News & Update: May 12, 2010
We are already halfway through May and there’s been no let up in the Mid-Atlantic Region for politics. Our union has been quite engaged in a number of fronts and while I can’t cover everything today I am going to try weekly to keep everyone who is interested up to date on what we are doing and where we are going.
The big news this week is in Pennsylvania where Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak are tied according to a new Muhlenberg poll out today: 44 Sestak, 44 Specter, 3% undecided. The polls have been all over the map in the last few weeks against Specter so this is good news for Arlen. Dan Onorato continues to hold a substantial lead over his three opponents and we don’t expect much change here.
On May 4th the Virginia Tidewater region had their Primaries. The Laborers supported Mckinley Price who became the new Mayor in Newport News and Tommy Smiegel who upset a long time City Councilman, Randy Wright for that seat. Smiegel beat Wright by 118 votes which is another testament to knocking on doors and talking to voters directly which is exactly what Tommy did. The Laborers had a team of canvassers on the ground in Norfolk and knocked and spoke to thousands of voters. Congratulations to Locals 351 (Bob Fahey) and 572 (Larry Dogget) for their good work and voter turnout.
Our Get Baltimore Working Working Campaign continues to gather supporters. This past weekend we held a Jobs Festival at Druid Hill park where hundreds of Baltimore City residents heard live music and local politicians talk about our legislation currently before the City Council. The featured speaker was former Philadelphia Mayor John street who got the crowd to their feet with an impassioned speech concerning workers rights and the importance of taking action to address the high unemployment rates in the city. All told we sent 654 e-mail letters to the City Council, gathered 300 new names for our petition drive and registered 44 new voters on May 8.
Finally, you can check out our recent activities on You Tube at WWW.YOUTUBE.com/maliuna1. We have 11 videos up and more are added weekly. I’ll be back next week with our take on the Pennsylvania elections and other useful news about the Mid-Atlantic Laborers LiUNA!.
