Labor 2008 and the Chocolate Factory

BCTGM Local 464 member Jake Long (R) talks with Local 464 member Beverly Zartman about Barack Obama’s support of working families.

Frank Snyder, AFL-CIO state director in Pennsylvania, reports on the latest Labor 2008 political mobilization actions in the Keystone State.

It was a busy time at 5 a.m., outside the gates of the Wilbur Chocolate plant in Lititz, Pa., recently. Workers—members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 464—were leaving from the third shift and entering the plant for the first shift.

There to greet them with leaflets on Barack Obama’s record of supporting working families were fellow BCTGM Local 464 members Jake Long and Bob Huffman. Even at that early hour, the chocolate factory workers showed a great deal of interest in the information and political discussion.

Says Huffman:

It is important to be out here talking to our members because this is the true democratic process. Democracy requires that people be educated and get involved. Passing out leaflets and making sure our members know that Barack Obama is the best candidate for working people is a good way to engage them and make sure their voice is heard.

The backbone of Labor 2008’s mobilization is member-to-member contact. The reason this contact is so effective, says Long, is that

union members trust other union members because they know they have the same interests. The union protects the members’ job and improves their standard of living so they know that the union cares about them. That is why that member-to-member contact at the worksite is so important.

In addition to the Wilbur plant gate leafleting, Local 464 members have distributed fliers at other plants, including two large Hershey’s chocolate factories, and plan to continue leafleting at every plant regularly until the election in November.

Long says that along with the plant gate actions, the local will get the message out that Obama’s on the side of working families with local union mail, member-to-member phone banks and labor walks.

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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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