Each month from February through June “leadership training” will occur in various states for those who will head up labor’s efforts in that state. On March 9 – 11, for example training for women, African American, Latino and other minority union leaders will take place in Ohio. Complete listings are available from the AFL-CIO’s political action department.
When it came to the 2008 elections, unionists gathered in Memphis left no stone unturned.
Noting that enormous numbers of African American votes are not counted, they launched a “protect the vote effort” that involves activity in more than 30 cities to alert voters to methods used to suppress African American votes. Delegates were presented with examples of treacherous tactics used by the right in recent elections including posters that warned people to pay all their fines and back bills before showing up at polling places. “They’re not going to get away with this stuff this time,” said David Carpio, AFL-CIO’s national political education coordinator.
In addition to efforts already outlined, local unions are being assigned responsibility for parts of a drive that will result in the registration of and the bringing to the polls of 4,000,000 additional pro-labor voters. “131,000,000 people are expected to vote,” said Ackerman. “After this drive we will boost this total to 135,000,000.”
Major tactical shifts in how union voters will be reached were announced. A decision was made to focus more on reaching workers at their work places. Polls have shown that 74 percent of union voters reached at their work place by a union rep or a shop steward vote for the union-backed candidate. Until now, however, direct mail has been the main method through which unions reach voters. Only 20 percent of union voters, until now, have been reached directly at their workplace. “Even with this problem we have been very effective,” Carpio said, “but this year we will use the direct contact approach and we anticipate an even higher rate of success in getting union members to vote for the union backed candidate.”
Every one of the more than 1,000 participants was asked by Carpio to “leave behind here in Memphis one tactic in election work that you have used that did not work and take with you a new tactic learned from someone else that did work. If we all do this, we will win in 2008.”
jwojcik @pww.org
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