Workers and union leaders with the California Labor Federation kicked off their campaign to defend California’s progress from the Gov. Gavin Newsom recall.
What’s at stake for all workers, including the 2.1 million represented by the California Labor Federation, is increased pay, critical protections like paid sick leave and paid family leave, public education funding, child care, the right to form unions and more.
With Newsom’s plan to partner with unions to rapidly vaccinate essential workers, the announcement from the California Labor Federation marks the return of the worker-powered campaign ground game. Thousands of workers will volunteer in the coming months to walk precincts and knock on doors, communicating with voters face-to-face about the importance of stopping the recall.
“When the pandemic hit, Governor Newsom immediately thought of the workers of this state and how the crisis was affecting them,” United Domestic Workers, AFSCME 3930 Executive Director Doug Moore said. “He acted immediately to protect essential workers with paid COVID sick leave, mandatory workplace COVID reporting, and increased health and safety enforcement on the job.”
The unprecedented labor campaign to defeat the recall will feature a robust ground game to turn out hard-to-reach voters. Highlights of the worker-led union campaign include:
- Union volunteers spending evenings and weekends throughout the summer and fall going door-to-door, making phone calls, connecting with friends, co-workers and neighbors, including taking over 10 million steps (4,000 miles) of door-to-door canvassing, enough to walk from Los Angeles to the coast of Maine.
- In-language outreach in Spanish, Vietnamense, Chinese and other languages to ensure maximum engagement with immigrant families.
- The most targeted and technologically advanced campaign labor has ever run, ensuring that union volunteers are connecting with voters, urban and rural alike, on the issues that are most important to working people.
- Extensive and targeted digital outreach to maximize turnout among young workers.
