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ATU Action Weekly Update - 8/21/06
ATU Election Activities in Full Force ATU Locals across the country are stepping up to the plate - recruiting activists for labor-to-labor walks and phone banks, urging their members to vote, and educating their members about how candidates stand on issues important to working families - all in an effort to elect transit and labor-friendly candidates on November 7th. Below are just some of the things that ATU locals in key battleground states are doing. Last weekend, ATU Local 1001 in Denver, Colorado, hosted a Labor-to-Labor walk in support of labor-endorsed federal, state and local candidates. ATU members and other union volunteers knocked on the doors of union members and encouraged them and their families to educate themselves about the candidates and to vote on election day. The local has released a full-time staffer, Brother Holman Carter, to work with the AFL-CIO throughout the election to ensure that labor delivers the necessary votes for their candidates on November 7th. Elmer Wilson, President/Business Agent of ATU Local 1745 in Kankakee, Illinois is urging his members to register to vote and to support labor endorsed-candidates in his area, including State Senator Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson (D) and State Representatives Lisa Dugan (D) and Coreen Gordon (D). Volunteers from ATU Local 689 in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area once again hit the streets this past weekend in support of Maryland House of Delegates candidate Shirley Thompson. Volunteers asked union members and their families which issues were most important to them in the upcoming election. "Crime and education are the top issues among voters at the doors," reported ATU member Roland Jeter of ATU Local 689. In a letter to the members of ATU Local 1593 in Tampa, Florida, President/Business Agent Mike McCoy urged members to take advantage of early voting opportunities in the Florida primary. Early voting for the September 5th primary began last week. "With our shifts so irregular, early voting is almost custom made for us," said Brother McCoy in his letter. The letter further stressed how locally-elected officials can have a huge impact on ATU Local 1593 members working for the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART). "[W]here we have a real impact is at the county level where the Hillsborough County Commissioners appoint 1/3 of the HART Board of Directors," he stated. What are you and your ATU Local doing to help elect transit and labor-friendly candidates? Let us know by emailing atuaction@atu.org.
ATU Local Officers Go Bald in the Name of COPE The Local Executive Board Officers of ATU Local 757 in Portland, Oregon are sporting newly bald heads and chins after pledging to shave their noggins in an effort to raise funds for the ATU-COPE program and Labor Community Services, a non-profit organization. The fundraising drive and subsequent head shaving took place at the local's annual picnic on August 13th. After increasing their annual COPE contributions by 50% and raising more than $2000 for the Labor Community Services, the officers took the stage and one-by-one got their head shaved. The main event was when Executive Board Officer Kevin Kinoshita allowed President/Business Agent Jon Hunt to cut off his trademark ponytail and shave his beard and mustache. Look for pictures in the next issue of the In Transit.
Ten years ago yesterday, August 20, 1996, the last minimum wage increase was signed into law. For the past ten years, millions of hard-working men and women got up every day to go to work for $5.15 an hour - $5.15 an hour then, $5.15 an hour now, and $5.15 an hour every day in between. That $5.15 an hour doesn't buy nearly as much in this age of $3-a-gallon-plus gasoline prices and out-of-this-world health care and housing costs. In fact, the minimum wage is at a 51-year low in buying power. That is why the ATU has joined with the AFL-CIO in the America Needs a Raise Campaign. In addition to efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, efforts are already underway in the states to pass ballot initiatives and legislation to raise state minimum wage levels. With your help, we may be able to mark another date in the near future - the day the minimum wage is finally raised again. To find out more about the America Needs a Raise Campaign, and what you can do to help, go to: http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/livingwages/americaneedsaraise.cfm.
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