With one exception, the candidates were all for local office in the Detroit area. But the victory of seven out of the 11 they backed – another race is still undecided -- shows the importance of early candidate training, labor mobilization, and of growing a “farm team” of pro-worker politicians at the local level.
“We just mobilized our members,” says the leader of the effort, retired 33-year Autoworker Millie Hall, modestly. But it really started long before that, her story shows.
CLUW began with a “Go Run Go Meet” meeting for both union women and pro-union candidates back in June, where the hopefuls who were already in the race answered questions – and where CLUW urged others to jump in, too.
“We talked about workshops they could go to” to introduce themselves to voters in their Detroit-area districts “and phone banks” and other ways CLUW could help them turn out support. All the hopefuls, female and male, are CLUW members.
There was a quid pro quo, though, of the best kind: “We told them that if they got elected, they’d be our ‘go-to’ people who would give us a voice,” Hall explained.
“We wanted candidates who will address the issues of women and families,” she added.
The results of CLUW’s recruitment, phone banking, mobilization, education sessions and more: One new congressman – Democrat Hanson Clarke – plus Wayne County Commissioners Martha Scott and Jewel Ware and local judges Gershwin Drane, Katherine Hansen, Lydia Nance-Adams and Sheila Gibson Manning.
Clarke and Scott had been state senators and moved up to higher offices, while Nance-Adams and Manning were first-time candidates. CLUW also elected at least 30 local precinct chairs.
Two female CLUW candidates running for state representative lost, as did another CLUW woman running for the county commission. The fourth female CLUW candidate, for state senate, is in an undecided race. Those setbacks don’t stop Hall or her colleagues. CLUW found other women who were so encouraged by the success of their sisters this time, “that they’re ready to run” in 2012, she says.
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With one exception, the candidates were all for local office in the Detroit area. But the victory of seven out of the 11 they backed – another race is still undecided — shows the importance of early candidate training, labor mobilization, and of growing a “farm team” of pro-worker politicians at the local level.
“We just mobilized our members,” says the leader of the effort, retired 33-year Autoworker Millie Hall, modestly. But it really started long before that, her story shows.
CLUW began with a “Go Run Go Meet” meeting for both union women and pro-union candidates back in June, where the hopefuls who were already in the race answered questions – and where CLUW urged others to jump in, too.
“We talked about workshops they could go to” to introduce themselves to voters in their Detroit-area districts “and phone banks” and other ways CLUW could help them turn out support. All the hopefuls, female and male, are CLUW members.
There was a quid pro quo, though, of the best kind: “We told them that if they got elected, they’d be our ‘go-to’ people who would give us a voice,” Hall explained.
“We wanted candidates who will address the issues of women and families,” she added.
The results of CLUW’s recruitment, phone banking, mobilization, education sessions and more: One new congressman – Democrat Hanson Clarke – plus Wayne County Commissioners Martha Scott and Jewel Ware and local judges Gershwin Drane, Katherine Hansen, Lydia Nance-Adams and Sheila Gibson Manning.
Clarke and Scott had been state senators and moved up to higher offices, while Nance-Adams and Manning were first-time candidates. CLUW also elected at least 30 local precinct chairs.
Two female CLUW candidates running for state representative lost, as did another CLUW woman running for the county commission. The fourth female CLUW candidate, for state senate, is in an undecided race. Those setbacks don’t stop Hall or her colleagues. CLUW found other women who were so encouraged by the success of their sisters this time, “that they’re ready to run” in 2012, she says.