policies pushed by the Republican-controlled state Senate today and played a key role in creating a historical shift in Virginia.

The seismic shift in Virginia’s political landscape over the last several years is no fluke. Working men and women want better jobs, improved education, increased access to health care and protection of workers’ rights for all Virginians. Today, they turned their powerful frustration into an even more powerful political action.

AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman says the turnout by Virginia union volunteers who distributed leaflets at worksite, spent weekends going door to door to talk with union members and staffing phone banks was key to winning the State Senate back for working families and is vitally important going forward: In 2010 the Virginia legislature will draw up congressional redistricting plans.

In New Jersey, not only did nearly 5,000 union members take part in weekly labor-to-labor neighborhood walks—including more than 1,100 on Saturday—thousands more staffed phone banks and made worksite visit and 51 rank and file union members were on the ballot for state and local offices and 33 won their elections.

Iron Worker Steve Sweeney was reelected to his state Senate seat and six union members won state assembly races. They are Wayne DeAngelo, Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 269; Joseph Eagan, IBEW Local 456; Tom Giblin Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 68; John Amodeo, IUOE Local 825; Paul Moriarty, Screen Actors Guild/Radio and Television Artists (SAG/AFTRA) and; Nelson Albano, Food and Commercial Workers Local (UFCW) 152.

New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech says the efforts of more than  10,000 union volunteers since the summer

Proved to be the decisive factor in the election of 33 labor candidates The electoral success is vital to our ability to continue to advocate for pro-working family policies at the local, county and state level.

In Ohio, union members won dozens of local races, with Sheet Metal Worker (SMWIA) Tony Krasienko elected mayor of Lorain; UAW member John Hunter, mayor of  Sheffield village; UAW member Mark Stoner, mayor of Northwood; and Graphic Communications (GCIU) member John Augnebrodge, mayor of Springboro.

In Pennsylvania, union volunteers from the Northeastern Pennsylvania Labor Federation/ Schuylkill Central Labor Council helped end 35 years of Republican control of the Schuylkill County Commission by electing union members Frank McAndrew (Fraternal Order of Police) and Mantura Gallagher (NEA). Union members also played a key role in putting working family candidates into the mayor’s offices in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Elsewhere, several important state initiatives were on the ballot. In Utah, voters overwhelming rejected a statewide school voucher program that would have drained money from public education. Oregon voters approved a measure to help save the state’s farms and forests and the jobs that depend on those natural resources. But a $12 million campaign by tobacco makers helped defeat a ballot a measure to raise the tobacco tax to help pay for children’s health care.

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