Text 1195, 74 rader
Skriven 2004-08-10 22:05:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Unions
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Sheep.....

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128620,00.html

Labor Copes With Kerry  
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
 

CHICAGO — With only a few months to go until the November election, 
organized labor is fine-tuning its voter mobilization efforts (search) 
in 16 states it thinks are crucial to the presidential race. 

No detail is too small, like setting goals for door knocking and 
mailings and quotas for the number of staff and volunteers working 
against President Bush (search).

Labor leaders meeting here this week want to wring out every vote 
possible that could turn the election in favor of John Kerry (search). 
Six in 10 union households supported Democrat Al Gore over Bush in 2000, 
and union leaders are working hard to get Kerry elected depite the fact 
that all but two unions rebuffed him and endorsed other Democrats in the 
primaries.

"This is the very best mobilization program ever put together by the 
federation," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation 
of State, County and Municipal Employees (search). "But there's still 
work to be done. That's obvious."

The AFL-CIO alone is spending $44 million to mobilize union households. 
AFSCME, with 1.5 million members, has budgeted $48 million, said 
McEntee, who has been assigned to oversee labor operations in Ohio and 
Pennsylvania. The 1.6 million-member Service Employees International 
Union (search) has allocated $65 million to help elect Kerry.


Bush won Ohio in 2000, 51 percent to 47 percent. But if labor can boost 
its vote by 2 percentage points in Ohio, Bush has little chance of 
winning the state, McEntee said.

No Republican has been elected president without winning Ohio.

Labor, for the first time, is attempting to make such voter turnout 
gains with very specific goals -- unions must meet numbers set for 
staff, volunteers, house and work visits, doors knocked and leaflets 
handed out. Progress is monitored carefully.

SEIU's goals include 50,000 members to volunteer more than a million 
hours, making 7 million phone calls and knocking on 10 million doors, 
said Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary-treasurer. Six million fliers will be 
distributed at members' work sites. The union has tapped 2,004 members 
in so-called safe Democratic states, such as California, Connecticut and 
New York to work full-time in battleground states.

"People are working hard and they believe they are taking back their 
country," Burger said.

Bush meanwhile is taking a swipe at labor on Thursday with a visit to a 
union training center in Las Vegas. The United Brotherhood of 
Carpenters, which left the AFL-CIO in 2001, owns the facility and is 
friendly with the Bush administration, hosting several Labor Day events 
with the president.

The union also won crucial backing from the Labor Department (search) in 
a complaint that the union usurped power from its locals when it 
restructured. The union so far has remained neutral in the election, 
refusing to follow the rest of labor with a Kerry endorsement, and not 
officially backing Bush either.



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