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From the director
Throw out Grinches on Election Day

The season is upon us. No, it’s not Christmas. The season I’m talking about is the political season, specifically, the mid-term elections for Congress, and state and local races.
And the Grinches we need to remove are those who helped steal American manufacturing jobs and our dreams of a better life.

Have you heard of GOTV? If you haven’t, you will if we in Region 8 succeed in sending some of those pro-business politicians back to their normal jobs of being rich. GOTV stands for Get Out the Vote, and it’s what we desperately need to do. This means you make sure all the people on your team or in your department exercise their basic freedom of getting registered, studying the issues and voting in every election for which they’re eligible.

I would hope you would then make sure all your family members vote. This may be the most critical election union members, especially manufacturing workers, have faced. Even if we stopped the offshoring and outsourcing of our good-paying jobs today, much harm has already been done to America. It will take much time and money to reverse this trend and rebuild our nation’s vital industrial base. But it is definitely not too late or impossible to fix.

American workers will survive this massive job loss, but it will not be easy. The first and most important thing we must do is review UAW endorsed candidates so you can understand the issues and feel confident in working to help get out the vote to elect these candidates.

As workers, we need to use the election process so we can once again be heard on issues that concern all working people, such as a secure retirement, pension protection, affordable health insurance for everyone, and protection of jobs from being outsourced under so-called “free” trade agreements.

So join with me and your brothers and sisters. Let’s turn out the UAW vote with all active members and great retirees through our GOTV campaign.

And then let’s work also to get out the even larger worker vote among our friends, neighbors, church members and others who are not yet union members but need the same progressive legislation and protections we do.