October 19, 2020

It’s common for political activists in the United States to say that every presidential election is “the most important one ever.” This year, as UUP President Fred Kowal told hundreds of members Oct. 17, that saying is really true.

“This year is different,” Kowal told the members, as they embarked on a day of get-out-the-vote training and phone banking to reach Democratic voters in swing states. “If we don’t vote this year, we’re betraying our ancestors, we’re betraying everyone who fought for this country.

‘We need to vote, and we need to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, because the reality is, yes, our country is at stake.”

The training and phone-banking were the second part of a two-day program organized by UUP to highlight the power of coalition-building and political action. The workshops featured nationally known labor leaders and activists for political action and social justice, including AFT President Randy Weingarten; the Rev. Terrence Melvin, secretary-treasurer of the New York State AFL-CIO: Rob Diamond, the New York state director of the Biden-Harris campaign; and John Ost, the AFT national political director.

Members who did not participate in the training but who wish to help get out the vote for the Biden-Harris campaign and other Democratic candidates in swing states can check out UUP’s Vote 2020 page HERE for ways they can get involved. Click HERE to go directly to the AFT-UUP page on phone banking, which offers additional training sessions.

Work must continue

Their messages combined optimism with caution, and a reminder that the work of politically progressive must continue past the Nov. 3 Election Day. Even if Biden wins, there will be work aplenty to undo the damage of four years of a Trump presidency, and to carry forward their movement’s message of equality and racial and economic justice.

“It has to be all of UUP, all of UUP’s members, to change where we are,” Melvin told participants in an impassioned speech. “This is more than just one day.”

Weingarten thanked members for sending nearly 2,500 letters to Congress as part of UUP’s effort to push for passage of the HEROES Act in the Senate. The HEROES Act bill passed the House in the spring but has languished in the Senate even as hard-hit states have struggled to recover financially from the crash caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Weingarten also urged members to channel that same activism into the final days of the campaign.

“If you say this is the most consequential election of your lifetime, you have to figure out how to put that into action,” she said.

Members spent the two days of workshops and training doing just that. The Oct. 16 part of the program focused on coalition-building, and not just to empower UUP, but to give back to coalition partners in a way that would benefit a more diverse range of people, as Kowal described the effort.

Featured speakers represented statewide organizations with which UUP has partnered, worked and supported: Rev. Emily McNeill, executive director of the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State; Blue Carreker, campaigns manager of Citizen Action of New York; and Stephan Edel, coalition coordinator of NY Renews, a group of more than 200 environmental and labor organizations, of which UUP is a founding member.

Chapters forge alliances

UUP members from five chapters also spoke about their chapters’ involvement with other groups, unions or local efforts whose work coincides with UUP’s labor message of activism and social justice.

They included Cortland member Bekkie Bryan and Kim Cameron of Indivisible Cortland County, which recently participated in a postcard campaign to voters; Morrisville member Zachary Bellinger and Martha Viglietta of Citizens Climate Lobby; Empire State College Chapter President Pamela Malone and Sandie Carner-Shafran of NYSUT; Upstate Medical University Chapter President Richard Veenstra, who spoke about the chapter’s work with the Greater Syracuse Labor Council Coalition; and Stony Brook HSC Chapter President Carolyn Kube, who described the chapter’s work with other unions at Stony Brook to highlight the need for hazard pay for essential hospital employees who worked during the worst of the pandemic in the spring, often at great risk.

Reaching voters by phone

The program ended with training in phone-banking by Maeve Klein, the AFT’s associate director for legislation and political motivation, who told participants that “UUP is ahead of the game already,” because of its previous push to get members involved in phone-banking. Although voting is already underway through early voting or mail-in ballots in many states, Klein said she could not stress strongly enough how much it matters to call people right up to the last day of the campaign.

After Klein’s session, members got right to work, as they tried out their phone skills in calls to voters, and then had a debriefing for questions and trouble-shooting.

Kowal closed the two-day program with an impassioned thanks to members for all that they have done during this election season.

“It’s inspiring,” he said. “I feel confident, I feel inspired, and I feel hopeful.”