AFT members are out in force in this mid-term election—with PSRPs playing central roles, as always—to make sure that candidates who support the AFT’s priority issues come out on top. In addition to important local races, that includes work on everything from ballot initiatives and targeted U.S. House races to high-profile contests for U.S. Senate and governor posts. The war in Iraq is one obvious issue influencing the tone of many political races this year. On that topic, AFT convention delegates last summer passed a resolution calling for a “rapid and timely” end to the war. For many voters, however, their own economic security is the paramount issue, and the trends on a range of issues—decent wages, affordable healthcare, high-quality public education and retirement security—are all headed in the wrong direction.

“Our members are looking for candidates who are willing to make changes and support the causes we believe in,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy.

From Alaska to New York, PSRP activists will be working until the polls close to elect those candidates. In some cases, that means veteran PSRP leaders and their members in places like Detroit, where the AFT’s office employees local is a well-established political force. “If you don’t think politics has anything to do with our lives and our livelihoods, you better think again,” says Ruby Newbold, president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Personnel and an AFT vice president. “Politics is where they make all the changes that affect us.” Education employees in Michigan learned that the hard way a few years ago, when the state Legislature took away unions’ power to bargain over many issues that affect their working conditions. The highest priority race in Michigan is to re-elect Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is running against multimillionaire and voucher proponent Dick DeVos.

Then there are newcomers to political action, like president Kim Yoder and other members of the Chippewa Valley Technical College Staff and Clerical Federation in Wisconsin. Yoder reports that activists from her local have done canvassing, literature drops, phone banking and sign painting, and they also held a meet-and-greet for endorsed candidates, including Gov. Jim Doyle. “This is the first time I’ve taken action and gotten involved with campaigns, and it is quite exciting,” she says. Doyle is locked in a close race with Republican challenger Mark Green.

Earlier in the year, it looked like many state ballots would include initiatives on the so-called 65 percent solution, which we have written about in previous issues of Reporter. But as the idea of imposing an arbitrary figure on noninstructional spending in schools lost momentum, it ended up on the ballot only in Colorado. AFT PSRPs in the state are leading the grass-roots effort against the proposal, known as Amendment 39.

“It’s really up to the classified employees (PSRPs) to get the message out,” says Wayne Scott of the Colorado Classified School Employees Association. “We’re the leading voice on that.” Scott adds the union has a good chance to help Bill Ritter regain the governor’s seat for the Democrats.

One of the most closely watched U.S. House races is in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, where AFT affiliates in the Albuquerque are working hard to unseat Republican incumbent Heather Wilson in favor of Patricia Madrid. “We’re eating, breathing and sleeping” Madrid, comments Kathy Chavez, an AFT vice president who heads the Albuquerque Educational Assistants Association.

Chavez and other AFT leaders have met with Madrid to discuss education policy with her and have been pleased with her comments on education during the campaign, Chavez says. In addition to doing labor walks on Saturdays and holding school meetings and fundraisers, the Albuquerque education assistants have staffed the Labor 2006 phone banks every Wednesday. In Albuquerque, as with most of the highest profile races around the country, AFT activists have been working as part of the AFL-CIO’s broader strategy to mobilize union members and their families.

That is certainly the case in Maryland, where labor-endorsed candidates are trying to hang on to an open U.S. Senate seat and also help Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley defeat incumbent Republican governor Robert Ehrlich. “We believe we’re going to be able to turn things around in Maryland, but they are going to be close races,” says AFT vice president Lorretta Johnson, who heads AFT Maryland and the Baltimore Teachers Union paraprofessional chapter.

She points out that with 400,000 union members in her state, “if they and their families get out and vote, we should be able to elect any candidate
we endorse.”

Take that message and spread it to all 50 states, and this could be an election to remember.