USW Political Activists Get Out the Vote in Kentucky

On a crisp autumn morning in Kentucky, three USW members – a paper worker from District 8, a tire worker from District 9 and a steelworker from District 10 – piled into a PT Cruiser and hit the road with a common goal: To encourage enough voters to go to the polls to make a difference this Election Day.

“Voter turnout is going to be the difference maker in this election,” said Jeff Vance of Local 1155L at the Bridgestone plant in Warren County, Tennessee. Vance has been canvassing Kentucky voters since Sept. 2.

The three activists, part of a larger USW team of 15 in the state, began a 10-hour day on Oct. 21 with the latest technology in hand: Small tablet computers that provided ready access to a wealth of information, from voter addresses, maps and phone numbers to each voter’s party affiliation, age and recent turnout history. The tablets have taken the place of the ubiquitous clipboards and checklists that political block-walkers have carried for years.

The new touch-screen technology allows volunteers to knock on more doors and reach more voters, cutting the time activists once spent organizing packets, planning routes and completing paperwork, said Carolyn Stokes of West Point, Va., a member of USW Local 467.

“It’s wonderful,” Stokes said of the new system, which also provides real-time data to campaign coordinators on the progress volunteers are making.

As a result, the three-person team of Vance, Stokes and Keli Vereb of Lincoln, Pa., a member of Local 1408, was able to hit 390 doors in one day. Overall, USW volunteers in Kentucky have knocked on about 50,000 doors in less than two months. In a state where only 1.4 million voters turned out in the last midterm election, door-to-door outreach can be the difference.

Besides being able to reach more voters in less time, USW volunteers now are speaking to a wider cross-section of voters and delivering a more concise message than in past years. Now, instead of visiting only union members and stumping on behalf of specific candidates, volunteers are visiting all labor-minded voters, especially those in danger of staying home, with a simple plea: Get to the polls on Nov. 4.

As a result, “the conversations on the doors seem to be a little easier,” Stokes said. “They let their guard down.”

Chris Chapman, of Local 2227 at U.S. Steel’s Irvin Works outside of Pittsburgh, said the voters he’s met in the Bluegrass State are angry with both parties for the gridlock in Washington and are hungry for action to improve education, grow the economy and create jobs.

Because labor-friendly voters have a history of staying home in non-presidential election years, USW outreach is that much more important, Stokes said.

In a final push for turnout, International President Leo W. Gerard will host a get-out-the-vote rally in Louisville on Oct. 28.

In Kentucky, labor activists and their allies are hoping to keep anti-union conservatives from taking over the state legislature and introducing right-to-work (for less) bills. In addition, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, seeking a sixth term, is locked in a virtual tie with his Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes. That high-profile race has attracted national attention, and McConnell’s camp has received a flood of cash from anti-union groups backed by the arch-conservative billionaire Koch brothers.

The USW’s Vance, however, was confident that the labor movement’s political activism would make the difference on Election Day.

“All that money doesn’t matter as much when you have people on the ground seven days a week,” Vance said.