November 2008 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton edition of The Union News

Unions conducting Get-Out-To-Vote (GOTV) program locally

By PAUL TUCKER
theunionnewsswb@aol.com

REGION, October 20th- Organized labor is conducting a get-out-to-vote (GOTV) program by contacting their members by mail, phone, and at worksites asking them to be sure to get to the polls on November 4th and support Illinois Senator Barack Obama for President.

Since mid-summer the labor community has been active throughout the nation and Northeastern Pennsylvania with a political program that is intended to better educate union members about issues pertaining to the November election and how it will effect them and the working people.

In the region, the political program is being conducted out of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Union District Council 87 building in Dunmore and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Union Local 542 building in Wilkes-Barre.

Unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Change-to-Win (CtW) labor federations are working together through the political program to better educate union members and their households about how presidential candidate Arizona Republican Senator John McCain hasn’t supported the labor community while in Washington and will oppose labor legislation if elected President in November.

Mr. McCain voted to prohibit application of Davis-Bacon laws in federal disaster areas, and repeatedly supported exceptions to Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rules. He opposed a resolution that would have expressed support for Davis-Bacon and opposition to its repeal. Also, Mr. McCain on March 15th, 1995 voted to block President Bill Clinton’s order banning federal contractors from hiring permanent scabs to replace construction workers on strike.

Senator McCain opposes the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and on June 26th, 2007 voted against the legislation. The legislation passed the House of Representatives in March 2007, 241-185 but it failed in the Senate. Organized labor has made the passage of the law a priority for the 2009 legislative session.

Under the legislation, employers would be required to recoginize unions that receive majority support by employees through a card-check program. EFCA would sometimes replace government overseen elections in the workplace which are held following a sometimes lengthy campaign and after an employer hires consultants that specializes in keeping unions from winning representation elections. Workers could still request for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct an election.

The unions effort includes members that are released from their regular jobs to campaign each day for labor supported candidates. They knock on doors of union members working from lists provided by their unions.