Working America hits 1 million-member mark

Working America, the AFL-CIO-created organization for workers without a union, announced Aug. 31 that it has grown to one million members. That figure includes 16,000 who have signed up in Oregon since Working America opened a local office this March.

Working America is a way for the union movement to extend its political education campaigns to non-union workers who care about issues that affect working people, like offshoring of jobs, Social Security privatization, rising health care costs and falling wages.

Begun two years ago, the group uses paid canvassers to sign up members. Dues are voluntary. Working America reports that two-thirds of those contacted join, and about one- third of those contribute some amount of money.

Membership means getting an occasional e-mail or mailing, some of which ask people to take action on an issue. Working America reports that its appeals have generated 60,000 hand-written letters to U.S. senators opposing Social Security privatization.

In Oregon, members also wrote letters to state legislators opposing a bill that would have created a sub-minimum wage for tipped workers.

“One of the most powerful tools union members have is information,” said Brad Witt, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO. “They know how the policies made in Salem and Washington, D.C., affect their families, and union members tend to get more engaged in the process.”

Andy Lehn, Working America’s Oregon director, said his canvassers are signing up about 150 new members a day in the Portland and Salem areas and the group expects to have 30,000 members in Oregon by year’s end.

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.