Labor & Employment Law

Longtime Union Women Get Out the Vote with Food and Phones

By Berry Craig

Frances Willey (top) and Martha Wiggins (below with AFSCME Local 2821 President David Burnett) have spent decades helping get out the union vote in western Kentucky.

Jeff Wiggins thinks he might have the best fed volunteers in the Kentucky Labor 2010 campaign. Wiggins, Paducah-based Zone One coordinator, credits his mom, Martha Wiggins, 76, and Frances Willey, 87.

“They fix breakfast before everybody leaves for our member-to-member walks. They have lunch ready when everybody gets back. It is good home cooking, too.”

Wiggins and Willey, both union retirees, do more than provide hot food for canvassers who go door to door on chilly autumn Saturdays urging fellow union members to support labor-endorsed candidates like Democrat Jack Conway, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Says Willey:

“After everybody heads out on the walks, we start making phone calls for our candidates. We’re usually on the phones for about three hours.”

Willey was in the former Food Handlers union and Wiggins carried a union card from the UAW. Their spouses were union, too. Union blood runs through Martha?s son?s veins, too. Jeff is a United Steelworkers (USW)  member, president of Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council in Paducah and member of the state AFL-CIO Executive Board. Says Wiggins:

Mom and “Miss Frances” have been feeding us well during election campaigns for years. They are the first ones at the hall, where we meet to start our walks, and the last ones to leave.

Willey and Wiggins show up about 7 a.m. On the way to the hall, Willey makes a quick stop for donuts and orange juice. Says Willey:

We make biscuits and gravy. We bring bacon and sausage from home, too. We brew up a pot of coffee. We make chili for lunch. We hate to see anybody leave us on an empty stomach.

Willey and Wiggins also help register the day?s volunteers, who fan out across Paducah starting at 9 a.m. Then they grab the phones until it?s time to start ladling out the chili around noon, when the volunteers return. ?Everybody is pretty hungry after the walks,? says Willey. By the time the pair finishes cleaning up, it?s around 2 p.m.

Along with their election season work, the duo shows up at monthly council meetings with snacks and treats. In addition, Martha and Frances are longtime members of the Western Kentucky Labor Day Committee, and Willey is treasurer of a nonprofit group that puts on Paducah’s annual Labor Day parade and picnic. Says Jeff Wiggins:

There’s no telling how many volunteer hours Mom and Miss Frances have spent working on all of our union programs all these years. It would be in the hundreds.

They plan to log a few more, too. ?I really enjoy being with all the people,? says Martha, who beat breast cancer eight years ago.

I’m getting older, but I can still help out.

Adds Willey:

Sometimes, I get tired going and going. But the way I look at it, you can always rest after you get home.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).