Project Vote Smart - http://www.vote-smart.org

As our voter registration/absentee ballot drives begin throughout all AFA councils, I thought you may find this article from today's Washington Post of interest.

Battle for the House: Labor on the Front Lines By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 29, 2000; Page A01

FRANKFORT, Ky. ** Charles Wells started his day before sunrise along with other union organizers at a local Waffle House, yet he showed no signs of flagging at 7 p.m. as he spoke to fellow labor officials about the stakes in the congressional and presidential elections.

"There is no more critical time in our lifetime for us as representatives of working men and women, who need to make their voices heard," boomed Wells, the otherwise mild-mannered executive director of Kentucky's American Federation of Teachers.

Gathered around a conference table with activists from the garment, electrical, auto and food industries, Wells and his colleagues are on the front lines in the battle for control of the House. Their particular goal: Help Democrat Scotty Baesler win back his seat from GOP Rep. Ernie Fletcher, a family physician who won the seat when Baesler ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1998.

Lexington is not a big union town, with a cluster of organized companies and trades scattered around the city. But the extensive network the AFL-CIO has established here and in other congressional districts throughout the country demonstrates how labor forms the backbone of the Democrats' grass-roots operation this election. Just last week 500 activists--100 more than last year--gathered in Washington for a two-day training session before fanning out across the country.

"Labor 2000," the AFL-CIO's most comprehensive get-out-the vote effort, is crucial to Democratic hopes of regaining the House majority. It also marks a strategic shift by union leaders, who are focusing less on blanketing the airwaves and more on mobilizing members and their neighbors to vote.

"It's a cultural change within the labor movement," said Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's political director. "Over the years our organization had gotten rusty. What's more critical is that people talk to each other."

The stakes for unions are enormous: They risk being shut out of both the White House and Congress for the first time in nearly half a century. Officials will not say exactly how much money labor will spend on this year's elections, but the estimate is $40 million for the AFL-CIO's 1999-2000 political and legislative budget, which includes everything from the fight against trade with China to state legislative contests and individual ballot initiatives.

After analyzing the 1998 election results and conducting focus groups, union officials found that member-to-member contact was key in getting out the vote. Seventy-six percent of union members who received workplace fliers voted for the labor-endorsed candidate, for example, but just 11 percent of union members received such leaflets in 1998.

Targeting 71 House races, the AFL-CIO has created what amounts to a series of ever-expanding pyramids. Its 68 member unions select point people in every state, who in turn target members in their locals. This group finds point people in every unionized shop, who subsequently identify point people for each work shift. Rosenthal estimated this translates into "literally thousands of activists."

Rutgers University economics professor Leo Troy, a union critic, said that labor unions are an invaluable asset to the Democrats, and they provide the party with the kind of grass-roots support amounting to "a hand-wrapped gift" that he estimated is worth hundreds of millions of dollars each election. Troy asked: "How would you buy 45,000 organizations across the country devoted to your cause?"

Union members consistently vote in higher numbers than their nonunion counterparts, providing the winning edge for Democrats in key races. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) noted that in 1994 labor made up just 13 percent of the electorate and his party lost 52 seats, while Democrats gained seats in the last two elections when union members accounted for 23 percent of the vote. "Any organization that has a grass-roots operation can be effective in an election," Gephardt said. "The unions have been very effective in recent years."

Kentucky, although not as heavily organized as other nearby states such as Ohio, is fertile ground for labor this year. In addition to the Fletcher-Baesler race, which ranks as one of the most competitive in the nation, GOP Reps. Anne M. Northup and Edward Whitfield--both of whose districts have sizable union populations--are facing spirited challenges.

Bill Londrigan, president of the Kentucky AFL-CIO, is well aware that the three races could help decide who controls the House next year. "We're putting the resources into these races to get the job done," he said. "It's basically a massive mobilization effort."

Kentucky's 6th District, which encompasses Lexington and some surrounding rural areas, has 15,000 union members; by contrast, Northup's district has four times as many. But Londrigan said the AFL-CIO hopes to generate between 35,000 and 40,000 votes in the Fletcher-Baesler race.

