Bridget Martin of the Boilermakers (left) and Working America’s Stephanie Sigue greeted John McCain in Virginia yesterday.

Wherever Sen. John McCain goes, so do we—union members, that is. Yesterday, in the midst of a scorching heat wave, members of Virginia unions and Working America were in Tysons Corner, Va., where McCain was hitting up his corporate and other backers for campaign cash. “We could tell people were surprised by our ‘welcoming committee,’” says Daniel Duncan, president of the Northern Virginia Central Labor Council. He sends us this report.

Some 30 union members and allies braved 100-plus degree temperatures to tell John McCain and his supporters that things will only get hotter in Northern Virginia as Election Day gets closer.

Waving signs and shouting “Outsource McCain Not Jobs,” the group lined the street outside the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner hotel where McCain was scheduled to speak at a high-end fundraiser Monday evening.

Members from seven unions were joined by members of Working America—the AFL-CIO community affiliate for workers who don’t have unions—to tell McCain the country needs real health care reform, not his recycled Bush proposals.

They also were there to let commuters know about McCain’s abysmal record on other important working family issues, like the Employee Free Choice Act, trade deals that ship U.S. jobs overseas and his McSame economic proposals that under Bush have given the country a recession and soaring unemployment.

Union bus and truck drivers sounded their horns during the rush-hour traffic. Other drivers waved and shouted support as they drove by.

Virginia has become a battleground state in the presidential election because of the efforts waged by the union movement across the Old Dominion since the start of this decade. In 2006, trade unionists led the fight to elect fellow union member Jim Webb (Writers Guild) to the U.S. Senate. In 2007, unions worked together to take back the state Senate for working families.

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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