The Votes Are In!
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View Winners → Politics Oct 30, 2024
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By Suzanne Potter, Producer
As election season comes to a close, unions are out pounding the pavement urging all Californians to vote.
The Golden State is home to about 2.5 million union members, with 14 million nationwide.
Maureen Gallagher, a retired social worker at the Veteran’s Administration and volunteer for the American Federation of Government Employees, said she is very concerned about the blow to abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“That’s really about taking away democratic rights,” Gallagher asserted. “It just seems impossible that we could have slid backwards like this. If men got pregnant, we would never have laws like this where the government would tell you what you had to do with your body.”
About 16% of wage or salaried workers in California are covered by a union contract. The Biden-Harris administration included pro-labor positions in the infrastructure bill. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which lays out a blueprint for the next conservative president, calls for multiple government agencies to be privatized and questions the existence of public sector unions.
Kevin Cooper, political director of the American Federation of Government Employees, noted the importance of the union vote.
“Unions can be the deciding factor in a lot of these places,” Cooper contended. “It is vital to get out in the community, talk to your friends, talk to your family, because it’s going to be right down to the wire, but every single conversation and every single vote will make the difference.”
A recent study from the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center found half of union members in California are women, a majority are workers of color and half work in the public sector.
Disclosure: The American Federation of Government Employees contributes to Public News Service’s fund for reporting on Budget Policy and Priorities, Livable Wages/Working Families, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, visit https://www.publicnewsservice.org/dn1.php.
