Labor & Employment Law

?Too Much at Stake in This Election to Stay Home?

By James Parks

Trent McNutt and Laura Jackson are hitting the streets and going door to door to make sure that candidates who will create real jobs are elected this fall?and they say every worker should join them because there’s too much at stake to stay home.

McNutt, an unemployed member of  the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), and Jackson, a Communications Workers of America (CWA) member, told a press conference at  the AFL-CIO  yesterday that working people have a lot at stake in this election to stay at home.    

McNutt lost his job last November when the company in Toledo, Ohio, where he had worked for 11 years went out of business. Now the married father of two young children has to make due working occasionally with a local contractor.

This year I?m on pace to make a third of what I?ve made in years past. You never really expect something as drastic as what we?re going through?we?ve worked so hard for everything we have.  But we know a lot of other families are worse off.  Over the past few months work has started to pick up, but I?m fearful it will taper off again. 

He says he is motivated to get out and work for candidates who support working family issues like job creation because of people like his father, a retired sheet metal worker, who taught him a strong work ethic and spirit of volunteerism. 

I?m not sure what we?ll do if things don?t turn around and we don?t put the right people in office. That?s why I?m going to do everything I can with my union brothers and sisters to make a difference this election because there?s just too much at stake.

At  the press conference, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka outlined plans for an aggressive and massive mobilization of working people beginning this Labor Day weekend for the fall election. Trumka also announced the AFL-CIO will run TV and radio ads Labor Day weekend in key markets around Major League Baseball games, NASCAR and college football games.

For Jackson, a social services worker in Moberly, Mo., this election comes down to making sure America’s working families can make ends meet.

That?s why this election is even more important than the last election. We want to continue the progress we?ve made and elect candidates that will put workers at the center.  The number one issue is jobs, so we definitely need to make sure that the people making the decisions make that their top priority. I?m going to do all I can to make sure that happens, including getting the message out to my family, union members and anyone who will listen.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 02, 2010 (boomark / email).