SEIU California
September 15, 2021

WORKER-LED GROUND CAMPAIGN PIVOTAL TO GOVERNOR NEWSOM’S VICTORY OVER RECALL

Sacramento, CA – The day after Governor Gavin Newsom’s decisive victory over the Republican recall, SEIU California and labor and community allies who led the sweeping ground campaign behind the victory outlined their winning tactics for news reporters. The coalition of labor and more than 90 community organizations powered the largest ground campaign since the landmark Yes on Prop 30/No on Prop 32 victories in 2012. Their defeat of the recall not only protects important gains for working people in California, it serves as a national model for building a winning coalition of Black, Brown, white, and API voters in 2022 and beyond.

“We showed the nation that the right-wing extremists and billionaires who wanted to undermine our state’s democracy cannot overcome the power of working people,” said Max Arias, Executive Director of SEIU Local 99 and Executive Board Member of SEIU California.

SEIU California led the largest, coordinated ground campaign of labor and community allies since 2012 in order to beat back the Republican recall. The statewide voter contact and Get Out the Vote Campaign had unprecedented results for an off-year special election:

GOTV

    25,000 GOTV shifts between doors, phones, and texting
    Over 500k doors knocked
    Over 3 million calls made

Overall

    Over 31 million calls made
    1.5 million doors knocked

Of these, SEIU members knocked on over 412,000 doors, over 250,000 doors over the last four days of GOTV alone, and made over 4.8 million calls. SEIU members collectively contributed more than $6 million of their dollars to the anti-recall campaign and field efforts to turn out communities of color.

Oscar Lopez, Political Director for SEIU California, said: “This victory is the fruit of more than a decade of time and significant investment of members’ dollars into growing our political muscle as a coalition of labor and community organizations.”

“At the outset of this campaign, we set a goal of 10,000 volunteers, ambitious considering the truncated nature of this election. We blew past that goal, more than doubling that number in volunteer shifts,” said Steve Smith, communications director with the California Labor Federation. “What that means in terms of real-world impact can’t be overstated. Millions of personal contacts with voters helped turn the tide of this election.”

“Along with our labor allies, MVP is proud to have run one of the largest get out the vote operations in the state to make sure our communities’ voices were heard and to protect the progress we have made to make California a more inclusive, just, and equitable state,” said Amado Uno, Director of the Million Voters Project, a coalition of community-based civic engagement organizations that has been working for more than a decade to build political power in communities of color and lower-income communities throughout California. “Because we are rooted in local communities, because we are trusted local messengers and because we have invested in organizing, we were able to stand up a large-scale GOTV program in a matter of weeks.”

Labor and community leaders hailed the defeat of the recall as a turning point and a clear signpost for the nation as we head into another very divisive election year.

“We’ve demonstrated it is possible to build an effective, energized, multi-racial coalition rooted in the concerns and priorities of working communities – Black, Brown, white, and API. When workers and communities come together to focus on the problems we face, we can overcome the politics of hate and division,” Arias concluded.

View the press conference held this morning here:

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California Labor Federation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 10, 2021
Contact: Steve Smith

SACRAMENTO – Thousands of union volunteers will knock doors and make phone calls in the final four days of the campaign to defeat the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. Labor unions, the Stop the Republican Recall campaign, community groups and the California Democratic Party will put at least 25,000 volunteers into the field to close the campaign with one of the largest ground game operations the state has ever seen.

Joining the California Labor Federation’s statewide GOTV push will be new national AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, who will door knock alongside volunteers. The national labor movement’s deep commitment to defeating the recall effort is testament to the high stakes for workers in California and around the country.

“An army of volunteers are hitting the streets in the final days to extinguish the threat this recall poses to priorities like workplace safety, the minimum wage, public education funding and immigrant rights,” said California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski. “Union volunteers are leading the charge to turn out every last vote to ensure we protect our progress on COVID-19 and all workers’ fundamental rights.”

Labor’s unprecedented campaign to defeat the recall has already reached millions of voters. Through door knocks, phone calls, text messages, mail, digital, and worksite visits, union volunteers have reached more than 7 million voters so far, many multiple times, about the stakes of defeating the recall. The outreach effort includes a heavy investment in communicating with hard-to-reach voters including in-language communication to immigrant voters and targeted digital advertising to reach young voters.

Shuler will join California Labor Federation chief officer Art Pulaski to knock doors in Oakland with the Alameda Labor Council on Saturday, September 11 at 9 am (7750 Pardee Lane, Suite 110, Oakland) and Sunday at noon with the South Bay Labor Council (2302 Zanker Road, San Jose). Gebre will walk with Sacramento Central Labor Council volunteers in Sacramento on Sunday, September 12 at noon (681 W Capitol Ave, W Sacramento).

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https://noantiunionrecall.com