Labor is getting behind the Obama for America campaign like never before.
Daily blogs at the AFL-CIO's site that expose McCain's plan to continue George W. Bush's policies on outsourcing jobs, an unending occupation of Iraq, privatizing Social Security, taxing health care benefits, and more oil drilling combine with the McCain Revealed campaign and the Meet Barack Obama to help educate union members and their families on the issues.
Change to Win's "The American Dream Candidate: Barack Obama" campaign is playing a similar positive role in bringing the issues before its members and working families generally.
And as a recent effort by the Laborers' union (LIUNA), an affiliate of Change to Win, shows, labor's drive to defeat John McCain has begun in earnest, effectively using both traditional means and new information technologies.
According to a recent press statement by the Laborers' union, three sessions of the union's Make a Call to Build America member mobilization have resulted in reaching 50,000 LIUNA members – more than 10 percent of the union's total membership – about the election and the need to see an Obama victory.
According to the statement, approximately one-fourth of those reached are newly registered voters.
“A lot has been said about Senator Obama’s need to connect with working class voters,” LIUNA General President Terence M. O’Sullivan said in the statement. “The willingness of members to become activists for Senator Obama is a strong demonstration that they are inspired by his message of hope and change in Washington, his commitment to good jobs, universal healthcare, retirement security and laws that make it easier for workers to express their voice on the job site."
"Our members clearly want a President who understands the importance of building America," he added. “LIUNA members go to work every day building America and over the last eight years they have gotten a raw deal."
Polls of LIUNA members conducted earlier this year, the union said, show that economic issues are the top concern of working men and women heading into November’s elections. LIUNA endorsed Barack Obama for president in June, calling him a "build America candidate" committed to improving the lives of working people.
The union believes electing Obama is the key to ending the policies of the Bush administration which oversaw huge cuts in federal funding for the country's infrastructure. Bush's policy, which McCain has adopted, aided in such disasters as the failure of the levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, and other serious infrastructure problems across the country.
New investments in rebuilding the country's roads, bridges, transportation systems, and other projects, which Obama has called for and McCain has refused to endorse, will create jobs to fend off grinding economic hardships and the swelling ranks of the unemployed.
Unemployment grew for the seventh straight month in July. And as part of his "straight talk" campaign, John McCain has openly given up on fighting to keep jobs in the country or to create new ones.
The LIUNA's Make a Call to Build America and Take a Walk to Build America efforts are part of its “Build America so America Works” campaign with a long-term goal to win new government policies that will rebuild highways, bridges, dams, schoolhouses and energy systems as part of a national priority. According to the union, this includes electing "build America candidates" like Obama.
In addition to mobilizing members by telephone and house visits, the campaign will use targeted media ads. Its online component includes a new Web site and petition with the goal of gathering 1 million signatures to tell Congress and the next president to rebuild America and create new jobs. Union members can also sign up to get text messages from the union about upcoming events and news.
