Carla Bryson IBEW Local 2327 Political Action for Our Kids’ Futures
"I was tired of yelling at the TV—and I was getting afraid for the country and the way things were going. I really wanted to have a say." That's what led Carla Bryson, a member of Electrical Workers Local 2327 and a service representative at Verizon in Maine, to get involved in politics for the first time since college.
It was the beginning of the 2004 campaign. Bryson decided to go to the Democratic caucus in her hometown of Portland to run for delegate to the state convention and then as delegate to the national convention.
"I was very unfamiliar with all the procedures, but so were a lot of other people," she recalls. "I put on my literature that I was a union member and that was a plus. I met a lot of other people who were active in their unions, and my own union gave me all sorts of information that helped out."
For her first foray into political activism, she also had some valuable family support. Her brother-in-law is Al Franken, who endorsed her on her literature and made a video for the Maine Democratic convention. "He's in two or three unions himself," Bryson points out.
She eventually was elected as a Democratic convention delegate and was asked to serve as the chairwoman of the Cumberland County Democratic Committee, but she says the real work started in the fall.
Her “volunteer” position is “like having a second full-time job," she notes. She and other committee members created absentee ballot brochures and held fund-raisers (including the annual Democratic picnic where Franken—who was in town for a family member's wedding anniversary—fired the starting gun for the "race against Bush").
"My car and my house were full of yard signs for months," she says. "I'm still finding splinters from the signs in the back of my car." She also served as a contact person to match up union members and other volunteers with campaign work that needed to be done. "It's like community organizing," Bryson observes.
For the 2006 election, Bryson is doing another personal first. She's serving as campaign treasurer for the re-election of Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D), who is strongly pro-union. It's another volunteer position.
"They asked me to come on board and I said, 'All right,'" she says. "I was a little leery about it because I didn't know anything about election finance law, but I've learned a lot."
Why should union members get involved in political action? "It's self-interest, especially for people who have children," Bryson replies. "We need to think not only about ourselves but what kind of country are we going to have for them. When we're in a union, we want to stay employed and keep our benefits, and sometimes we need to do something to help. That's why politics is important. It's sort of an adjunct to union activity."
Right now, a big issue for Bryson and her union sisters and brothers is the threat that Verizon will sell its land-line business in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
"What will happen to our jobs and our pensions and our benefits? What will the new company be like?" she asks. Bryson and other union members have met with Maine's governor, representatives and senators to mobilize their support for keeping jobs.
"I think they need to see that in Maine, people who are so busy with their lives and their kids are signing petitions asking for their help," she adds. "These jobs mean a lot to a place like Maine. If we lose them, they won't be replaced."
Two years after she got involved in politics, Bryson says the best part of her experience has been the “people part of it."
"We're dealing with something immediate, something local. I like working with people to get something done."
This portion of this website is paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
