Union exhorts members to vote

BREWER – Even though unions are perceived to have strong relationships among its members, the heavyweights still are needed to encourage the ranks to get out to vote – and to vote for Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry.

The Republican Party, however, counters that the same union members are silent about their choice of President Bush for a second term because they don’t want to confront union leadership.

“There’s a growing disconnect between rank-and-file families, union families, from what their leadership represents in Washington, D.C.,” said Kevin Schweers, spokesman for the Maine Republican Party, on Monday.

John Sweeney, national president of the AFL-CIO, visited the area for the second time in a month on Monday to rally union and nonunion workers to push for a change in presidential leadership. Like his trip last month, Sweeney focused on the more than 18,000 manufacturing jobs that have been eliminated in Maine since 2001, when President Bush took office.

Alongside Sweeney, whose rally was on the grounds of the closed Eastern Fine Paper Co., were more than 30 union members who either are unemployed or who are working at jobs that pay less than what they were earning when they were laid off recently in the manufacturing sector.

Sweeney said that most union members will vote Nov. 2, but that more people need to be aware that jobs are not being created fast enough and that the wages and benefits of the new jobs are about 27 percent lower than what the manufacturing sector paid.

“Those are statistics, not assumptions,” Sweeney said. “Our members know the story. This is to get the message out to the public. We have a jobs crisis in this country, and many people don’t know it.”

Ed Gorham, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, acknowledged that it takes effort to convince union members to vote.

“We just want to make sure they go out this year,” Gorham said. “We usually have good turnout. This year, we want to have exceptional turnout. A lot more of our brothers and sisters are hurting this year than ever before.”

Schweers said the Republican Party’s jobs figures show a different picture than what the union is presenting. He said that in the last year, wages and benefits have increased 3.8 percent and that jobs have been created in information, construction, financial, professional and business services.

“The facts don’t square with theirs,” Schweers said.

Also, he said an Oct. 17-19 poll conducted by WCSH-TV Channel 6 in Portland and WLBZ-TV Channel 2 in Bangor showed that out of 197 union voters asked, 55 percent said they will cast their ballots for Kerry while 40 percent will vote for Bush.

“Forty-percent is a pretty strong showing,” Schweers said.

Also speaking for the unions this week will be William Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists. He will attend rallies today and Wednesday in Skowhegan, Millinocket and Bucksport.