Volunteer to support pro-worker champions

Labor Neighbor walks begin this Saturday, phone fun banks start next week

By CHERIKA CARTER

(July 7, 2022) — It’s that time again — time to step up and do what we do best: volunteer to help champions of working people get elected to public office.

Labor Neighbor, the Washington State Labor Council’s grassroots member-to-member political action program, engages union members to inform fellow union members and their families about the candidates who have earned labor’s endorsement — and why they earned it. Union volunteers walk the neighborhoods to distribute leaflets about the candidates to other union households. They also make phone calls to remind fellow members to fill out those Primary Election ballots, which will be mailed out in mid-July, and to support labor-endorsed candidates.

UNION VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED for our Primary Election schedule of Saturday neighborhood walks, which begin July 9 in Mount Vernon and Lakewood, and continue July 16 in Gig Harbor and Everett. Plus, virtual phone fun banking (from the comfort of your home) will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, July 13, 20 and 27. Even if you live outside the targeted districts, you can help in that area and/or phone banks. Click here to see the July schedule and fill out the Labor Neighbor volunteer form.

This year in both Olympia and Washington, D.C., our lawmakers made job-creating infrastructure investments, boosted apprenticeship, and bolstered pensions. But clearly there is much more to be done.

The economy is broken and everyday costs are too high for working families. The supply chain crisis has exposed how precarious and fragile our economy has become after decades of outsourcing and offshoring U.S. jobs. We need to elect candidates who are committed to boosting American manufacturing and bringing those jobs back home. And we need to elect candidates who support the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act that empowers workers to join together in unions to raise wages and improve living standards.

At the state level, the WSLC’s 2022 Legislative Report is full of stories about the importance of electing pro-worker lawmakers. But there is more to be done in Olympia, too. Priorities like hospital safe staffing are just a few votes from becoming reality.

That’s why the 2022 elections will be critical in determining whether we keep making progress building worker power or if we suffer setbacks. We need to work as hard as ever to ensure that pro-worker candidates get elected to public office.

In our state, we are fortunate to have many champions who are incumbents and need our support for re-election. But there are also an unusually high number of open state legislative seats in 2022 due to retirements.

That makes Washington’s Aug. 2 Primary Election of particular importance. In the last mid-term primary, just 40 percent of registered voters returned their ballots. We need to make sure our members understand what’s at stake and to vote in this election.

So please fill out the Labor Neighbor volunteer form and get involved. Remember, this is about more than sacrificing a few evenings on the phones or a few Saturdays on neighborhood walks. This is about protecting our jobs, our families, and our quality of life.

Cherika Carter is Political and Strategic Campaigns Director for the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. She can be reached at ccarter@wslc.org.