WASHINGTON, D.C. — Working families and their unions have mounted a massive grassroots campaign to get out the vote on Election Day and elect candidates who will work to provide quality health care, a secure retirement, good jobs and good schools, the AFL-CIO reported on its website.
Combining issues education and one-to-one, member-to-member contact, the union movement’s get-out-the-vote efforts have played a decisive role in past elections and will make a difference in the 2002 vote.
Thousands of union activist volunteers across the country are reaching out to fellow union members with phone banks, precinct walks and mailings to mobilize union households to vote. On Election Day, Nov. 5, more than 100,000 grassroots volunteers are expected to knock on doors, make phone calls and hand out fliers at workplaces urging workers to vote. To aid in the get-out-the-vote efforts, the AFL-CIO has developed a toolkit for election workers and volunteers, which includes issues education fliers. Several new economic fact sheets also are available online.
With 34 U.S. Senate seats, 36 governors’ offices, the entire U.S. House of Representatives and most state legislatures and hundreds of other key state and local offices up for grabs, the stakes are extremely high for working families. The winning candidates will decide key issues for working families, such as how to hold corporations accountable and how to safeguard retirement security in the wake of Enron-type scandals that cost workers their jobs and pensions while executives walked away with millions. Other issues on the table include preserving Social Security and ensuring quality health care for seniors through a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare, creating a strong Patients’ Bill of Rights and providing health insurance for millions of uninsured children.
If pro-worker candidates win a majority in both houses of Congress, they will be able to turn the corporate agenda pushed by the Bush administration and the current Republican-dominated House of Representatives into an agenda that helps all workers, not just the rich.
Since the Bush administration began in January 2001, nearly 1.5 million jobs have been lost, mainly in manufacturing, and the nation’s economy has dipped into a recession. Working families are working for candidates who will support an economic recovery package to create good-paying and safe jobs.
Getting out the union vote will make the difference, especially in very close races. Union members were decisive at the polls in 2000. Voters from union households represented 26 percent of the vote overall, up from 19 percent just four years earlier when the union movement launched its grassroots get out the vote effort. Union voters were represented in even higher proportions in key battleground states in 2000. In Michigan, for example, 43 percent of all voters were members of union households.
The most competitive races are for seats in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats currently hold a one-vote majority. President George W. Bush has made regaining Republican control of the Senate a top priority. The closest Senate races, where working families can make a big difference in the outcome, are in Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
The closest governors’ races are in Florida and Maryland. In Florida, Bill McBride (D) is locked in a tight race with Gov. Jeb Bush (R), whose first term was filled with anti-working family initiatives, such as cutting off Medicaid benefits for thousands of poor seniors and opposing a plan to set limits on drug prices. In Maryland, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) faces U.S. Rep. Robert Ehrlich (R), whose voting record in Congress in 2001 received ratings of 0 percent right from both the AFL-CIO and the NAACP.