In Oregon, Labor’s Next Gen Redefines Union Member
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Nora Frederickson, AFL-CIO Media fellow, sends us this profile of the Oregon Young Emerging Labor Leaders program.
One week, Oregon’s young workers might be speaking out on the radio. Or they might be dishing up food at a Portland homeless shelter. They might be learning about labor history through the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. Or they might be biking 18 miles in Portland’s only wintertime bicycle ride.
Through the Young Emerging Labor Leaders (YELL), a new group sponsored by the Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon’s young workers are getting a chance to foster new pride in holding a union card and are redefining what it means to be a union member. In October 2009, the Oregon AFL-CIO Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling for a young worker program and adding a seat to the General Board for a young representative. In early 2010, the group developed a monthly social calendar and began planning their first-ever convention for August 2010.
Teacher’s Political Action Leads to Union Organizing
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Nora Frederickson, AFL-CIO Media fellow, sends us this union member profile.
As a junior high school teacher with the Albuquerque public schools in New Mexico, Leslie Boyadjian came face to face every day with the problems plaguing schools across the nation, like understaffed schools and families stretched too thin to give their kids a square meal. But it wasn’t until she joined the New Mexico AFT political program in 2008 that she realized the importance of political advocacy to the quality of education she could provide.
Education is a very frustrating field to enter. As an ambitious, engaged, interested person, I was frustrated at all the hoops you had to jump through for 35 years without doing something to make things better.
So Boyadjian decided to take action: She became a political activist.
This past election cycle, thousands of union members like Boyadjian took to the field in the largest grassroots political mobilization in the nation. In getting out the vote, many of the Labor 2010 volunteers and release staff also developed their skills as organizers, activists and leaders—and ultimately, reshaped their lives in ways that they couldn’t have imagined.
Reid, Manchin, Quinn Tell Executive Council Union Support, Jobs Message Key to Wins
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning to keep one thing in mind after last Tuesday’s election: “We still have a lot of unfinished business and we are still in the majority. We aren’t going to take a backseat to anybody on anything.”
Reid, Senator-elect and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, all of whom enjoyed overwhelming support in votes and volunteers from union members, this morning called in to a post-election council meeting at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the Nevada election was “a fight for good jobs, a decent wage, the right to join a union and fair trade.”
The Voters’ Message: Manufacturing a Solution
No doubt voters sent a message last Tuesday. Deciphering it correctly is crucial.
Republican cryptographers interpreted the election results that gave the GOP control of one house of Congress as a directive to demolish everything produced over the past two years—health care reform, Wall Street re-regulation and economic stimulus. In fact, like the Blues Brothers, they believe they’re on a mission from God. Unlike Jake and Ellwood who set out to save an institution, however, Republicans intend to crush the president, and if a crippled leader means the nation suffers, well, too bad.
Republicans got it wrong. The electorate wants construction, not destruction. Voters want cooperation, not gridlock.
Murray Retains Senate Seat, Quinn Keeps Illinois Governorship
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Two close major races were finally decided last night. In Washington state, Sen. Patty Murray (D) was declared the winner over Wall Street water boy Dino Rossi (R) and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) is the winner over anti-union Bill Brady.
In both races, union support was the key factor in providing the margin of victory. Illinois union family voters made up 26 percent of those who cast ballots and 59 percent went for Quinn.
In Chicago alone, 6,000 union volunteers were on the phones and doors on Election day.
The Washington State Labor Council mounted a massive mobilization for Murray. During the weekend before elections, 400 volunteers visited 9,400 union homes and made nearly 14,000 phone calls to union members urging them to get out the vote for Murray.
Murray’s win means the next Senate will be made up of 53 members of the Democratic caucus (including Independents) and 47 Republicans. The Senate race in Alaska has yet to be called but the vote count shows that both write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski (R) and tea-party backed Joe Miller (R) are far ahead of Democratic candidate Scott McAdams.
Trumka: Be Proud of Union GOTV Effort, Get Ready Again to Fight for Jobs
In a post-election video message, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka tells union members he is proud of what we had been able to do—and “our fight for working families and for jobs begins again now.”
“We’ve got an economy to rebuild. And millions of people to put back to work. We’ve got crumbling infrastructure and struggling states and communities that need us.”
Trumka notes that while we are all disappointed by the election results, we can be proud of union members’ work—particularly in states like Nevada, West Virginia and California—where we were the firewall that prevented anti-worker candidates from taking office. Overall, union voters cast their ballots for working family candidates by a 64 percent to 36 percent margin.
Election About Jobs, Not Republican Mandate
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Last night’s election, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters today in a conference call, “was about jobs, plain and simple. It was a mandate to fix the economy and create jobs. But here’s what it wasn’t”:
It wasn’t a mandate for the policies most Republicans campaigned on.
An election night survey of voters in 100 swing congressional district bears that out. That survey, Trumka says:
shows clearly that the election wasn’t an endorsement of tax cuts for the wealthy—or for undermining Social Security or the minimum wage. It wasn’t a rejection of building a middle class economy. And it wasn’t an ideological purge—as many Blue Dogs lost as progressives.
Overall, union members voted for the union-endorsed candidate by 64 percent. The union movement’s mobilization included 200,000 union volunteers who distributed 19.4 million fliers while talking with workers one on one at the workplace. They knocked on 8.5 million doors and made millions of phone calls.
Trumka: Tuesday’s Vote Was About Jobs, Not Republican Agenda
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America’s voters are angry about the economy and the lack of jobs, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said this morning during a discussion at the National Journal’s “The Day After” conference. And if Republicans don’t listen to what the voters were saying, they will be thrown out in 2012.
Trumka said the Republicans would be making a big mistake if they believe voters endorsed the Republican agenda. The votes in fact were a rebuke to the party in power, he said. Speaking to Mike Duncan, chairman of American Crossroads, the Republican mega political action group, Trumka said:
The America people know the economy doesn’t work. They’re suffering and they’re angry because of that and you’re going to have to come up with a way to create jobs and get the economy back on the move. They’re frustrated not because too much was done, but too little was done. But now that you’re in the governing structure, you just can’t say no.
Vote!
It’s crunch time. The polls are open around the country and today’s the day to cast your vote for candidates who will fight for working families—not candidates funded by the corporations that flooded this election year with record amounts of secret contributions.
(Stop back by AFL-CIO Now blog for election coverage. We’ll be covering key results throughout the evening.)
We need lawmakers who believe in keeping jobs in America, not giving tax breaks to corporations that outsource jobs.
We need lawmakers who believe in strengthening, not privatizing, Social Security.
We need lawmakers who believe in tax cuts for the middle class, not millionaires and billionaires.
Take the Pledge to Vote!
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The polls open in less than 24 hours in an election that will either keep the nation on a path of economic recovery or turn it back to the same Republicans who drove the economy into the deep ditch that we are starting to climb out of.
The election comes down to the untold tens of millions of dollars in secret corporate campaign contributions versus our boots on the ground and our butts at the ballot box.
We all have good intentions to vote, but we all know what good intentions pave. That’s why we are asking you to sign today this pledge to vote tomorrow. Even if you are certain you’re going to vote, go ahead and sign up as a re-enforcement, a reminder for when you’re stuck in traffic and think to yourself, “Aw, what the heck, it’s just one vote.” Read the rest of this entry »
