From today’s NPR News:
As November 5 draws closer, labor unions are blanketing swing states with tens of thousands of canvassers, deploying far more resources than in past elections in a bid to get the labor-friendly ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz elected.
Some of the outreach is directly targeting union workers, active and retired, who along with their household members make up an estimated one in five voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, according to the AFL-CIO.
The American Federation of Teachers has sent hundreds of its members from New York to Pennsylvania and from Illinois to Wisconsin to canvass “labor doors.” The United Auto Workers has similarly deployed union members to fellow members’ homes and work sites, in addition to an aggressive phone, text and mail campaign.
“When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake and which candidate will have their backs, we’re able to break through,” said UAW president Shawn Fain in a statement.
n Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs, the hospitality union UNITE HERE is going beyond union members, focusing primarily on Black and Latino voters in working-class communities, whom the union has identified as least likely to vote. The union says it’s deploying some 2,000 canvassers across ten states in 2024, a five-fold increase from 2016.
“Some Latinos know nothing about Kamala,” says Wernel Martinez, a hotel worker from Orlando who was hired by UNITE HERE to knock on doors in Pennsylvania.
Read the complete story here.