George Bush isn’t on the ballot this November, but
his agenda is and the representatives in Congress who have rubber-stamped
his priorities are,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told reporters
at a national press conference Aug. 30.
Indeed, rather than an off-year effort, the extensive
election mobilization plan laid out by Sweeney and federation Political
Director Karen Ackerman as the election season enters the home stretch
is worthy of a presidential campaign. The AFL-CIO is spending an
unprecedented $40 million solely on its member-to-member mobilization
efforts. No contribution to candidates or campaigns will come out
of this fund.
Despite a split in the federation last year which
saw seven affiliated unions leave to form a new labor federation,
Change to Win, Sweeney reported that at the local level, where the
mobilization takes place, “we are finding that labor is as united
as in the past.”
“I think we will have a very united political effort,”
he said.
The effort will be concentrated on 56 House, 15 Senate
and 14 gubernatorial races in 21 states. The goal is to improve
turnout from union households by 10 points over the last midterm
election, which took place in 2002. Sophisticated data analysis
techniques will identify voters who voted in the 2004 presidential
race but were absent at the polls in 2002, Ackerman said.
There are 12.4 million union-related voters in these
21 states, including 5.3 million active members, 1.5 million retirees,
4.6 million spouses and adult children of union members and 1.5
million members of Working America. Working America is the new AFL-CIO
affiliate that allows people who are not in organized work places
to be part of the AFL-CIO.
The emphasis of the mobilization will be on “pocketbook”
issues, Sweeney said. The census data he cited reveals median earnings
for full-time workers falling in 2005, “out of sight” household
debt, 5 million more Americans without health care and 5 million
more falling into poverty since 2001.
In the 2004 election, the focus of the AFL-CIO’s work
was “persuasion,” Ackerman said. “This year our focus is on turnout.”
Union members get political information at work sites,
at home and through phone and e-mail, she explained. In the targeted
21 states, while 46 percent were contacted at work in 2002, 55 percent
will get the message there this year. Neighborhood walks reached
5 percent in 2002; this year’s goal is 8 percent. Phone contact
will go up from 36 percent to 50 percent and Internet programs will
reach 20 percent, up from 10 percent in 2002.
Besides talking to union family members during neighborhood
walks, specific mailings will go out to spouses and adult children
addressing issues of concern to them.
“If we meet our goals, we will contribute more than
1.2 million more votes for our endorsed candidates than we were
able to in 2002,” Ackerman said.
The results of this could easily be the margin of
victory. In Ohio, for example, the AFL-CIO plan projects 310,000
additional votes over 2002 which could go to Senate candidate Sherrod
Brown and gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland, or about 5 percentage
points. In that state’s 15th Congressional District, it would add
27,000 votes for labor-endorsed candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, or about
10 percentage points.
Working with both national organizations and local
coalitions, the AFL-CIO is putting together voter protection programs
in eight to 10 states for communities where people of color are
concentrated, Ackerman said.
Sweeney reported the AFL-CIO has reached agreements
with “the majority” of the Change to Win unions, although he declined
to name them, to work together on AFL-CIO political programs.
Change
to Win spokesperson Carole Florman told the World that the federations
have in place an agreement to work together “where it makes sense.”
While CTW has political activities in 50 states, it is concentrating
on the gubernatorial and Senate races in three — Michigan, Pennsylvania
and Ohio. Governor’s races are important, she said, because “governors
have the ability to level the playing field,” having an immediate
impact on conditions affecting working people.
At the Aug. 30 press conference, Sweeney remarked
that the AFL-CIO’s recent organizing successes were “just as important”
as political action. He singled out four affiliates: the Auto Workers,
the Communications Workers, the American Federation of Teachers
and AFSCME, which together have allocated $100 million for organizing.
The UAW, he said, has signed up 50,000 heavy manufacturing workers,
mostly in the South, in the last three years. CWA has organized
18,000 high-tech workers and also brought in 40,000 Cingular wireless
employees. Working America has opened seven new offices and grown
to 1.5 million members. Sweeney also pointed to the AFL-CIO’s new
partnerships with the National Education Association and with the
nation’s largest organization of worker centers that work with day
laborers.
This article was originally published by The
People’s Weekly World. Author Roberta Wood can be reached via
email at [email protected]. |