Public Employee Press

Battleground states
DC 37 in action
Swing state volunteers

DC 37 activists traveled to battleground states to be a part of organized labor’s most massive voter turnout campaign in history.

Visiting Iowa, Pennsylvania and Florida, scores of union volunteers registered voters, discussed election issues on home visits, made thousands of phone calls, distributed campaign literature, and pollwatched to prevent voter suppression.

“People recognized how high the stakes were,” said Wanda Williams, director of the DC 37 Political Action and Legislation Dept.

Members and staffers volunteered for activities and campaigns organized by DC 37, the New York City Central Labor Council, the AFL-CIO and DC 37’s parent union, AFSCME. Local 1549 2nd Vice President Ralph Pallidino, for instance, spent weekends campaigning in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Members and retirees made nearly 5,000 calls to AFSCME workers in Florida.

Activists also worked with such independent groups as Americans Working Together (ACT), which ran a multi-million dollar national get-out-the-vote effort. Local 154 member Mark Heron traveled to Ohio to work with ACT during the pre-election weekend. Steven Weiner, a Local 2627 Executive Board member, polled voters in Philadelphia as a volunteer with Move.On PAC.

Jocelyn Smith, a lawyer from DC 37’s legal services plan, took a couple of weeks off to co-coordinate the city’s ACT group, arranging, among other things, for election phone banks at DC 37 and other municipal unions.

On Election Day, Sr. Community Liaison Robert Taylor of Local 372 woke up early to board a bus for the suburbs of Philadelphia. “We went home-to-home, talked to residents to make sure they got out to vote and left off literature,” he said.

“People really wanted to help in the swing states,” said Marilyn Charles of the DC 37 Political Action Dept., who coordinated the bus trips.

Around the country, some 15,000 AFSCME members devoted 1.7 million hours to support John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 16 battleground states.

Blue Collar Division Director José Sierra spent several weeks working on an AFSCME-supported Latino outreach program in Reading, Penn. He recruited about 15 local workers to help register Latino voters in the area.

“We educated people about the political processand economic issues, identified potential voters, registered them and made sure they got to the polls,” Mr. Sierra said about the non-partisan program.

Republican voter harassment
Leonard Polletta, a lawyer from the DC 37 Legal Dept., worked with a group of AFSCME attorneys in Miami-Dade County, Fla. AFSCME was particularly concerned about making its presence felt in Florida because of the electoral irregularities there in 2000. Mr. Polletta said one of his highlights was shooing away a Republican attorney who was harassing voters at a polling place.

Local 2627 President Ed Hysyk worked in Dubuque, Iowa, with this reporter, who helped coordinate the local AFSCME get-out-the vote effort with Joe Henry, president of AFSCME Local 2843, which represents nursing home workers.

“Unfortunately, we did not manage to put Iowa over the top,” Mr. Hysyk said. “But we came damn close. We were part of an army of union activists that played an important role in delivering the Dubuque area to Kerry, and we enjoyed helping the state’s AFSCME council build up its political action machine, which succeeded in sending a member to the state legislature.”

— Gregory N. Heires