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Workers Do Their Part in Helping Preserve Vital City Services
Through an aggressive phone banking and mail campaign that contacted over 100,000 union registered voters, Los Angeles workers helped deliver the vote to ensure the passage of Proposition S. Its passage will ensure that about $270 million, about 6% of the City’s entire general budget remains intact to preserve vital services such as police, fire, libraries and youth recreation programs.
 Tobi, phone bank volunteer from SEIU 721 |
“What’s clear tonight, is that when workers talk to workers, it doesn’t only benefit them, it benefits our communities,” said Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “By helping pass Proposition S, the labor movement has just ensured that the services we rely on for our safety, such as police and fire, are preserved.”
For four weeks, hundreds of workers, including sanitation workers, iron workers, librarians, hotel workers, nurses, janitors, and cafeteria workers, volunteered over 2,800 hours to get the word out on the importance of voting “yes” on Proposition S. Approximately 49,760 voters were spoken to by workers. An additional 331,000 mail pieces were sent to union members.
“It was important for me to volunteer my time to get the word out on Proposition S because not only am I a city employee, but I’m a resident of Los Angeles,” said Robert Baker, Recreation Assistant for the L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks and member of AFSCME Local 741. “Any cut to the city’s budget would have impacted me as a resident.”
Tobi Arias, Parking Attendant at L.A. City Hall and member of SEIU 721 added, “My reason for volunteering was simple – to ensure that we preserve the funding going to the City, to have the resources to serve the residents of Los Angeles.”
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO is the chartered Central Labor Council (CLC) of the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles County and is the second largest in the country, representing over 350 unions and over 800,000 workers. Its mission is to promote a voice for workers standing up against poverty by organizing themselves to join a union, through active participation in the political process, by electing pro-union and pro-worker officials and to advance public policies that support workers and their families. As the coordinating center for labor’s political activity, the Federation believes that in educating and mobilizing workers to be politically active they can create and sustain healthy communities, and FIGHT FOR GOOD JOBS that REBUILD THE LOS ANGELES MIDDLE CLASS. Visit the Federation at www.launionaflcio.org
