The formidable Bush fund-raising campaign and corporate money machine will be impossible for working families to match—but the financial advantage always has weighed disproportionately on the side of those working against the interests of working families. Just two years ago, in a nonpresidential election year, corporate contributions gave Big Business a 12-to-1 spending advantage over working families and their unions—$720 million to $62 million, according to federal election records.

Faced with an incredible financial disadvantage, how can working families defeat a president who, says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, is the most anti-worker president ever to hold office? How will Labor 2004 mobilize to elect a Congress that will protect workers’ freedom to join unions? How can union family voters mobilize in support of state and local leaders who will fight for living wages and protect public education?

Local and state union leaders say there are two key elements to winning a working families agenda and pro-worker president and Congress: Work the nuts and bolts of Labor 2004 by mobilizing around the AFL-CIO’s 10-Point Program for Action and highlight Bush’s dismal economic track record and his unprecedented attack on working families.

“As proven in the past,” says Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, pointing to the November 2003 election that put 35 New Jersey union members in local and state offices, “by implementing labor’s 10-Point Program, we once again succeeded. Union members contacting union members about issues and candidates was the cornerstone of our Labor 2003 program, just as it will be for Labor 2004.”

The Union Movement's 10-Point Program 1.  Recruit a key contact at each local and worksite. 2.  Distribute leaflets at all union worksites. 3.  Maximize contact through union publications by including Labor 2004 information in each issue and publishing special fliers and reports on working-family issues. 4.  Maximize communication from local presidents and business agents through regular mailings that include leaflets and issues. 5.  Maximize impact of union phone calls by including an issues message in all calls and making multiple calls starting in the fall. 6.  Update locals’ membership lists. 7.  Increase union voter registration by 10 percent. 8.  Conduct massive get-out-the-vote efforts. 9.  Build rapid response networks in workplaces. 10.  Link politics to organizing.

Laying the Foundation for 2004 The 2003 election—which involved a handful of state and local contests with no federal offices up for grabs—“was a good preliminary for the main event,” says Allegheny (Pa.) County Labor Council President Jack Shea. The county focused on unseating a county chief executive and replacing him with a union-endorsed candidate. “We told people that in order to be successful and elect a president in 2004, we have to be successful in all our campaigns and have to put our full campaign out there,” Shea says. Starting with the 10-Point Program, which the council and its unions had been fine tuning since adopting it in 1999, Allegheny working family voters overcame an initial 16-point deficit in the county contest and elected Dan Onorato as county chief executive. “We kept ginning it up,” says Shea. The labor council built on mailings to members of its 193 local unions with precinct walks on the weekends, including “early morning 5 a.m. plant gates” visits. Phone banking outreach proved so successful, “there were nights we had 50 phones and 80 people would show up,” Shea says. The action crescendoed on Election Day, when union volunteers gave 400 to 500 people rides to the polls. Shea says reaching out to individual union members generates participation. “You get a couple of people over here, and four or five over there and suddenly you’re building enthusiasm because they go out and touch some of their friends and co-workers. What we’ve done is build a floor for 2004.”

In fact, the union movement’s grassroots political mobilization has been so effective in activating union voters, Republican strategists say they are modeling much of their grassroots efforts on labor’s strategic pattern.

The key first step in running a successful election mobilization is setting up a worksite structure to engage and educate union members about the issues that affect them.

“They are talking an awful lot about jobs. A lot of the trucking lines have, and are, laying off—that’s what people are talking about,” says Meadows, a driver for Yellow Freight Lines.

Under NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), the Bush administration was set to allow Mexican trucks, which operate under lax safety and environmental rules, nearly unfettered access to U.S. highways while enabling Mexican trucking companies, which pay their workers far less than U.S. drivers earn, to haul U.S. freight. The FTAA, now being debated behind closed doors by trade ministers and Big Business supporters, would eliminate tariffs from 34 countries with a population of more than 800 million and accelerate the staggering job loss and environmental damage experienced under 10 years of NAFTA.

Through congressional and legal action, unions and environmentalists have stymied Bush’s drive to open U.S. highways, but “they know that if Bush is re-elected, it’s almost guaranteed he’ll let the Mexican trucks in,” Meadows says.

Along with educating members through special forums and regular union meetings, Meadows says he is working to set up coordinators at “every [truck] barn and worksite” while ensuring they have access to phones, faxes and computers to keep in constant communication. Meadows plans to access customizable political action fliers and other information from the online AFL-CIO Working Families Toolkit.

Getting members to vote—and more

	Get Fliers Out Fast with the Working Families Toolkit
	Through the AFL-CIO Working Families Toolkit, union leaders have online access to political action fliers, newsletter articles, phone scripts and other materials covering key issues. Each item can be customized by union and congressional district and downloaded or printed for fast distribution to union members at worksites, during union meetings or at other union events. Launched in 2002, the Working Families Toolkit has expanded its resources for Labor 2004 activists. Photos, cartoons and other materials for fliers and newsletter can be downloaded. And photos and local union logos can uploaded to localize the materials.   Find out how you can access ready-to-use fliers.

On the other side of the state, Kansas City Fire Fighters member Sherwood Smith is the political director and Labor 2004 local union coordinator for IAFF Local 42. The 25-year veteran firefighter, who has risen to the rank of captain, says Bush’s attack on overtime pay protections and funding cuts for public safety and homeland security “have really energized” the local union’s 1,150 members.

While the local union members have been politically aware for years, after the Bush administration “took office and went after overtime, made cuts in the Fire Act and Safer Act [federal programs that provide funds for fire and other emergency services], it’s really hit home how important it is to elect politicians who are on our side,” says Smith.

Smith’s local union bolsters regular member communication—which includes a newsletter, e-mail list and monthly bulletin—with voter registration at each local union meeting. “We make a pitch for voter registration, we set a time for a good political discussion and try to focus the members on the issues that count,” Smith says.

The emphasis on the 10-Point Program has paid off in pushing member participation beyond voting. Smith says in the last election, some 66 percent of Local 42’s members took an active part in the 2002 campaigns. “They made phone calls, knocked on doors, volunteered with campaigns, delivered yard signs. This time we want to do even better.” @