We have learned the hard way that winning in November can be a hollow victory. Too often, we win the election, but in labor parlance, we fail to get the contract. The promises made at campaign time become yesterday’s news, not today’s agenda. This November 5th, that changes.

This year, when we pop the champagne to toast President Obama and our new pro-worker Congress, we will also be cheering the work about to begin.

With the same resources, passion, and effort we are using to support and help elect pro-worker candidates, SEIU is going to keep up the fight to restore economic balance in America between those who work for a living and those with wealth. For the first 100 days of the new Congress, SEIU will commit 50 percent of the International staff and 50 percent of our organizing budget to wage the most extensive campaign ever to pass meaningful healthcare reform and ensure workers have a fair shot at achieving the American Dream. By holding town halls in select districts, making in-person visits, and generating more than 10 million phone calls in those first 100 days, we’ll make sure that for our elected representatives, securing affordable healthcare for all and rebuilding the middle class by restoring workers’ freedom to join unions stay at the top of their to-do lists.

As for any elected leaders who turn their backs on these and other key issues for working people, we’ll waste no time dipping into a new $10 million accountability fund to recruit and support a primary opponent.

Our political accountability fund will be used to inform voters when members of Congress don’t follow through on their campaign promises. If an elected official doesn’t stand with working families, we’ll communicate that to voters, and we won’t hesitate to find and back a primary opponent. This will look a lot like our efforts this past February, when along with several allied organizations, we helped Donna Edwards defeat incumbent Rep. Al Wynn in the Maryland Democratic primary. It will resemble our work in 2007, when we unseated seven Chicago aldermen who were part of the Mayor Richard Daley machine. Starting Election Day 2008, SEIU will devote our resources to an extensive ground and air campaign to hold accountable those members of the 111th Congress who turn their backs on workers.

This political accountability commitment is part of our “Justice for All” plan — a bold new action agenda fuelled and informed by the concerns of America’s working families. The plan has been unanimously adopted by the SEIU International Executive Board, which includes 57 elected leaders from throughout the union representing 87 percent of the union’s membership. It will be debated and voted on by members at SEIU’s convention in early June.

We’ve made our issues clear as day:

• fixing the broken healthcare system;

• addressing the growing wealth gap;

• providing a path to citizenship for hard-working, taxpaying immigrants;

• ensuring quality services in local communities with fair, reliable funding; and

• ending the war in Iraq and then providing necessary services for returning veterans.

This is an ambitious undertaking, but our country deserves no less. We know it can’t be done by a handful of people in each local union or in Washington, DC. It is going to take an army of working people fanned out across America, and that’s what we’re building. This year, were not just going to win the election. We’re going to restore the American Dream.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Politics, Campaign .