Union members from across Colorado joined in political training to take back the state.

With out-of-state special interests pushing an anti-worker agenda for the November election in Colorado, union activists are coming together to take back the state. Thanks to Mike Cerbo, executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, for this blog about a political training session last weekend in Denver.  

Last weekend, you could hear the beginning of a righteous noise rumbling across Colorado, as nearly 200 union members packed into the Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 68 hall for a two-day political training for the Colorado Labor 2008 campaign.   

Local union leaders, coordinators, potential release staffers and rank-and-file activists from 24 unions or union-related groups from across the state participated in the training in Denver, attending workshops on recruiting and retaining volunteers, moving volunteers to activism, member-to-member mobilization and much more.  

The mood of the training was highly charged excitement. Many activists predicted that this year, with such an early start in the political season, the Colorado labor movement would educate more frontline activists—and give them more and stronger tools—than ever before to mobilize against anti-working family candidates and policies.  

Union leaders joined shoulder to shoulder with rank-and-file activists from the various unions to attend workshops on “Local Union Mail & Political Communications,” “Voter-Contact Legal Do’s and Don’ts,” “Fraud Watch Training,” “Building Activism at the Local Union” and more.  

One workshop, “Talking Issues with Union Members,” was especially popular. Activists at the training got heated when talking about how angry it makes them that a group of outside corporate interests are trying to interfere with the relationships between Colorado employers and workers with the wrongly named “right to work” ballot initiative. The activists brainstormed many ways in which they could spread the word about how to defeat this harmful law, better known as the “work for less” initiative, to other working families across the state.    

Tom Rutherford, a member of IBEW Local 68, said: 

The training was incredibly insightful, and it gave me a better understanding of how all the pieces of the program weave together. I will take these skills we learned and be able to more effectively communicate with fellow union members on McCain’s anti-worker record and core economic issues.  

By the end of the day Saturday, people were already discussing the next steps in the program—a local union letter heading out Feb. 26 and the first worksite flyers moving soon. Colorado union activists left the training feeling confident that by mobilizing earlier and stronger than ever, 2008 will be the year they reclaim Colorado for working families.

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