Union Member-to-Member Walks to Reach Thousands This Weekend

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/13/union-member-to-member-walks-will-reach-thousands-this-weekend/

by Seth Michaels, May 13, 2008

Around the country this Saturday, thousands of union members will get a visit from their fellow union members and have a chance to learn about the issues they care about in November’s elections.

This weekend’s door-to-door canvass is at the center of the AFL-CIO union movement’s effort to mobilize more than 6,000 union volunteers to knock on 200,000 doors and engage union members in 20 states this spring. These volunteers will discuss issues such as health care, jobs, the economy and trade, and how John McCain’s pro-Bush voting record in the Senate has worked against the interests of America’s workers.

Saturday’s door-to-door walks to educate and energize union members are part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 political program, set to be the largest union mobilization in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlKnHIyWEko

Volunteers knocking on union household doors will focus on McCain’s health care proposals, highlighting his intent to tax employer-based health care, which would elevate costs and drastically reduce coverage. McCain’s plan also would push workers into the private market, where they would be forced to fight big insurance companies on their own.

Bridgette Williams, president of the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, says union walks are the heart of the AFL-CIO’s program.

Labor-to-labor walks are important because members are talking with and connecting to people with the same issues they are facing. It is essentially bread and butter people talking with other bread and butter people. The walks are also important because the people that participate in them are door knocking for the greater good, not for profit.

Union activists and leaders across the country will take part in these walks. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will travel to Seattle to take part in a walk, while AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka will knock on doors in Philadelphia.

Hundreds of union volunteers made their way to thousands of homes in Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin last Saturday during the first round of walks.

The Labor 2008 program also has included phone banks, labor council meetings, political training, worksite leafleting and public events.

The AFL-CIO is committed to getting union members informed, engaged and out to the polls this fall to elect working family-friendly candidates.