Public Employee Press

Political Action 2009
“Yes We Did!”

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Celebrating the historic election of Barack Obama with a resounding “Yes We Did!” the DC 37 Political Action and Legislation Dept. honored 79 volunteers Dec. 5 at its annual holiday party.

“This time we did it and we did it big! The Green Machine helped make President-elect Obama’s landslide victory possible,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “We are expecting big things from our new president and from our friends in Albany, like Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver.”

With a backdrop of the White House at center stage, hundreds of union activists joined Roberts, Political Action Chair Lenny Allen, who is also president of Local 2021, and Political Director Wanda Williams to celebrate taking back the White House for working families. The union leaders thanked volunteers — DC 37 staff, members and retirees — who spent countless hours making calls from phone banks, knocking on doors, registering voters at worksites and protecting voters’ rights as part of AFSCME’s Get Out the Vote campaign. Democrats won control of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives as well as the White House.

Enthusiasm for Obama moved hundreds from DC 37 to join AFSCME’s grassroots campaign to mobilize 40,000 volunteers and reclaim the White House. Last fall, a dozen lawyers from the union’s Municipal Employees Legal Services program and numerous staff, using their own leave time, and member volunteers traveled to the battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada to register new voters and campaign for Obama in the final days before the general election.

The DC 37 Political Action and Legislation Dept. acknowledged their contributions and honored its own Eren Isbilir, who manages the union phone banks, as Employee of the Year.

PAL also gave Retiree Sarah Francis the DC 37 Community Service Award for her 50 years as a union activist and volunteer.

“These are tough times, but this election has us proud, excited and hopeful about the future,” Roberts told the volunteers. “We could not have done it without you.”