Workers hurt by the subprime crisis are cold calling for Obama, writes Mark Hennessyin Los Angeles
EVEN ON a Saturday morning, with bright sunshine outside, dozens of union members manned the phones in their local union headquarters to persuade voters in far-off Ohio to vote for Barack Obama.
"Hi there, we're calling fellow members of the AFL-CIO," said one volunteer, "We're wondering if we can count on your support for Barack Obama?" For weeks now, up to 130 people have come daily to the Los Angeles Country Federation of Labour on James M Wood Boulevard to push the Obama cause outside the state.
"We're calling other union members in Ohio, Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, and elsewhere," a local union official, Mary Gutierrez, said.
Normally, such cold calling has a poor success rate, but Gutierrez says: "When a union member calls a union member they listen to you, at least." The calls are dominated by fears of workers in the Midwest over the loss of jobs to cheaper labour countries, leaving many towns devastated.
"A lot of our good jobs have gone. We used to be a hub for the tyre industry. If you didn't go to college, you could have got a job there and had a good, middle-class life. Now, they're gone," says Gutierrez.
Every day, the volunteers break off from their calls to review the messages coming back, and revise strategy. "The issues can change very quickly. People watch TV and respond to that. People forward on e-mails. That's a huge thing. There was one about Obama being a terrorist. That was sent out everywhere," says Gutierrez.
So far, the controversy about Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher - mentioned by John McCain in last week's debate with Obama - has not featured much in the calls.
"Not so far. We keep trying to get the message back to jobs; and whether the right kind of jobs are out there, and healthcare, which is a huge thing for all union members," she says.
House repossessions, which have escalated in recent months as homeowners struggle with sub-prime mortgages; or simply lost their jobs, are mentioned in every call.
José Antonio Moreno, one of the volunteers manning the phones, knows more than most about the issue. He has been bankrupted by the crisis.
Today, he and his family share a house with his wife's parents and his sister-in-law after he lost two houses he and his father-in-law bought as an investment using sub-prime loans.
A cook with the Sony Studios in Hollywood, Moreno "was doing okay" until the writers' strike brought filming to a halt and led to fewer hours for him in the kitchens.
Five families in his neighbourhood have already lost their homes, and more will follow: "It was like a plot. People were being set up for failure," Moreno says.
Moreno started off with a $1,200 monthly mortgage but the bill shot up to $2,500. He went to the bank to say, "Whoah! Listen we gotta do something here." By then, his properties had fallen in value. "They withheld information. They did tell me that the rate was adjustable; but they said it was only going to go up a little bit. And I said, 'Fine'."
Convinced that Obama can win, Moreno is putting everything into his calls. "We know that it will be difficult, because there will be a tremendous amount of opposition. But that is why we are also making calls for the local races. Obama will be in Washington. He will need people in LA and elsewhere supporting him," he says passionately.
Retired union members who have volunteered to man the telephones say it is the most important election campaign since Robert Kennedy ran in 1968.
"[Obama] understands the middle-class. The strength of the unions is what created the middle-class in this country. If there is no strength in unions, there is no middle-class," Gutierrez says.
Union membership rose last year in the US for the first time in 25 years, and by the largest number since 1979. However, the reasons behind the increase reveal weakness, rather than strength.
"If our politicians are exporting the good jobs then what are the industries that they cannot export: the janitors, the truck-drivers. We have deliberately targeted the service industry," says Gutierrez.
Not all of the calls made on James M Wood Boulevard, however, are dominated by the economy. Some deal with Obama's colour, and by a perception that he is not "pro-American", a phrase heard daily.
"A lot of them are very racist. They would never vote for a black," says Priscilla Chang, pointing out that many union members in the best jobs, such as police and firemen, "lean Republican".
Some of the calls "can get very heated", agrees Gutierrez. "The majority is pro-Obama, but sometimes people have information that is not correct. There was an e-mail going around, for instance, that said that Obama would not wear a pin of the American flag. Sometimes we have to clarify the issues before we can get to the bread-and-butter."