Hopeful polls aren't slowing down labor

Lots of folks around here have rightly cautioned people not to get complacent about polling numbers that currently favor Democrats. I think most of us get that. So, in that light, here are snips from a Nation article that show most politically active folks get it and know we have to work our asses off through '08.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061030&s=moberg

(subscription required for this particular article)

Broad sentiment against Bush and misgivings about the war have opened up rare opportunities for Democrats, but in a non-presidential year with Republicans strengthening their turnout strategies, they will need a mighty push from grassroots voter mobilization. And no push is more important than labor's. The good news for Democrats is that despite its problems, organized labor is mounting a record effort, maintaining roughly the same level of union political cooperation as before the split, and finding new ways to expand its influence.

Despite the split, the AFL-CIO did not reduce its $40 million budget for this election cycle, the largest ever in a nonpresidential year. And while labor concentrated on sixteen battleground states in the 2004 presidential election, this year the AFL-CIO is targeting more than 200 races in twenty-one states, including many gubernatorial races. The new Change to Win Federation is focusing on only three states, but most of its affiliates are casting a much wider net. Individual unions in both federations report putting as much or more money and effort into a larger number of races than ever before. Even more than in 2004, member activists--not union staff--are contacting fellow unionists at work, in neighborhoods and by telephone.

"This is a turnout election year," AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman says, not a time like 2004 for voter persuasion or registration, though union registration efforts continue, especially with immigrant rights groups. "Our job is to reach people who voted in 2004 but not in 2002 among union members and families and make special efforts to get information to them."

According to a Hart Research poll, so-called drop-off Democratic voters, who have become politically disengaged in the last few election cycles, are more dissatisfied and inclined to vote Democratic in response to key labor issues--regarding jobs, healthcare, education--than even the average union member. And voters overall, Hart concluded, are significantly more motivated to vote Democratic by labor's message on the economy than by Democratic attacks on the Iraq War or corruption.

So drop-offs make ideal targets for union political organizing. Voters in union households, compared with nonunion households, are more likely to vote, and when they do, they tend to vote Democratic. Political scientist Peter Francia's new book, The Future of Organized Labor in American Politics, concludes that labor has grown more effective politically since John Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO in 1995. And even though a 2004 study by Harvard economist Richard Freeman casts doubt on labor's claim to have expanded its share of the electorate since the early 1990s, union households still account for roughly a quarter of all voters. This is impressive, given that unions represent a shrinking share--about one-eighth--of the workforce.

Faced with that dwindling base, unions have demanded more support from politicians for organizing, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, which provides less burdensome union recognition procedures. And Change to Win wants to refocus its political strategy even more toward union growth, UNITE HERE chief of staff Chris Chafe says. But the labor movement is also expanding the universe of voters--union and nonunion--it can mobilize. Over the past three years, the AFL-CIO has recruited more than 1.5 million members in about fifteen states to its new "community affiliate," Working America. Its members are mainly middle-income workers who sympathize with labor's broad goals but do not belong to unions. In Ohio one in ten households will be part of Working America by this election.

Unions have also forged alliances with other groups to generate voter enthusiasm for their issues and candidates. Working Families Win, a partly labor-funded project of Americans for Democratic Action, organizes nonunion activists from small cities in eight states to reach voters about trade and related economic matters. ACORN, working with unions, has put minimum-wage referendums on four state ballots, potentially boosting low-income-worker turnout. And the union-backed Working Families Party, which gives voters a chance to support Democrats while sending a distinct worker-oriented message, is organizing in two key, hotly contested Congressional districts--an upstate New York seat vacated by Republican Sherwood Boehlert and a competitive Connecticut seat held by Republican Nancy Johnson.

Despite anxieties that unions are not really gearing up adequately to exploit their opportunities, both anger at Bush and economic insecurity are spurring grassroots activism in many areas. As Al Wesley said, after door-knocking in Austin, "You've got to do something. You can't just sit on your hands."

One candidate I am working for was endorsed by the state and local labor councils but they are not responding to requests for help on the campaign. We really need help getting signs out and they promised a month ago to help with this but they are not responding to our requests for help this weekend.

than there used to be before our charming President Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers and just like any organization (church, club, etc) about 10% of the people (if that many) do the lion's share of the work.

But they promised to help when they endorsed the candidate.