It’s Go Time

With just a few weeks until the election, AFSCME makes a difference on the campaign trail

Election Day is just a few weeks away. What AFSCME members have built together for the past 75 years of our history – strong collective bargaining, affordable health care, equal pay for women, retirement security – is jeopardized by corporate-backed politicians trying to wipe us out at every level of government.

Our opponents are digging deep, anonymously pouring hundreds of millions into right-wing candidates’ campaigns. They’re employing dirty tricks, including pushing shameless voter ID legislation in a number of statehouses, and targeting minorities, the elderly and the poor, to prohibit us from casting our vote on Nov. 6.

In response to these attacks, AFSCME members are going door-to-door, phone banking, texting and tweeting, to get out the vote. In state after state, we are registering, educating and activating voters. And we are giving whatever we can to PEOPLE, AFSCME’s political action fund that helps us pool our resources to fight the handful of billionaires backing the anti-worker agenda with their much deeper pockets.

Let’s take a look at what’s at stake across the country on Election Day. It’s not just about re-electing Pres. Barack Obama (although that’s a biggie). It’s also about electing pro-worker candidates to Congress and state and local offices. And it’s about getting undemocratic laws taken off the books with democratic ballot initiatives. So let’s start in Michigan, where that’s exactly what’s under way.

MICHIGAN: A Vote on the Local Dictator Law

Retiree Michael Migrin (MSEA, Local 5) used to work for the state of Michigan as a typographer. He operated a two-color, 26-inch offset press, which produced the majority of printed materials for the state.

Now, Migrin is putting his typographical expertise to good use in the effort to repeal the state’s Emergency Financial Manager Law, more aptly called the Local Dictator Law. The law allows an unelected “local dictator” to tear up any union contract, displace any employee or elected official and even abolish a city or a school district.

“We were promised that it didn’t have anything to do with union busting,” Migrin said, “But what it has turned out to be is a subversion of democracy.”

AFSCME members in Michigan collected more than 200,000 petition signatures to put the law to a citizens’ vote. But two members of the Board of State Canvassers decided that the petitions used the wrong font size on the petition titles, and therefore, were invalid. That’s where Migrin comes in. He was an expert witness in an appeal of the board’s action, using his knowledge of typography to prove that the action was merely a “stalling tactic.”

The state Court of Appeals ruled in favor of ballot access, and the Supreme Court this summer upheld that ruling. In November, voters will be able to vote “No!” on the Local Dictator Law (known as Proposal 1 on the ballot).

Migrin and AFSCME members in Michigan are now focusing on the voters, educating them about not one, but two important ballot initiatives. The second would enshrine in the state’s constitution the right to collective bargaining. Michigan is primed to be the next anti-union, right-to-work-for-less state if the measure doesn’t pass.

“This is going to be one of the most important elections of my lifetime,” Migrin said.

MASSACHUSETTS, NEW MEXICO, HAWAII and OHIO: Electing U.S. Senators Who Stand with Us

To be an effective champion of workers, a U.S. senator must support them at every turn, introducing and arguing forcefully for quality legislation and defending them against blatant attacks on their rights.

Massachusetts is one of many states where our AFSCME sisters and brothers are focusing on Senate races to re-elect representatives who do just that. Local 1368 (Council 93) members are educating voters about Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, an outspoken advocate for working families in Massachusetts. 

Paul Faria, a transportation officer with the Department of Youth Services, noted, “Elizabeth Warren is exactly the kind of champion we need to turn things around for working families here in Massachusetts and across the country.”

So is Martin Heinrich, current House member and Senate-hopeful from New Mexico.

“We work with a lot of underserved folks,” said Tim McGrew, Adult Protective Service Case Worker and Local 1211 (Council 18) member. “I know that Martin is going to push for policies and a budget that protect the social safety net,” including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Council 18 members went from bargaining unit to bargaining unit, making sure that every member was registered to vote and educated on the candidates.

In Hawaii, HGEA/AFSCME Local 152 members are getting out the vote for Mazie Hirono, who made it through a tough primary with the help of AFSCME members. Ka’aina Hull, the political action chair for HGEA, is leading the efforts for her election on the island of Kauai, helping with everything from fundraising to sign waving at intersections and events.

For Hull, the motivation is the alternative: Hirono’s opponent, former Gov. Linda Lingle.

“As governor, Lingle launched an all-out attack on public employees,” Hull said. “She cut our pay and increased health care premiums. She tried to balance the budget on the backs of public workers.”

In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown has done just the opposite. He has put public workers at the top of his agenda again and again. His opponent, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, on the other hand, was a vocal supporter of Gov. John Kasich’s Senate Bill 5.

“Mandel doesn’t stand with us. Sherrod does,” said Eugene Davis, a Corrections Officer at Marion Correctional Institution and a member of OCSEA, Local 11. “And just like we pulled together to win on SB5, we are going to pull together to re-elect Sherrod Brown.”

FLORIDA: What a Local Battle Means for Presidential Politics

The sanitation workers of North Miami Beach, Fla., just beat back a privatization effort and they plan to build on their winning tactics to re-elect Pres. Barack Obama.

