Working America, Illinois AFL-CIO Connecting with Jobless Workers

by Laura Clawson, Sep 8, 2010

Illinois AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Tim Drea knows what it’s like to be unemployed—he’s experienced it himself, as a laid-off coal miner.  He knows, too, how important it is to keep jobless union members involved in the union movement and the fight for working family-friendly policies. That fact turned out to be the answer to a little mystery that presented itself recently to Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate.

Working America staff was mystified when a stack of membership registrations arrived in the mail from the Illinois AFL-CIO. Although Working America had sent membership cards to many state federations and central labor councils around the country in 2009 as part of our effort to organize jobless workers through the Unemployment Lifeline, these registrations did not use those cards. Working America was not engaged in an active organizing drive on the ground in Illinois. How did the state federation there sign up so many people?

Turns out that under Drea’s leadership, the Illinois AFL-CIO handed out fliers at dislocated worker workshops and at the local workforce investment centers, where dislocated and laid-off workers go for resources and assistance. Through its Member Assistance Program and the Peer Outreach Program, Illinois AFL-CIO staff designed a flier and sign-up form that got straight to the point. They then went out and held thousands of conversations with jobless workers and ultimately registered more than 2,000 new Working America members.  Those new members now have the ongoing opportunity—and will get reminders—to participate in the union movement and hear what important legislation is being debated that will affect them.

Secretary-Treasurer Drea told Working America Program Director Maggie Priebe that the effort came about as the Illinois AFL-CIO watched the repeated battles to renew unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits play out.  Those battles have been a constant reminder of the vast number of long-term unemployed workers—and, all too often, of the contempt elected Republicans have for working people who have been victims of a recession spurred by financial policies those same Republicans promoted.

People who’ve worked their whole lives, who have gone from being optimistic about their prospects to being desperate to settle for any job, at a fraction of what they used to make, and still can’t find work. So many of those people feel left behind, by their old employers, by the economy, by the government.

But the AFL-CIO isn’t leaving those people behind—and today, an additional 2,000 of them know that the Illinois AFL-CIO and Working America are with them, fighting for something better for working people.

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