Labor Volunteers Pour Into NoVA for Obama, Push Referenda in MD

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Coming from as far away as West Virginia, nearly 200 labor volunteers poured into Northern Virginia Saturday as part of NoVA Labor’s get out the vote effort for President Obama and other labor-endorsed candidates. “If Romney gets in, we’ll be in trouble, big-time,” said Milton Dews (right), a Giant meatcutter and member of UFCW Local 400. “Because he doesn’t care about the middle class,” chimed in fellow UFCW 400 member Waqas Jamil Ahmad, who was part of a door-knocking team that included Dews, his wife Carleen – also a Local 400 member at Giant – and Charles Johnson (at left), a Local 400 member who drove in from West Virginia. IATSE 22’s Walter Cahill (right, in photo at left below) canvassed for Obama in 2008 and was back in the field in Fairfax Station, VA Saturday because “Virginia’s a swing state and Romney’s been pretty successful at trying to blame this economy on Obama, which (former President George) Bush ran into the ditch.” Fellow IATSE 22 leader John Page (left, in blue shirt) said that he was encouraged to find Virginia voters “get it; that Romney has come out with a full-throated endorsement of right-to-work, which is pretty much all you need to know as a labor voter.” Battling her fear of dogs, Shondra Alston (below right, in jacket), a housekeeper at the Washington Hilton and member of Unite Here Local 25, door-knocked her way through yet another Burke neighborhood. Like many volunteers Saturday, including fellow team members Abiola Afolayan and Stephanie Steer-Jones, Alston was proud of being part of the labor effort that helped Obama carry Virginia in 2008. “You made our day,” she happily told Musicians 161-710 member Wendolyn Posner (at left in photo below) as they admired the handmade Obama sign on the Posner’s door, created by Posner’s young son.

Meanwhile, in Montgomery County, Josh Ardison reports that volunteers from UFCW MCGEO 1994, the MoCo FOP, and AFT canvassed Germantown and Montgomery Village on Saturday focusing on supporting a "Yes" vote on referenda 4, 5, 6 and 7 and a "No" vote on Question B, the FOP effects collective bargaining issue.

In St Mary’s County in southern Maryland, nearly 100 union members and supporters met at the home of Jim Lowery, Business Manager of IUEC Local 10 in Mechanicsville in support of labor-endorsed candidates and initiatives. A chilly wind blowing off the Patuxent River did not quell the spirit and enthusiasm of the gathering, which was addressed by Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer (D, CD 4), Maryland state senators Brian Frosh and Jim Rosapepe, Washington Building Trades Council Political Director Mark Coles and Metro Council President Jos Williams. Their message was that the vote over the next ten days is “the key to victory" especially for Question 7 on gaming, and emphasizing the need for Maryland labor to deliver, not just for the state, but also to “help Virginia send Jim Kaine to the US Senate.” Labor GOTV efforts throughout the metro area continue this week; click here for latest details.
- report/photos by Chris Garlock