Several months ago, their city manager launched an ill-informed scheme to privatize sanitation services. The members of Local 3293 (Council 79) went right to work, tearing apart his plan and explaining its many deficiencies to the public. They knocked on doors and collected petition signatures. They formed partnerships with small businesses and church communities. They packed City Council meetings, demanding that the city administration hear cost-savings proposals from the public workers themselves.

And in the end, they were heard. The City Council voted against the privatization effort, 6 to 1. (The mayor has pledged to resurrect the effort.)

“We care about what happens to all employees, not just our employees,” said Janice Coakley, president of Local 3293.

And that concern guides members’ activism in the November elections. Local 3293 and Council 79 have turned their attention to President Obama’s re-election. Florida is a contentious swing state. AFSCME members are using the same boots-on-the-ground tactics that worked in our privatization fight, building community partnerships and individual relationships to educate and mobilize voters.

CALIFORNIA: Tackling a Scary Proposition in the Voting Booth

In California, Proposition 32 – known by AFSCME as the “Special Exemptions Act” and by corporate-backed politicians as the “Stop Special Interest Money Now Act” – has made it to the ballot.

The proposition limits the voice of union members by eliminating the right to have voluntary political contributions taken from their paychecks. At the same time, it gives special exemptions to corporate interests and so-called Super PACs (groups that can accept unlimited funds from anonymous donors and target candidates with it), giving them more political power and allowing them to write their own rules.

To recap: This proposition says that we shouldn’t be able to easily have a few dollars a month deducted from our paychecks so we have a voice, but billionaires should have unhampered ability to buy political influence.

“Their real agenda is to weaken unions,” said Rosalina Flores, a home care provider in UDW, and president of Local 3930, “It will end our PEOPLE program, which supports candidates and elects officials that help us fight to keep the IHSS (In-Home Supportive Services) program and unions from being eliminated.”

AFSCME is part of a coalition of labor unions, retiree groups, faith-based organizations and social justice groups that launched the Stop the Special Exemptions Act campaign. This campaign is using tactics both online and off to show Prop 32 for what it really is: yet another way to rig the system for the 1 percent, at the expense of the rest of us.

The campaign’s Facebook page has thousands of ‘likes,’ and their eight YouTube videos – in both English and Spanish – have garnered thousands of hits.

AFSCME members in California are hopeful that this virtual action will drum up real votes against Prop 32.

“Yes, I think we’re going to win,” said Flores, “But it’s going to take some hard work and a lot of votes.”

WISCONSIN: Doing Double Duty on the Campaign Trail

When Gov. Scott Walker won the recall election this June, media outlets across the country asked if it signaled the end of unions. AFSCME members in Wisconsin replied with a resounding, “No!”

For Wisconsinites, the need for a union has never been clearer. Terry Magnant, a nurse’s assistant and member of Local 555 (Council 24), put it simply: “I don’t want to be out there alone. I believe that we have to keep our union together to fight for our rights together.”

AFSCME members in Wisconsin have been going door to door to rebuild their union after Walker’s disastrous Act 10 went into effect. Among its provisions, Act 10 eliminated voluntary payroll deduction for dues for public sector unions and required those unions to recertify every year by an absolute majority of membership. U.S. District Judge William M. Conley ruled both of these provisions as unconstitutional, and AFSCME Wisconsin’s rebuild efforts are fully under way. To date, 13,000 members in the state have re-joined.

“Once this is over, we’ll still be here and Walker will be gone,” Magnant said, “It’s important to get involved, stick together and fight for what we need.”

And that’s exactly what they are doing during this election, sticking together and fighting for a state senate that stands with working families. For every door knocked on in the re-sign effort, another is being knocked on to get out the vote for Senate candidates like Dave Hansen (D-30) and Jessica King (D-18). In this year’s recall election, voters flipped control of the state senate to a pro-worker majority, and they don’t intend to lose it.

Wisconsin members know all too well how much voting matters, and they are planning to get every member to the polls on November 6.

PENNSYLVANIA: Boots on the Ground to Re-Elect the President

Elly McNelis, a Bucks County crossing guard and Local 1598 (Council 13) member, was in Wisconsin in the weeks leading up to the recall election. She stood with her Wisconsin sisters and brothers, rolling up her sleeves to help in that tough fight.

That experience reinforced for McNelis what is at stake for working families in every primary and every election, November and beyond.

For now, McNelis has her gaze set squarely on November 6. Recent polls have Pres. Barack Obama ahead of Republican nominee Mitt Romney. While that lead isn’t something McNelis takes for granted, she knows it might be the direct result of her hard work in Pennsylvania, and that inspires her to keep working.

McNelis and her fellow AFSCME members have been pounding the pavement throughout Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is one of 16 with a voter ID law designed to restrict voting on the books.

Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai revealed the true impetus for the so-called Voter ID law, saying it “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

McNelis is helping voters understand what kind of identification they will need to vote. She is determined to remove any obstacles for people who want to cast their vote to re-elect President Obama.

“President Obama’s on the right track,” McNelis said, “He’s given us change, but he couldn’t do it all in just one term. We’ve got to give him the opportunity to move forward. And we’ve got to move forward with him.”

The clock may be winding down to Nov. 6, but there are still doors to knock and calls to make. There are still Facebook pages to like and voters to text.

And no matter what right-wing politicians may try to do to suppress it, we still have our vote. We must use it.