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Union Voters Helped Propel Obama, Working Family Candidates to Victory |
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Here’s how union members made the difference in last night’s big win.
* Union voters supported President-elect Barack Obama 67 percent to 30 percent over Sen. John McCain. In the top-tier battleground states the difference was even more stark, with union members going for Obama 69 to 28—a 41-point margin.
* While McCain won among voters ages 65 and up, active and retired union members older than 65 went for Obama by a 46-point margin.
* While McCain won among veterans, union veterans went for Obama by a 25-point margin.
* Working America members, concentrated in key states, supported Obama by 67 percent to 30 percent.
* 60 percent of union members and 56 percent of Working America members said the economy was a top issue.
* Union members got a lot of contact from their unions about the election, with more than 80 percent receiving union mail, more than 80 percent receiving union publications, 59 percent getting live phone calls and 32 percent getting worksite fliers.
* 75 percent of union members say Obama’s victory gives him a mandate to make major change. 81 percent support the Employee Free Choice Act.
* 21 percent of voters were in a union or union household.
With 52 percent and more than 62 million votes, Obama has more than surpassed Bush’s 2004 win. His seven-point win over McCain is a decisive victory for pro-working family policies.
In union-heavy Midwestern states, where Bush had come close and McCain campaigned hard, the efforts of union volunteers helped put them solidly in Obama’s column. Obama won by 13 points in Wisconsin, 16 points in Michigan, 10 points in Minnesota and 11 points in Pennsylvania.
As of this morning, it looks like we’ve added at least five new pro-worker senators, and many AFL-CIO-endorsed candidates will be headed to the U.S. House as well. While union members didn’t win every race they targeted, the breadth and national scale of working families’ victory is striking.
Here’s how this historic win took place. More than 250,000 union volunteers devoted their time and energy to reaching out to their fellow union members—educating them on issues, informing them about candidates and getting out the vote. Some 10 million door knocks, 70 million phone calls, 27 million worksite fliers and 57 million union mail pieces made the difference in races from the White House to state legislatures.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says that last night’s results show the continued strength of the union movement and the widespread desire for change in this country.
We salute labor leaders and volunteers all across our country for a record turnout of voters from union households—they made the difference in critical states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and so many others. We congratulate Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Our prayers and our continuing support are with them as we begin the arduous task of turning our country around.
The union movement put its full efforts into its largest political mobilization ever, and the results are clear. It’s a historic victory for working families and a chance to pass policies that will pull us out of our economic crisis and make real changes in real people’s lives.
Now, we have to move forward and fight for those policies. It won’t be easy or quick. But as we proved this year and last night, when working families unite and work hard, we can win.
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I hate to be a spoil-sport (no I don’t ;-]) but I hope “moving forward and fighting for these policies” means more than Obama’s minimum wage: a dollar below LBJ’s $10/hr, double the average income later — means more than a card check leftover from the 40s that some bright labor lawyer happened to notice or we apparently would not have anything to talk about; not the world wide (third, second and first worlds) answer to the race to the bottom: sector-wide labor agreements, the perfect answer to Wal-Mart.
I am afraid that the attitude of the income administration will be the usual “the working poor (who have no business being poor, not in a double the average income of 1968 era) we have always with us” — so we assume that they are always supposed to be with us: let’s do a LITTLE SOMETHING for them.
If we could have foretold to folks of 1968 that 40 years hence the economy would be in recession — and that, oh by the way, the minimum wage of 1968 would become the 25 percentile 2008 wage — the folks of 1968 would have forgetten to yawn over the recession in while throwing a fit at the seemingly impossible prediction of a “great wage depression.” What could they possibly have guessed would the cause: civil war, multiple depressions or even plagues?
But try to tell our progressive elites to focus on what should have been this impossible economic history — on what should be taken as today’s most extreme if never ending (boring?) economic emergency. Maybe if their affluent next-door neighbors were reduced to less than $150,000/yr, maybe then they would achieve all-out focus on the wage depression that exists for MOST of our workforce and maybe then they would be willing to take some “risks” to — quickly! — do something about it like doubling the minimum wage in a hurry (causing only direct 3% inflation) and importing the answer to the race to the bottom used all over the globe: legally mandated sector-wide labor agreements.
The need for fully adequate wage support mechanisms are made all the more critical by America’s never-ending influx of willing-to-work-for-less labor — plus outsourcing to the same. I am not knocking immigration or outsourcing but the under-pricing of American labor caused by the lack of real wage supports: serious minimum wage (it was $10/hr, 40 years ago at half the average income of today) and sector-wide agreements (Canada uses a lite version: ununionized firms must operate under contract conditions worked for unionized firms.)
Our progressive super economists can perform 20X the volume of academic labor that I am capable of in one day, but they somehow cannot keep 2 things in mind at the same time: this years financial mess and the endless wage depression.
Now the real work begins. We need to make sure that EFC stays at the top of the democrats commitment to working families.
I agree. The EFCA would be the best thing to happen for labor, and therefore the left, in 70 years. But the democrats and their independent allies in the Senate (and I use that term loosely since one of them campaigned for McCain) will not have a filibuster-proof majority. Reid and Obama are going to have to get the entire dem caucus in line, and then persuade 2-3 republicans to block what will be a sure filibuster by the obstructionist republicans. Don’t be surprised if the version of EFCA that eventually gets passed (because the dems and our labor “leaders” will ensure one does), has a good deal of its teeth removed.
The only way to avoid this is to seriously target the states of any leaning republicans (and probably a few none too eager dems as well). But my guess is the influence of money on those senators, combined with the influence of that same money on the blithely ignorant masses, will win out over the interests of working people.
If the minimum wage level is raised with unguarded borders, that means we will get more illegal aliens to take those jobs. American working families come first. Each one’s vote is equal to even the presidents personal vote. So to win in an election, the candidates have to support the working people.
I have been a union member since 1946. I am old but good. During these years of hard labor supporting a famlly and taxes and as a WW11 combat veteran. I understand persons who want a better life which is only available in the United States of America. But still, this should also be available to American Citizens. I feEl left out of the AMERICAN DREAM.
It seems that Obama is already distancing himself from EFCA. Not the emphasis on repairing the economy–they are likely to do the same as the Clinton administration, and let the thing get beaten up in Congress while they make sure the investment bankers are happy with their bonuses.