Labor & Employment Law

N.Y. Times Profiles New Jersey State AFL-CIO Candidate School

By Mike Hall

Last week, The New York Times discovered what we in the union movement have known for a long time (click here and here): The New Jersey State AFL-CIO?s  Labor Candidate School?with more than 500 union members elected to office since 1997?is a unique and resounding success.

Times reporter Richard Perez-Pena writes that ?it is hardly unusual for unions to be involved in political campaigns?they provide candidates with critical ground troops for time-intensive tasks like walking precincts and making phone calls.? But he adds that the New Jersey school is unique ?in training its own members to run for office rather than work for other candidates.?

New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech tells Perez-Pena:

The concept was to take our members and apprentice them in the field of politics, just as we apprentice them in their own crafts. We started with zoning boards, school boards, councils, then mayor, freeholder, and then senators and assemblyman. Corporate America is very good at electing their people. If it?s good for them, why can?t it be good for us??

Tomorrow, 53 candidate school graduates will be on New Jersey ballots for local, county and state offices. They hope to join other alums, including Stephen Sweeney, state Senate president and a member of the Ironworkers, and Sen. Donald Norcross, who is an Electrical Workers (IBEW) member and president of the Southern New Jersey Central Labor Council. Overall there are more than 160 candidate school graduates holding public office today in the Garden State.

AFT member Dominick Stampone, the mayor of Haledon, says the two-day school at Rutgers University, followed by advice and mobilization support from the state federation, “really covered all the bases.”

They talked about fundraising, campaign finance reporting, dealing with the media, addressing a room, crafting your message and also about the core values we believe in, like affordable health care and living wage requirements.

Click here to read the full story.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on November 01, 2010 (boomark / email).