Battleground Bulletin - ILLINOIS

TURNOUT WILL BE HIGH ON ELECTION DAY
For those that haven't voted yet, we expect turnout to be high so make your plans for voting.  Decide today if you are going before work or after work and make sure you know where your polling place is located.  Many states require you to show ID with a current address or a current utility bill or paycheck stub.  We track our  members' voting participation and know that some of our members don't vote in non-Presidential elections, make sure you are not one of them....VOTE!

It’s finally Election Day! If you haven’t yet voted, vote. If you’re family members haven’t yet voted, make them vote. If your friends, neighbors and union brothers and sisters have not yet voted, get them to the polls!

As they did in 2008, District 4 members will make the difference in many races in the Battleground States of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. This is the final edition of Battleground
Bulletin! before the election. As you will see, union forces are mobilizing to stop the momentum of anti-worker candidates and anti-worker messages.

It’s no surprise CWA members are at the heart of this final push across the nation: from California to Texas, Pennsylvania to Missouri and everywhere in between, CWA members are knocking on doors, making phone calls and leafleting worksites on behalf of worker-friendly candidates who care about values important to American families: good jobs, reasonable health care, pension protection and collective bargaining rights.

President Obama says it's the face-to-face, co-worker to co-worker contact “that makes the difference".  It’s the value of a co-worker hearing from somebody she trusts, 'Check out this information.' It’s the edge you have when you walk up to a door or make a phone call and say, 'I’m from the union and it matters whether you vote.'

Over the past few days of the campaign, Obama urged the union activists to keep up the pace. "Sign up for phone banks. Pick up a packet and walk the precincts, volunteer to drive people to the polls on Tuesday….Let’s do everything we can."

You have already made a difference. Use the final few election hours to make sure our efforts pay off!

WHERE THE ACTION IS
Pat Quinn knows how to create jobs, and that's why Labor is endorsing him in the Governor's race.
Quinn announced that Chrysler is planning to invest $600 million over the next three years to expand its Belvidere Assembly Plant and prepare it for production of future vehicles.  The state is providing a $62.1 million investment package to save 1,950 permanent jobs and generate 700,000 construction hours.

Governor Quinn proposed, helped to pass and signed legislation into law in December to expand tax credits designed to benefit the auto industry, which was critical to Chrysler's decision to stay and expand in Illinois.

"Illinois has some of the best and most productive workers in the nation, so it's no wonder Chrysler has chosen to remain in Illinois for the production of future vehicles," said Governor Quinn. "This
significant investment will save nearly 2,000 Illinois jobs and is a clear indication that Illinois is continuing our economic recovery."

Meanwhile, Alexi Giannoulias, the Labor-endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate, continues to make big gains in his race. No wonder Labor is endorsing Giannoulias: his opponent, a congressman, seems more interested in sending jobs to China than keeping them in Illinois.

CWA District 4 activists are working around-the-clock to back worker-friendly candidates for Congress:
In the 10th District, Dan Seal is running against anti-worker special interest groups. In the 11th District, incumbent Debbie Halvorson is facing a challenger who wants to privatize Social Security. In the 14th District, incumbent Bill Foster, the first Democrat to represent the district since the 1970s, is trying to keep the seat as one that represents worker-friendly values. In the17th District, incumbent Phil Hare gives us a labor stalwart who we need to have at the table as public policy is being decided.

WORK UNTIL YOU'RE 70?
That's what House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner wants to see.  If the GOP takes over the House, Boehner says he wants to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70.  That might not seem like such a big deal to a guy like Boehner.  The only heavy lifting he does is pick
up a bottle of suntan lotion and a five iron.

But to the millions of seniors in physically demanding job, it's a big deal.  New TV ads from Protecting America's Retirees, an independent project of the Alliance for Retired Americans, takes a light-hearted look at the serious subject of forcing seniors to stay on the job until age 70 or older.

The ads are airing in closely contested House races in Ohio, Arizona, Iowa and Pennsylvania.

The ad reaches out to seniors who may be voting for Republicans because they want change:

"You’re hoping things will change?
"Hope you're also planning to stay on the job.
"Because at least one change means seniors will have to work. And work. And keep right on working.
"Yes-that’s right. The Republican leadership wants to raise your retirement age to 70."

The ad shows, among others, a firefighter, construction worker, delivery person and lifeguard struggling on the job in their later years.

JUST THE FACTS, PLEASE
The economy and jobs are the top issues in the Nov. 2 elections. But with all the rhetoric
and hot air filling the airways, it’s hard to get the straight facts.

U.S. unemployment is high.  But, at the same time, more private-sector jobs have been
created this year alone than in all eight years of the Bush administration.

And over the past four years, Republicans have voted 11 times to preserve loopholes that encourage American companies to ship jobs overseas.

These facts bear out what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the Global Progressive Forum recently:

We in the United States now face an election where we must choose between the humane, progressive, unifying vision of our President, Barack Obama, and the policies that caused this economic crisis, cloaked in the rhetoric of hatred and division.   

Here’s another fact:  Obama’s economic policies have been a big help for women. A new report by the White House’s National Economic Council, described scores of policies that have promoted women’s economic security, including:

The earned-income tax credit, which significantly benefits working mothers.  Work-study money for community college students, 56 percent of whom are female.  State aid supporting the jobs of teachers and nurses, who are mostly women.  Democratic opposition to privatizing Social Security, of which women make up 57 percent of beneficiaries.

Here are some other key facts to take with you to the voting booth. Citing nonpartisan research and press reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi busts several conservative myths in this campaign:

Myth:  Spending’s out of control and the deficit’s exploding
Fact: President Bush nearly doubled the national debt and repealed the pay-as-you-go deficit control plan that produced balanced budgets in the 1990s.  Independent economists credit the
Democrats’ response to the Bush recession for preventing the loss of 8 million more jobs and stopping unemployment from exceeding 16 percent.   They also concluded that without these actions, the U.S. budget deficit would actually be $3 trillion worse over the next three years.

Myth: Taxes have gone up
Fact: Americans are paying the lowest taxes in 60 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Myth: Government took over health care
Fact: The Affordable Care Act actually builds on our private insurance system.  The number of Americans with private health coverage will increase under health reform.

Myth: Government is interfering with private markets and industry
Fact:  Wall Street reform essentially returned our financial sector to commonsense rules, like
the ones put in place after the stock market crash of 1929. The auto bailout worked, too. For the first time in five years, all of the Big Three are operating at a profit and are working to repay the government.