{"id":512,"date":"2016-03-25T17:40:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T17:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2016\/03\/25\/labor-for-bernie-activists-take-the-political-revolution-into-their-unions-rand-wilson-and-dan-dimaggio-2016\/"},"modified":"2016-03-25T17:40:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T17:40:36","slug":"labor-for-bernie-activists-take-the-political-revolution-into-their-unions-rand-wilson-and-dan-dimaggio-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2016\/03\/25\/labor-for-bernie-activists-take-the-political-revolution-into-their-unions-rand-wilson-and-dan-dimaggio-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor for Bernie Activists Take the Political Revolution into Their Unions – Rand Wilson and Dan DiMaggio (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nLabor for Bernie Activists Take the Political Revolution into Their Unions
\n<\/strong>.<\/em>
\nby Rand Wilson and Dan DiMaggio
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em>
\nLast June a small group of volunteers kicked off a network called \u201cLabor for Bernie.\u201d Their goal was to build support inside their unions for Senator Bernie Sanders\u2019 presidential campaign.
\nSince then, Sanders has come a long way\u2014racking up primary wins in nine states, including a major upset in Michigan. The all-volunteer Labor for Bernie operation has come a long way too, growing to include tens of thousands of union members.
\nSo far they\u2019ve helped Sanders win the endorsements of more than 80 local unions and four national or international unions, including the Postal Workers (APWU), Communications Workers (CWA), and National Nurses United.
\nCWA made its endorsement after polling its members online\u2014and after Sanders rallied with Verizon workers who are battling for a contract. The candidate is a longtime advocate for postal services, which impressed the Postal Workers. He\u2019s also a lifelong proponent of single-payer health care, NNU\u2019s signature issue. Nurses have crisscrossed the country on their union\u2019s \u201cBernie Bus,\u201d talking to voters.
\nThe latest big union to endorse Sanders was the Amalgamated Transit Union. In a March 14 press release, President Larry Hanley cited the senator\u2019s \u201clongstanding fidelity to the issues that are so important to working people.\u201d
\nOne of Labor for Bernie\u2019s top achievements has been to block an AFL-CIO endorsement, once presumed to be in the bag for Hillary Clinton. President Richard Trumka announced in February that there would be no endorsement at the federation\u2019s winter executive council meeting.
\nLabor for Bernie had submitted 5,000 signatures last summer urging the executive council not to make an early endorsement. While many international unions have endorsed Clinton since then, Labor for Bernie has helped publicize opposition in the ranks and push local endorsements for Sanders.
\nThe lack of a primary endorsement \u201cmeans that union members and other working Americans are not going to be facing a coordinated campaign from the AFL-CIO for the other candidate,\u201d said former CWA President Larry Cohen, who has campaigned for Sanders across the country. \u201cIt\u2019s a green light for people to do what moves them, and that\u2019s what democracy looks like.\u201d
\nLOCAL ENDORSEMENTS
\nLabor for Bernie has been a central clearinghouse for members campaigning for their local unions to endorse Sanders. Its website offers a model endorsement resolution, workplace leaflet, and sign-up sheets for supporters. It\u2019s also using social media to promote the Sanders campaign with union members, garnering 25,000 \u201clikes.\u201d
\nAriana Eakle, a third-year apprentice with Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 124 in Kansas City, tailored a version of the resolution for her local. She estimates she\u2019s had members of 15 IBEW locals around the country contact her to get a copy.
\nAfter hundreds of IBEW members signed a Labor for Bernie petition last year, new President Lonnie Stephenson announced the International would not make an early endorsement. More than 30 IBEW locals have since endorsed Bernie, thanks to grassroots organizing by members like Eakle.
\nIn every case, said Local 153 member Carl Shaffer, \u201cit\u2019s been a part of a democratic process. None of these endorsements represent a top-down action by a couple of leaders on their own.\u201d
\nShaffer has helped coordinate the campaign within the IBEW. He said in past elections it was unusual for locals to endorse. \u201cYou didn\u2019t dare do anything like endorsing on your own,\u201d he said. \u201cThere would have been a phone call, there would have been an international rep coming to see you, there would have been a lot of pressure to rescind.\u201d
\nBUCKING THE INTERNATIONAL
\nSome Sanders supporters whose national unions endorsed Clinton have taken to social media and the press to challenge top-down, undemocratic decisions.
\nThe Food and Commercial Workers came out for Clinton in January. But a month later, Northern California UFCW Local 5, whose 28,000 members work in grocery and food processing, endorsed Sanders.
\nThe executive board vote was 30 to 2, according to Mike Henneberry, the local\u2019s director of communications and politics. He said the local hasn\u2019t gotten any pushback from the International. \u201cFor us, it was not a very difficult decision,\u201d he said. \u201cCompare an individual who\u2019s been supporting workers since he was mayor of Burlington with someone who\u2019s been on the board of Walmart.\u201d
\nSome Service Employees members too have struggled to reconcile their union\u2019s strong support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage with their International\u2019s endorsement of Clinton, who only backs $12.
