Unions go virtual with New England GOTV event featuring VP Biden
Mayor Walsh and the New England Labor Movement galvanized top Democrats and Labor Leaders for online Biden-Harris rally featuring U.S. Presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden
NEW ENGLAND – Labor union members and leaders from across six New England states along with top Democrats from the region, and emceed by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, organized a special “New England Workers for Biden-Harris” event that premiered online.
The event featured a custom message from Democratic U.S. Presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, calling on union members across New England to vote, and expressing his support for organized labor and its mission.
“It’s past time that Washington fought for you, as hard as you’ve been fighting for us. It’s not enough just to praise you, we have to protect you and pay you,” said former Vice President Joe Biden. “Because you know what I know. Wall Street didn’t build this country. Unions built this country. I’ve stood with labor my whole life and as your president I’ll proudly stand with labor. As your president, you’ll have a seat at the table, I promise you.”
More than a dozen national and regional labor groups across the region syndicated the event to union members across their various social media platforms and following the initial streaming time. During the event, a wide range of essential workers, Democratic leaders, and national union leaders with large membership bases in New England, shared their messages of support for the Biden-Harris ticket.
The event featured U.S. Presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, along with in order of appearance: Greater Boston Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Darlene Lombos, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, Massachusetts U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney, Maine Speaker of the House and U.S. Senate candidate Sara Gideon, New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Glenn Brackett, New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, AFT President Randi Weingarten, Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Connecticut AFL-CIO President Sal Luciano, Connecticut Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven A. Tolman, Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, IUPAT General President Ken Rigmaiden, along with rank and file union members from throughout New England.
The online rally supplemented the thousands of volunteers that have been participating in other forms of socially-distanced GOTV efforts, including in the perennial New England swing state of New Hampshire and the critical U.S. Senate race in Maine. While Biden is reported to hold a commanding lead in both the Granite State and in Maine, union members and Mayor Walsh say they are taking nothing for granted.
“There is so much at stake for New England. There is so much at stake for our nation. In Joe Biden, we will have a president who believes in science and listens to public health experts – instead of demeaning them,” said Mayor Walsh. “We will have a president who rallies America together – instead of constantly tearing us apart. We will have a president dedicated to restoring America’s soul, building back even better than before, and turning this country around.”
“I will never forget the way he listened to and connected with survivors and grieving families,” continued Mayor Walsh, speaking of Joe Biden’s visit to Boston in 2014 at the ceremony to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. “His unique ability to empathize with all of us and lift us up has never been more important. Joe knows Boston, he knows New England, and we know Joe. We need Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States of America.”
“This is the year of the essential worker and essential workers need champions in the White House like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who will prioritize their safety, their lives, their needs, along with those of all other working families across this region and across this nation,” said Darlene Lombos, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, who helped to organize the event alongside Mayor Walsh, reaching out to workers and labor leaders across the region. “A traditional in-person rally with thousands of union members as we would customarily organize given the stakes of this election was not safe to do this year, so as a movement we are embracing many new ways to get the message out so that workers everywhere have the information they need to make strong choices in support of candidates up and down the ballot who value the lives and labor of working class people.”
Public support for labor unions continues to surge, reaching 65%, the highest it has been since 2003. Internal polls among members of key unions in New England have shown strong support for the Biden-Harris ticket. Meanwhile, according to public reports, Trump’s support among union voters nationally has been in decline, even in parts of the country considered to be more conservative than the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The New England Labor for Biden-Harris online event has been organized by union members across the region along with host and emcee Mayor Marty Walsh in order to voice support for the Biden-Harris ticket and to amplify the ways in which a Biden-Harris administration will support working class people, the right to organize, and the ability of workers to have a better life with a strong voice at work through their unions.