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10 Steps to Campaign Success
By Mike Hall By implementing the union movement’s 10 Point Program, Labor 2004 activists are working to ensure working families are winners this election year. When President George W. Bush is on the campaign and fund-raising trail, he ticks off a long list of so-called positive economic facts and figures meant to boost his re-election bid. But quite a few economic facts don’t make it into his stump speech. Bush fails to mention the more than 15 million U.S. workers who are unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to look for work. Bush doesn’t point to the more than 2.9 million provate-sector jobs, including 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, the nation’s economy has lost since he took office. Bush says nothing about the $60 billion in tax credits he supports (in H.R. 2896) for corporations that lay off workers and move production and jobs overseas. Bush fails to highlight his moves to privatize half the federal workforce, displacing as many as 850,000 federal workers. But in thousands of worksites and local unions, activists are spotlighting those facts and more to convey to workers and their families the dismal failure of Bush’s tax, economic and trade policies, the jobless “economic recovery” and the fact that he is the first president to versee nationwide job loss since Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. Since 1996, the union movement’s political mobilization strategy has built on 10 key points to engage and motivate union mailies to elect working family friendly lawmakers. Based on union member and local union participation, the 10 Point Program calls for an increase in union member voter registration, a thorough and detailed get-out-the-vote strategy, establishing a rapid-response communciation network in the workplace and educating candidates and lawmakers about the link between union members’ political support and lawmakers’ support of working famlies issues. Other strategies in the 10 Point Porgram involve setting up a political volunteer coordinator at each worksite and a commitment to regularly communicate with members through newsletters, leaflets and letters from union leaders. “We are doing everything at our local to get out to our members and let them see what’s going on with jobs, the economy, Bush and why it’s so important to get active in politics and elections,” says Business Manager Robert Richardson, whose Cincinnati-based LIUNA Local 265 represents some 1,500 members at job sites in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Richardson and other activists share how thy put the 10 Point Program into action. 1. Recruit key contacts at locals and worksites.Building and maintaining an effective political program is essential to mobilizing union members around issues that benefit working families, says John Marrone, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1099 director of politics and field service. For Marrone, whose local union launched an active political outreach campaign with Labor ’96, “every election, we’re building to improve how we do the 10 points.” The 20,000-member Cincinnati local union, spread across three states and 150 worksites, experiences fairly high turnover among its members, most of whom work in grocery stores, says Marrone. But the union has built a strong base of political activists. “We’ve got good staff reps in the stores, and we ask them to get at least one person in each worksite to make a commitment to be the political point person.” One of those rank-and-file activists, UFCW Local 1099 member Bill Schramm, makes sure his sister and brother union members at the Kroger’s grocery store where he works in the produce department are kept up-to-date on the latest key issues—such as the Bush administration’s attack on overtime pay protections.
“We have a really diverse store and people who hold some really strong beliefs about some issues, but I always try to keep them focused on real-life labor and working family issues like wages, jobs and health care,” says Schramm, who became politically active as a Local 1099 Labor ’98 coordinator. 2. Distribute leaflets at all union worksites.With 44 worksites in the Saginaw, Mich., school system, where some 500 SEIU Local 517 members are employed. Member Mark Clements, a chief groundskeeper at one of the city’s schools, says his goal in distributing fliers to co-workers is to let them know what’s really going on with jobs and to convince people that we are all one unit.” Distributing leaflets and fliers also enables Clements to experience valuable one-on-one contact with union colleagues. “A lot of people thought they didn’t have to be involved. Politics used to be really distasteful to them. But I think a lot more people see how their jobs and politics are connected.” Clements is one of the statewide union’s nearly 150 member political organizers (MPOs), whom SEIU Local 517 Political Coordinator Steve Reck counts on to distribute leaflets and other mobilizing tools to the local’s 7,000 members spread across 110 separate bargaining units. MPOs are volunteers who receive training to take political action to worksites, neighborhoods and elsewhere. “All our business agents and organizers are handing out the issue fliers and talking about how they affect their jobs. We focus on work issues like wages, overtime and jobs. Those are great motivators to get people involved in political action,” says John Jorgensen, business manager of Painters and Allied Trades District Council that includes 2,600 members in eight locals in Wisconsin. “We’re testing and fine tuning methods to help develop political activists for each unit and down to the jobsites,” says Reck. 3. Maximize contact through union publications.“Once again, we’re faced with the stark political choice of what is good for the wealthy privileged few versus what is good for America’s working families,” Marrone wrote in the first 2004 issue of Local 1099’s magazine, Visions. He says the publication always includes political features, but in election years such coverage expands and includes information on specific issues in pull-out articles and leaflets. Marrone also notes local unions can find articles, worksite fliers and other information that can easily be localized and adapted for their newsletters and other publications at the AFL-CIO’s online Working Families Toolkit. 4. Mail frequent communications from local union presidents and other leaders.Each election year, union members, like all voters, are inundated with political mail—much of which ends up unopened or tossed. But AFL-CIO–sponsored surveys and focus groups show when the message comes from their local union’s leader, union members are far more likely to open and read it than other mail. LIUNA Local 265 members can count on hearing from Richardson, who says he makes sure his mail communications highlight issues that matter most to working families. “As a local, we’re always trying to find out what works, what we can do to get our members involved and active. People are going to be more accepting and responsive to a letter from somebody they know and have seen,” says Richardson, who plans to increase his mail outreach efforts as Labor 2004 builds momentum. 5. Maximize impact of union phone calls.A study by Yale University professors Alan Gerber and Donald Green found volunteer phone banks do a better job of turning out members to vote than professionals hired to make phone calls—up to a 5 percent increase in voter turnout.