\nSEIU Local 1984, New Hampshire\u2019s largest public sector union, bucked the International and came out for Sanders in November.
\n\u201cI never thought I would see involvement like there was when Obama ran,\u201d said Vice President Ken Roos, who works as a Medicaid administrator for the state. \u201cBut people were stopping me in the hall at work, or even in the street\u2014they would say, \u2018Bernie\u2019s the man, we gotta go for Bernie.\u201d
\nLUNCH BREAK TALKS
\nThe campaign has collected tens of thousands of email addresses and other contact info for union members who pledge to support Sanders. A recently created workplace flyer includes a tearoff pledge card. Info from the cards is entered into a database so that supporters can be reminded to go out and vote.
\nLocal \u201cLabor for Bernie\u201d groups have sprung up in dozens of states and cities, bringing together members of various unions to strategize about how to expand support for Sanders in their local labor movements.
\nIn Seattle, hundreds of union members\u2014including Machinists, teachers, and public employees\u2014turned out to a February kickoff where they heard reports from Cohen and local union leaders about the campaign.
\nMetro Detroit Labor for Bernie formed a speakers bureau that sends members to local union meetings to talk about the campaign.
\n\u201cWe understood that, in order to have conversations with people, we had to talk about more than Bernie,\u201d said Asar Amen-Ra, a member of Auto Workers Local 1248 who got involved with the group last fall. \u201cWe had to talk about the principles he represented\u2014a living wage, universal education, universal health care.\u201d
\nAmen-Ra\u2019s local represents workers at Chrysler\u2019s Mopar facility in Centerline, Michigan. He and his co-workers built on the organizing they had done for a \u201cno\u201d vote on the recent Chrysler contract. A core group of six original organizers grew to 20.
\n\u201cWe just said, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going to have a conversation at lunchtime about politics, about this presidential campaign,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we would get anywhere from two to 10 people at a time.\u201d
\nThere\u2019s nothing wrong with traditional canvassing and phonebanking, Amen-Ra argues, but unions should go further. He\u2019s taking the time to have detailed one-on-one conversations with co-workers about politics \u201cbecause we want to organize beyond these elections,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe want to build a political transformation, and that means building a community\u2014and you can have that community in the workplace.\u201d
\nAnother place to find community is where you live. Kevin Mack, who\u2019s active in IBEW Local 58\u2019s Minority Caucus, helped get a dozen members from his local to knock on doors in their own Detroit neighborhoods.
\n\u201cWhen you stick at home, people can relate to you,\u201d he said. \u201cThey see you at the grocery store, or with your kids. You can say, \u2018Hey, I live right down the street. That\u2019s my mom\u2019s house over there.\u2019\u201d
\nMack is 28. Pundits are largely crediting young voters\u2019 high turnout and pro-Bernie enthusiasm for the surprise win in Michigan. Sanders won 81 percent of the 18-to-29 vote there.
\nWHAT\u2019S NEXT?
\nLabor for Bernie\u2019s focus now is on the Democratic primaries. The network is trying to mobilize support among union members in the remaining primary states. Supporters in states that already voted are phonebanking to get out the vote.
\nMeanwhile, Labor for Bernie organizers are also trying to chart their next steps. This is the first time in decades that a national movement of this scale has come together around a candidate with an unapologetic allegiance to working class concerns and aspirations.
\nIt\u2019s evident that there\u2019s broad support in unions for Bernie\u2019s platform\u2014and that many members, fed up with their unions\u2019 legacy of \u201cblank check\u201d support for corporate Democrats, want a more inclusive, democratic process for deciding endorsements.
\nCan the unions backing Bernie agree on an ongoing strategy to build working-class political power? Once the presidential nomination is wrapped up, will they opt to carry this \u201cpolitical revolution\u201d into contests for elected office in thousands of municipal and state-level races?
\nThose questions will be on activists\u2019 minds at a national meeting of Labor for Bernie activists, part of the upcoming Labor Notes Conference.
\n\u201cOur endorsement for Sanders is the best that we\u2019ve ever made,\u201d said Myles Calvey, business manager of IBEW Local 2222 in Boston, \u201cand most certainly the most enthusiastic one for our membership.\u201d
\nRand Wilson is a staff member at SEIU Local 888 in Boston and a volunteer with Labor for Bernie 2016, a volunteer effort that\u2019s neither funded nor directed by the Sanders campaign. Dan DiMaggio is the assistant editor of Labor Notes. Learn more at laborforbernie.org.
\n<\/em>
\nA version of this article appeared in Labor Notes <\/a>#445 (April 2016)
\nLabor Notes is a media and organizing project that has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement since 1979.
\n..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}