Alliance Activities Underway in Critical Election States

CWAers from Local 13571 and Steel Workers members leaflet outside a Frontier Communications call center in Wilkes Barre, Pa.

With just about six weeks until Election Day, Alliance union members – from CWA, the Auto Workers, the Steel Workers and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers -- are working hard and working together in seven critical states to elect a president and members of Congress who support Employee Free Choice, health care reform, retirement security and fair trade.

The Alliance unions are concentrating efforts in states where all represent a significant number of active and retired members and families. For example, the four unions represent more than a million workers and retirees in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Alliance political activities also are underway in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Minnesota. 

In Michigan, CWA and Alliance partners have a strategy set for walks, member-to-member contacts, worksite leafleting, phone banking and other actions across the state. 

Several rounds of phone banking already have been held, most recently in Detroit with 21 volunteers, and more are scheduled in additional locations, said CWA Representative Shannon Kirkland. In Port Huron, Local 4107 will coordinate CWA phone banking and the UAW has phone banks up and running in its regional offices.

Member walks are being held every Saturday in Kalamazoo and other areas, and worksite leafleting – before work and lunch and for shift changes -- will be held every Thursday at CWA and Alliance locations. “We will hit members with information at least six times between now and Election Day,” Kirkland said.  

A very big part of the Alliance strategic plan is the “voter protection program,” to ensure that eligible voters aren’t blocked from exercising their rights, Kirkland said. The unions also will call the list of absentee voters to make sure they have all the information they need to vote for candidates who support working people.    

In Mississippi, CWA activists are holding door-to-door canvassing walks three days a week until November 4, and are helping to coordinate mailings and distribute leaflets to members. "Locals are taking our message to wherever members work," said Kim Sadler, president of CWA Local 3511. Stewards have been reaching out to members who work in remote locations, she noted. Alliance unions also worked together in Mississippi during two special congressional elections this year, in districts that elected Democrats to long-held Republican seats.

In Pennsylvania, CWA locals "are leafleting members at local membership meetings and at work sites, conducting voter registration drives, and e-mailing literature to locals for distribution," said District 13 legislative-political coordinator and staff representative Alex Minishak. CWA and USWA recently joined together in leafleting outside a call center in Wilkes Barre.

Alliance activists in Virginia are adopting worksites and coordinating voter registration drives.

In Louisiana, back to back Hurricanes Gustav and Ike forced the postponement of some actions, but Alliance members had leafleted worksites and are planning a bus trip to the first presidential debate set for Sept. 26 in Oxford. 

CWA will be reporting on actions and political efforts in battleground states every week. Please send your reports and photographs to news@cwa-union.org.