WORKER/VOTER PROGRAM

The WORKER/VOTER program is the New Jersey State AFL-CIO’s extensive grassroots campaign which registered over 350,000 New Jersey union members. WORKER stands for Worksite Organization and Recruitment to Keep Everyone Registered. VOTER describes the five step action plan: Verify the list of unregistered voters; Organize the outreach to the unregistered; Take a day to register the unregistered at work; Evaluate the results; Reward the activists.

An aggressive voter registration program must be initiated now in order to dramatically increase the number of labor families on the voter rolls. This will enable us to vote for legislators who support working family’s legislative agenda, and defeat those who don’t. The WORKER/VOTER kit contains the tools needed to conduct this program. The mechanics of the program are as follows:

• Affiliate leadership will receive a letter from the New Jersey State AFL-CIO announcing the program.

• Regional Train-the-Trainer seminars will be conducted by New Jersey State AFL-CIO staff. Union leadership will participate in these regional meetings and receive the kit which includes everything needed to execute the program in the local union and at the worksite including posters, flyers, stickers, voter registration forms, question/answer sheets, pre-written letters to union members, a pre-written press release, voter registration scripts, etc.

• Trainers will conduct a local union meeting with WORKER/VOTER volunteers who will carry out the on-site WORKER/VOTER program. The local union will plan its on-site voter registration activity. Assistance is available from the New Jersey State AFL-CIO.

• Approximately two weeks later, a local will hold a WORKER/VOTER DAY. This event will be a union spirit day, full of union colors, tee shirts and posters. That night, WORKER/VOTER activists will be rewarded with incentives, i.e., dinner and certificates.

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