IBEW Activist: Sen. Murray Creating Jobs for Workers

With less than two weeks to go until the Nov. 2 election, the IBEW’s Washington activists continue to hit the pavement and tell members about Sen. Patty Murray’s winning track record of helping working families.

State political coordinator and Seattle Local 46 member Nicole Grant said Murray has been instrumental in steering money from the 2009 federal stimulus toward projects that are putting members back on the job – such as a massive cleanup effort at the Hanford site, a partially decommissioned nuclear complex in the Tri-Cities area of southern Washington.

Said Grant:

The Tri-Cities is the only area in Washington with a functional economy right now, and that is largely due to Sen. Murray's efforts to direct federal stimulus dollars to the Hanford cleanup projects. The last time I was in [Kennewick] Local 112's office, I saw Seattle electricians who I knew. The Hanford projects are not just keeping IBEW 112 members working but many from the rest of the state and beyond as well.

All this good stuff is what Senator Murray's challenger [businessman Dino Rossi] calls ‘pork.’ He would rather see no federal jobs and nuclear waste not getting cleaned up. That's his idea of a plan.

Murray has also been endorsed by the Seattle Times. An October 8 editorial states that she “has guts and principles” when standing up for residents:

The truth about Murray is she delivers for Washington and the Northwest. She secured funds to begin to replace the I-5 bridge connecting Washington and Oregon, which helps business and ports. She rounded up federal dollars to repair the Howard Hanson Dam and protect the Green River Valley. She saved the veterans hospital in Walla Walla and secured funds to add a clinic there.

Murray…works doggedly on behalf of average citizens in every corner of the state.

Grant said the senator’s mantra of “jobs, jobs, jobs” has yielded tangible results, while Rossi’s stance against funding construction could hamper real economic recovery in the Evergreen State if he wins Nov. 2:

I think that a Rossi victory could destabilize the major infrastructure projects that Sen. Murray has helped secure for Washington. Rossi's whole MO is anti-stimulus, anti-spending – but it’s the stimulus jobs that are bringing our economy back.

We need leaders who are going to secure federal funding for these projects, not scare it away.

Washington Activists Mobilize Members

Seattle Local 46 member Nicole Grant doesn’t mince words when discussing the political climate in the Evergreen State.

“Our members are pissed,” said the 32-year-old journeyman wireman. As the IBEW state political coordinator for Washington, Grant’s task is mobilizing members to get out the vote for Sen. Patty Murray.

Everett, Wash., Local 191 member and registrar Jodi Howson, left, talks politics with Sen. Patty Murray.

Murray is a proponent of higher wages and tax-funded projects, in stark contrast to her challenger Dino Rossi.

Grant said:

We have construction locals with upward of 60 percent unemployment. People voted for Democrats in 2008 because they were promised another New Deal. We’re looking for large jobs like the state park system or the Grand Coulee Dam. We’ve gotten some stimulus money, but we need more to put people back on the job doing infrastructure projects. That’s what workers in Washington want to see.

Murray’s Senate record is strong on issues that matter to working families. The 18-year lawmaker successfully fought for federal funding to bolster the state’s infrastructure, veterans’ hospitals and schools. She was an original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, has fought to raise the minimum wage and boasts a 90 percent labor voting record according to the AFL-CIO. Murray supported the president’s $787 billion stimulus package and voted for unemployment extensions for laid-off workers. She is also an enthusiastic supporter of project labor agreements.

Rossi’s approval rating on labor issues sags at 6 percent. The real estate salesman and two-time gubernatorial candidate supported cutting jobless benefits as well as supporting President Bush’s restrictions on overtime pay. As a state legislator, he voted against collective bargaining rights for public employees.

Recent polling shows Murray and Rossi in a dead heat among voters.

To increase labor turnout at the polls, part of Grant’s strategy is to draw attention to a November ballot measure. Referendum 52 is a statewide jobs bill that would hire members of the trades to do deep energy retrofits on all public schools serving students from kindergarten through college. Initially passed during the state’s legislative session, the $505 million bill could create as many as 30,000 construction jobs if passed by voters.

A flier distributed statewide by the IBEW urges voters to approve a job-creating ballot measure on Election Day.

Keeping good-paying union jobs in the state could come under threat if Rossi wins, said registrar Jodi Howson. The Everett Local 191 fifth-year apprentice has been pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, phone banking and coordinating committees of volunteers to mobilize union members. Howson points to Murray’s efforts to keep jobs at aircraft giant Boeing Co. from being shipped offshore when talking to voters:

The Boeing plant provides our members with a lot of work, and it would be disastrous to lose it – not just for our economy, but for our national security. The last thing we want to see are planes for our own military being built overseas.

At a time when anti-government rhetoric is at fever pitch, Murray illustrates the best in what federal intervention can do for the people, Grant said:

Here we are at a time when our nation is in crisis. Workers are bearing the brunt of the suffering. People are looking to the government for solutions. They know the government got us out of the Great Depression, and our government can do it again. Patty Murray will be part of that solution.