More than 400 Full Time Staff on Campaign As Several Million Phone Calls, Mailers Reach Homes; 7,000 Members to Work Precincts on Election Day

Washington, D.C. (November 5, 2012) – Election efforts of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – are reaching a crescendo as 400 full-time staff work to re-elect President Obama and progressive candidates at the state level.

“This is a dangerous election,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Governor Romney and his teaparty backers don’t want to just hurt workers and their unions – they want to destroy us. Meanwhile, we have seen progress under President Obama and have seen him fight for working Americans despite the efforts of
Congressional Republicans to undermine him. That’s why our members are more active in this election than any prior election and why we have in place our most aggressive effort ever.”

O’Sullivan will meet with Ohio members in Cleveland and Columbus Tuesday. On Election Eve, he will host a national teleconference with members across the U.S.

LIUNA’s effort started with early voter registration drives. Nearly 100 of its local unions achieved or surpassed the goal of registering 80 percent of eligible members, and increased voter registration overall by 16 percent. Using member-to-member contact, automated phone technology, email, text messaging, social media and traditional communications techniques, the union began informing members early about Gov. Romney’s antiunion positions on family-supporting prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements, as well as his support for a national so-called right to work law, which would devastate the living standards and pensions of all workers.

In all, the union at the national level delivered about 700,000 pieces of mail and 350,000 phone calls to members. At the state and local level, significantly more communications were delivered as a record-setting number of fulltime staff worked on the effort. Local unions held telephone town halls involving tens of thousands of members.

On Election Day, an estimated 7,000 LIUNA members will be working in precincts.

LIUNA has closely followed members’ sentiment in the race with two random sample surveys of members and one automated poll. The first survey, in February, showed 63 percent of members backed President Obama. The second survey, in August, showed 71 percent of members backed the President. The automated poll, in October,
confirmed the August level of support. It also provided field staff with detailed individualized information about the nearly 30,000 members who participated in the poll as they re-visited them during the final days of the campaign.