In Lexington, the union's established hierarchy means the food and commercial workers' union has political contacts for all three shifts in the two local Kroger grocery stores. The 1,075-person-strong textile union has six active locals, while the Sheet Metal Workers have 800 members in seven area work sites. And union retirees, such as former Trane maintenance mechanic Harold King, are coaxing other senior citizens to vote because he sees it as a question of "our survival."

Londrigan, a former longshoreman who hasn't lost his Jersey City accent despite living in Kentucky for a dozen years, roused more than 10 labor activists in mid-August to leaflet the Trane air-conditioning plant as its early shift let out at 6:30 a.m.

Handing out green fliers with the headline "Who cares more about the health of working families?" with a side-by-side comparison of Baesler and Fletcher's records, representatives from the carpenters and pipefitters unions emphasized how Fletcher opposed allowing patients to sue managed-health care companies as well as a Democratic plan to provide prescription drug coverage as part of Medicare. A few yards away, Baesler himself handed out his trademark sunflower seeds and shook hands with workers.

"In the past, we did a lot of efforts to tell people how to vote," Londrigan said. "Now we're trying to get them exposed to issues so they can make their own minds up."

Margaret Sweat, a welder with 21 years' experience at Trane, took a flier and said she relied on her union to inform her since she tended to distrust the candidates. "They'll tell you one thing and do the next in some cases," Sweat said. "I want to hear about the issues."

By week's end, the unions covered all three shifts at Trane, and starting in September they plan to distribute 100,000 leaflets--printed and paid for by the national AFL-CIO--on a weekly basis.

Kentucky union members are equally important as foot soldiers in the state Democratic Party's painstaking voter identification project, walking the streets of Lexington and Louisville to reach 70,000 voters outside the party's database. Under the program, volunteers walk each weeknight in designated precincts, gauging voter sentiment in every household so Democrats can decide whom to contact again by mail, phone and in person in their effort to bring more people to the polls.

"Volunteers have shown up in droves," said Kentucky Democratic Party political director John Davis. "A Republican CEO is not going to walk door to door. A union machinist is. That's what unions bring to this process."

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers organizer Darrell Lawson is a veteran of door-knocking, careful to visit homes between 5:30 and 7 p.m. "You give them a chance to come home, sit down, and have a drink," he offered. "It's tough going door to door. But that's what wins elections for you, it really does. We know that."

Labor is on the airwaves here and in several other districts, attacking GOP incumbents for opposing prescription drug benefits and a patients' bill of rights. The spots, which feature a pharmacist confiding that watching seniors "walk away without the medication takes a little bit out of me every day" and a son describing his mother's battle against her HMO, have prompted Fletcher to spend what he estimates is "several hundred thousand dollars" defending his record.

The ads are having some impact: More than a dozen seniors interviewed recently at the Franklin County Senior Center said they had seen the commercials, and 78-year-old Hallie Watkins said while "sometimes people get tired of hearing them," she's become increasingly concerned about the need for prescription drug coverage.

Fletcher, who noted he recently won the endorsement of a local firefighters' union, said the emphasis labor has put on his race does not reflect how his constituents feel about him. "The fact is that union bosses don't always represent the interests or view of their workers," he said.

Fletcher quipped at a recent meeting with local independent electrical contractors that he would "welcome any outside help" from interested groups. Business groups have already sponsored a newspaper ad on his behalf, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has committed at least $100,000 to Fletcher's race and regularly sends its missionaries to mobilize business owners in the district, held an Atlanta fundraiser for him and plans to spend more on television and phone banks.

"When a guy goes and takes tough positions, you've got to support him," said the chamber's political director Bill Miller, noting that Fletcher supported trade with China and opposed the patients' bill of rights. "He was there for us when we needed him."

For Baesler, who has been targeted in past races by the National Rifle Association and abortion opponents, receiving support from labor is a welcome change. The AFL-CIO health care ads have helped frame the issues without him having "to spend a nickel," Baesler said, and union members are consistently volunteering to put up signs or knock on doors. "This is the first time I've run with this type of support from a third party before," he said. "I've been on the other side. It's nice to have balance this time."

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

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