Labor-Friendly Candidate Gets Momentum in Pa. Senate Race
With Election Day drawing closer, Mike Welsh now has an extra spring in his step when he sets out for a day of leafleting or door-knocking. The IBEW state political coordinator is working to get out the vote for labor-endorsed Rep. Joe Sestak, whose poll numbers have seen a spike in the past week.
That’s good news for the lawmaker who said he will make Main Street and job recovery top priorities in the U.S. Senate. It’s also good news for members, Welsh said.
Right: Before the sun is up, IBEW activists join a pro-labor lawmaker to leaflet at RRI Energy’s Cheswick coal-fired generation station near Pittsburgh, where about 100 IBEW members work full time. Left to right: Pittsburgh Local 29 Business Manager Jeff Davis, Pa. 4th District Rep. Jason Altmire and Local 29 Political Coordinator Jim DePoe.
Welsh, a Third District International Representative, said:
We’re optimistic. Since we started hitting the ground after Labor Day, more members have been contacted by their local union leadership. Many of the locals have done mailings to their members or plant leafleting with the facts about where the candidates stand on issues important to working families. Once our members start looking at the facts, that gets them motivated to get involved.
Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral with a solidly pro-labor voting record, is running in a tight race against bank executive Pat Toomey, a former member of Congress. Toomey has a 90-percent approval rating from the Chamber of Commerce, and the anti-union Associated Builders & Contractors’ political action committee has donated more money to his campaigns over the years than any other PAC.
In their first televised debate on October 21, Sestak said that Toomey was too closely aligned with corporations and Wall Street and supports plans to privatize Social Security.
Said Sestak:
If it’s a program for the people, he’s against it. If it’s a program for the corporation, he’s for it…My opponent wants to take [workers’ money] and invest it where he made his fortune.
Welsh highlights these points when he speaks with members:
One of the biggest issues for working families is knowing that Social Security will be there as part of their retirement package. Just think of what would have happened to that portion of a person’s retirement if Social Security was converted into private accounts. For some people, Social Security is all they have left due to Wall Street Ponzi schemes.
We cannot let them gamble with this program. Pat Toomey is clearly a mouthpiece for Wall Street and on the wrong side of the issues for workers.
With large amounts of campaign cash on hand, Toomey looks primed to launch a major advertising blitz in the final days of the race. Welsh said time is of the essence to communicate to working families the sharp distinction between the candidates’ views:
In Pa., there is clearly a difference in the two candidates, and those differences are starting to come clearly into light for working families. Voters have a choice – to put a person in the Senate who has a proven track record of supporting working families, or to vote in a candidate who has a history of supporting big corporations, shipping our jobs overseas and who is anti-union.
Our members need to get out and vote for the candidates who support working families – people like Joe Sestak.
Pa. Activists Mobilize for IBEW-Friendly Candidates
Paul Mullen knows it’s nice to be on a first-name basis with his congressman. That’s why when the Chester, Pa., Local 654 business manager talks about Rep. Joe Sestak, Mullen speaks of the lawmaker like a solid friend.
With Joe, the communication lines are wide open. He’s great about returning calls and e-mails, he invites us to attend many of his events and he’s out front about his advocacy for labor. A lot of politicians say they’ll support you when they run, then they turn their backs on you. Joe’s the opposite. He stands tall with the IBEW.
Members here – they know Joe. He’s been to the hall several times and he’s toured our training facility. He’s definitely one of us.
 Now in a tight Senate race to represent the Keystone State, Sestak has built a strong following among working families and union members. He is an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. He is against extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans but supports tax breaks for the middle class. Sestak also worked with the Department of Labor in creating the Labor Advisory Committee – which counts IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill as a member – to focus on challenges working families experience.
Rep. Joe Sestak, left, visits with Chester Local
654 Business Manager Paul Mullen at the local’s
training facility.
Sestak faces businessman Pat Toomey in the November race. Toomey’s first Senate run in 2004 against former Sen. Arlen Specter was aided in part by $2 million from the Club for Growth, a group that supports tax cuts for the wealthy and the privatization of Social Security. After Toomey lost by a slim margin, he became the club’s president.
Toomey opposed the 2009 stimulus, which reversed job loss in a state with 9 percent unemployment. He supports eliminating corporate taxes altogether and boasts a 90 percent approval rating by the United States Chamber of Commerce – a group that opposes workers’ rights to organize.
Third District International Representative and Johnstown Local 459 member Mike Welsh is the state coordinator for the IBEW’s political mobilization in Pennsylvania. He said Sestak is the clear choice for members:
The difference between Joe Sestak and Toomey is night and day. Do you want another pro-Wall Street guy who doesn’t care about workers, or do you want a guy who voted for labor 94 percent of the time? It’s no contest.
The IBEW is also endorsing Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato for governor. When the lawmaker met with union volunteers in September at the Erie Local 56 hall for his flagship labor walk, he noted a crisp campaign poster on the wall reading “Vote your job! Oronato for Governor,” which prompted him to tell activists:
It is crystal clear that we are on the same page. The work you are doing here and in cities all over Pennsylvania is about jobs and electing leaders who will make jobs job No. 1 in Harrisburg and Washington.
A flier for Pa. District 3 U.S. congressional
candidate Kathy Dahlkemper.
Strongly endorsed by the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Oronato’s walk was the first big state push by the labor federation in the run-up to November. Frank Snyder, the state AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer and political director, said:
Based on previous campaigns, the labor movement in Pennsylvania anticipates more than 6,000 local union volunteers from all across Pennsylvania will be working in education and mobilization activities through Election Day.
That’s good news for the 11 hotly contested House races the IBEW is mobilizing for. In the 8th Congressional District, Trenton, N.J., Local 269 Business Manager Steve Aldrich is working to getting out the vote for Rep. Patrick Murphy – a former high-ranking Army officer and the son of union members. Aldrich’s local hall is just east of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border, but his jurisdiction reaches into Murphy’s district.
Said Aldrich:
As a former paratrooper, Patrick knows what it means to have courage. He stands up for us and is proudly at the forefront of labor’s issues. He’s gone to bat to make sure prevailing wages are attached to any projects with federal dollars, and he’s helped put more than a hundred of our members on jobs. Patrick is truly a champion for working families.
Another key race is in the northwestern Third District, where incumbent Kathy Dahlkemper is running against businessman Mike Kelly, who has been endorsed by a group led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that opposes public sector unions. Dahlkemper, a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, “stood with us nearly the whole time she’s been in office,” Local 56 Business Manager Matt McLaughlin said.:
We’ve seen a spike of activity and enthusiasm with her in office, and we want
that to continue.
Pennsylvania is one of the more union-dense states in the country – about 15 percent of residents have dues receipts in their wallets. Welsh, the union’s state coordinator, said that makes the IBEW’s mobilization a matter of urgency:
We’ve got to elect Joe Sestak and pro-labor representatives to keep the momentum that we got in 2008, otherwise we could slip backwards. We can’t afford to sit this one out.
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