Election Countdown: CWA Sets Oct. 13-17 as National Worksite Action Week

With just 26 days of work left until Election Day, CWA has designated next week - Oct. 13-17 - as CWA National Worksite Action Week to bring extra focus to the election and the importance of the outcome for union members and the middle class. "People like to feel part of something bigger and having a single action that we can work on collectively is one way to foster that feeling," said Executive Vice President Annie Hill, who heads up CWA's Election 2008 efforts.

CWA has developed two handouts - "Who's On Our Side" and "Are We Better Off" - that members are encouraged to print out and distribute to their co-workers, friends and family members. One focuses on the current economic crisis and the other on how the middle class has suffered over the past eight years. Additional handouts can be downloaded from the Election 2008 Campaign section on the Source, CWA's website for local union communicators -- ga.cwa-union.org/source/campaigns/election-2008.html
-- and from the AFL-CIO's Working Families Toolkit website www.workingfamiliestoolkit.org.

With so little time remaining until the election, CWAers have been redoubling their political activity across the country with a special focus on battleground states.

In the battleground state of Pennsylvania, CWA Local 1180 members (top photo, by Local member Gary Schloichet) gather after a day of campaigning. Bottom photo, 34 members from Locals 13000, 13302, 13500, and 13550 contacted over 1,000 members during phone banking.

Every Saturday since Sept. 20, CWA members from New York and New Jersey have bused into Pennsylvania to help CWAers in the critically important battleground state shore up support for Barack Obama and pro-worker congressional candidates, reported District 1 and 13 Vice Presidents Chris Shelton and Ed Mooney. The activists are jointly participating in neighborhood walks, talking to voters about the issues, and urging them to get out to vote.

This weekend, three busloads from CWA Locals 1034, 1037 and 1182 will be traveling to eastern Pennsylvania, with at least eight more busloads scheduled for the next two weekends. Carloads of members from CWA Locals 1032 and 1084 are also making weekly trips into the state.

Earlier this week, 34 members from CWA Locals 13000, 13302, 13500, and 13550 called more than 1,000 members in southwestern Pennsylvania at a Working Families Phone Bank set up at the Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh.

In another battleground state, Mississippi, CWAers have been actively campaigning for Obama and for Ronnie Musgrove, candidate for the U.S. Senate. Every week, members from Locals 3511 and 3570 are participating in block walks and phone banking. Weekly phone banking is being conducted from Local 3511's union hall, which has 36 lines set up.