Labor & Employment Law

Union Activists Counter Unprecedented Election Cash from Corporations, Front Groups

By Mike Hall

West Virginia Fire Fighters (IAFF), California Ironworkers and Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and AFGE members across the country are fighting back against the hundreds of millions of dollars Republicans, corporations and phony front groups are pouring into the November elections.

In West Virginia, you?ll remember that a Republican TV ad for multimillionaire and mostly Florida resident John Raese?s campaign for the U.S. Senate used actors?encouraged to come to the auditions looking ?hicky? in trucker caps and flannel shirts?to portray West Virginians.

The outcry over that condescending slap in the face to real West Virginia voters forced the National Republican Senatorial Committee to pull the ad last week. Now, some IAFF members who are real West Virginians are on the air (see video) backing Gov. Joe Manchin (D). In a commercial airing around the Mountain State, Mark Roberts, a Dunbar firefighter (IAFF Local 1228 member), says:

Joe Manchin doesn?t hire Philadelphia actors to play hicks in his ads. We need a real West Virginian to fight for us in the U.S. Senate.

IAFF President Harold Schaitberger says the Raese ad was offensive:

We didn?t have to ship in East Coast actors who pretend to support Joe because West Virginia is filled with firefighters who are proud to support him. West Virginians realize that Joe Manchin has been a fantastic governor, and they also understand that his legacy of service provides evidence that he will be an even better senator.

Meanwhile on the West Coast, two unemployed Ironworkers members are leading the California Labor Federation?s Good Jobs Express tour. The three-day, five-city tour kicked off this morning in Anaheim. It will follow the proposed 400-mile high-speed rail line that gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown supports and his Republican opponent Meg Whiteman vows to kill.

Rallies are scheduled in each city where workers, elected officials, union leaders, environmentalists and community allies will back Brown?s support of the rail plan and his job-creation proposals. Construction and operation of the rail system is projected to create 160,000 construction jobs and as many as 450,000 permanent jobs statewide. 

Says 16-year veteran Ironworkers member Larry Greenhagen, who has been out of work for the past seven months: 

Unemployment is devastating. When I heard that Meg Whitman wanted to kill high-speed rail and the jobs that would put me and so many others back to work, I was appalled. She clearly doesn?t know the first thing about the heavy toll unemployment takes on our families and communities.

Art Pulaski, the labor federation?s executive secretary-treasurer, says the Good Jobs Express tour will help highlight the vast differences between Brown and Whitman when it comes to job creation and infrastructure rebuilding.

When it comes to jobs, we need real leadership. Jerry Brown will build high-speed rail, put people back to work and get our economy moving. Whitman?s opposition to high-speed rail, the good jobs it will create and the lasting benefits it will have for our economies and communities are no surprise from a billionaire CEO who is out of touch with what working families are going through now.

For more on the tour, click here. 

In other political mobilization news, IUPAT members got a heads-up election message last night via the union?s recently launched text message network. The text gave union members links to a video (watch above) from IUPAT President James Williams they could watch on their phones or online.

Williams reminds viewers that anti-worker groups ?who want to put unions out of business are counting on you to skip voting? on Election Day. He says off-year elections historically have low turnouts and:

There are special interest groups who take advantage of that low turnout by spending millions of dollars to push through anti-union candidates and their initiatives?.I?m asking you to defy history and save our future in this election by making your vote count for jobs and working families on Nov. 2. 

Yesterday, AFGE launched a new radio ad (click here to listen) and YouTube video warning that the simple ?bumper sticker? solutions??Take back our country” and “Get government off our backs??bandied about by Republicans, tea partiers and others this election season could carry real consequences if carried out.   

In the radio ad, AFGE President John Gage says:

Food and mine inspection?gone. Forget about border patrol or keeping terrorists locked up. And returning veterans? Give them a cheap voucher instead of a quality VA hospital.?And the [tea partier]chanting, ?Keep your hands off my Medicare.? Sorry. Medicare will be whacked hard. The same for Social Security.

We?re all angry and frustrated. But when you vote, remember who got us into this mess in the first place.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 13, 2010 (boomark / email).