In Hamtramck, Mich., physical education teacher and AFT Local 1052 member Bo Karpinsky says the 250-member local runs phone operations through Election Day. “We’ll call them three times, let them know their votes are important, call again and remind the election is real soon and then again on Election Day, one more time to make sure they’ve voted or ask if we can help them get to the polls. We’ll use cross-checkers to call back later to check one last time.”
In Wisconsin, Jorgensen explains, “We’ve made an investment in doubling the number of lines we have dedicated to phone banking, and we try to make an event out of it with pizza and drinks or give out pins and T-shirts to members who volunteer a lot or make the most calls.” 6. Update local member lists.Keeping track of current addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses is a time-consuming but important task, says Marrone.
Along with matching membership lists to recent voting lists, usually available through county registrars, shop stewards and worksite volunteers can track address changes and ensure new members are added to lists so unions’ communications get through. Local unions also can get help to maintain and update their lists from their international unions and state AFL-CIO federations. 7. Increase voter registration by 10 percent. Because most LIUNA Local 265 members pay their dues in person, Richardson seizes the opportunity to ensure the union has members’ correct addresses and determine whether they are registered to vote. The local keeps a supply of voter registration forms for members to fill out on the spot and submits these forms to voter registrars’ offices for members. Even though more than 85 percent of SEIU Local 517 members are registered voters, Marianne Woods, the local union’s school and local government region 1 coordinator in Saginaw, says the union’s increased efforts in local politics help mobilize previously uninvolved members and unregistered voters. “Boiled down, all politics is local, and our members realize their jobs as school and public employees depend on that,” she says. “We always have something going on at board meetings, city council. They can see the connection, and they get it, and when they do, they get active and vote.” 8. Conduct a massive get-out-the-vote effort.Turning out voters is essential—and Karpinsky says his AFT local has set up a network of building representatives who are a key part of the get-out-the-vote effort. “We’ve got three or four at each [of seven schools], and they are ones you can count on, who will go face-to-face, person-to-person with people to make sure they get out to vote or join in with door-knocking or leafleting,” says Karpinsky. The local, with a little more than 250 members, also gets involved in city, county and state campaigns—such as a current recall campaign of several school board members—that build a core of support for political mobilizations in national campaigns. 9. Build rapid-response networks in the workplace.SEIU Local 517’s Reck says mobilizing members in the past several elections and educating them about the close connection between their jobs and political action has helped develop a corps of members the union can call on for issues mobilization on the local and state level. “When we got our members involved in campaigns, like taking a busload to knock on doors for a weekend in Detroit’s mayoral race or getting involved with local school board races, we find that the return rate is tremendous. They become the people we call on to fight education funding cuts or for affordable health care or for pay raises,” he says. This rapid-response network of activists was an important tool to defend working families from a dozen years of state Republican administrations that attacked workers’ rights, sought to eliminate jobs and cut funding for working family programs. It was also a key element to Jennifer Granholm’s (D) 2002 election to the governor’s office. 10. Link politics to organizing.An effective political mobilization strategy also must open the door to more effective and successful organizing. Candidates and public officeholders must recognize union members’ support isn’t a one-way street— it comes with a commitment to uphold workers’ freedom to form a union. Recognizing organizing and political action are “two sides of the same coin,” Marrone says, UFCW Local 1099 puts “a lot of our resources into organizing. We mobilize people for rallies and marches and try build support from local lawmakers too. You make sure they see the overlap between politics and organizing.” In Michigan, before any local or state candidate for public office receives SEIU Local 517’s endorsement, each candidate must meet with union members and pledge their support for workers’ freedom to form a union. “You can’t organize without the right political environment. You’ve got to create that environment by electing people who support the right of workers to organize,” says Marrone. @ | |   | | Get Labor 2004 Materials Online | One-to-one contact forms the backbone of the union movement’s 10 Point Program. When union members receive materials from and talk with other union members about important election issues, they are far more likely to support and vote for working family candidates, recent post-election surveys show. Get the information you need to inform union members about Bush’s abysmal record on jobs and the economy through the AFL-CIO Working Families Toolkit. Through the 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 aor 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 newsletters can be downloaded and photos and local union logos can be uploaded to further customize the materials. Find out how you can access ready-to-use fliers at www.workingfamiliestoolkit.com.
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