Array of Labor Day activities boost grassroots mobilization for upcoming national elections
On the 114th American celebration of Labor Day, AFL-CIO working families in hundreds of cities around the nation will join together at Labor Day rallies, parades, picnics, festivals, cookouts, and religious services under the banner of Turn Around America. Pointing out that the middle class is shrinking quickly and dramatically, AFL-CIO union members and their families will highlight the need for an economy that works for all – not just a few. They will pledge to work harder than ever before to elect leaders in November who will change the direction of the country and address the urgent the economic concerns working families face.
“This Labor Day, from coast to coast, working people are ready to turn out in droves to work for candidates who are ready to turn around our economy and turn around America,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “America’s voters are faced with a fundamental choice: to continue down the road we've taken and end up in a swamp of inequality where corporations and the wealthy always get more – or to turn around America, and ensure health care for all, fair trade, the freedom to improve our lives through unions, and a fair share of the wealth that working people create.”
On Monday, working men and women in places as wide-ranging as Fairbanks, Alaska, to Urbana, Illinois, to Daytona, Florida, will participate in more than 200 Labor Day celebrations and observances. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and other union leaders will be joining thousands of local working families at major Labor Day events in Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Michigan.
The Labor Day celebrations will serve to energize and involve union members and their families in the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 grassroots political mobilization effort. For example, at the Allegheny, Pennsylvania Labor Day festival, working families will enjoy live entertainment and listen to speakers including elected officials and union leaders calling for universal health care, good jobs, fair trade deals, and the freedom for workers to join with their coworkers to form unions. The AFL-CIO’s grassroots mobilization is focused on engaging more than 13 million voters in 24 priority battleground states around candidates’ stances on economic issues such as health care, job creation, retirement security, and energy.
Many of the Labor Day observances will center on efforts to defend the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill that would restore workers’ freedom form or join unions to bargain for better lives. The bill is under intense attack from corporate interests who favor the current company-dominated system and want to maintain the status quo. Today, according to academic studies, a quarter of private sector employers illegally fire at least one worker during a union organizing campaign. The Employee Free Choice Act would restore workers’ freedom of choice by strengthening penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate employees, ensuring that workers have a fair chance at winning a contract to guarantee their wages and benefits, and removing barriers to workers who want to form a union by enabling them to organize a union when a majority signs union authorization cards.
Labor Day will mark a pivotal point in the labor movement’s effort to turn around America. Beginning Monday, the AFL-CIO member mobilization program will kick into high gear. More than a quarter million AFL-CIO union volunteers will go door-to-door in more than 100 cities, knock on more than ten million doors, make more than 70 million telephone calls, participate in local community coalitions to ensure that voters rights are protected, and talk to their coworkers at over 20 million worksites. The AFL-CIO will be actively engaged in more than 510 races nationwide. In a number of key states, including Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, AFL-CIO union household voters will make up a significant portion of the electorate on Election Day.
Contact: Rachele Huennekens 202-637-5018
