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Philadelphia rally energizes union volunteers for massive Pennsylvania GOTV effort

Photo: Tiffany Ricci/ AFSCME
Philadelphia rally energizes union volunteers for massive Pennsylvania GOTV effort
By Pablo Ros ·
Tags: Priorities Politics and Elections Health Care Workers' Rights
Philadelphia rally energizes union volunteers for massive Pennsylvania GOTV effort

PHILADELPHIA – The exuberant crowd at a union rally here on Saturday to get out the vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was keenly aware of at least three things that rally speakers touched on:

AFSCME President Lee Saunders told the hundreds of union volunteers that if they continued to knock on doors through Nov. 5, election victory would be ours.

“I’ve been in Pennsylvania for the past couple of days. And let me tell you something — I’m feeling excitement. I’m feeling engagement. I’m feeling that if we do what we know we can do, if we knock on doors, if we talk to our members in our communities across this state, we will win on Tuesday!” Saunders said to cheers from the fired-up crowd.

“It’s going to take all of us working together for the next three days,” Saunders added. “We know how important it is to knock on those doors and have those conversations.”

The rally at Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 19 gave union leaders an opportunity to energize hundreds of get-out-the-vote volunteers who are helping to win the election for the pro-worker Harris-Walz ticket. Many of them have been knocking on doors in Philadelphia-area neighborhoods and nearby communities for weeks or months.

The Saturday rally was part of a multistate voter outreach initiative by the nation’s four largest public service labor unions — AFSCME, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Launched in October, the initiative is helping to turn out voters in key battleground states.

“Labor is going to be the difference maker in this election,” Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, said at the rally.

April Verrett, president of SEIU, thanked the volunteers for their tireless efforts turning out the vote.

“Thank you, Philadelphia, not just for being the birthplace of our democracy, but for being the place that helps to save our democracy,” she said.

NEA President Becky Pringle said Harris and Walz “have always had the backs of unions, and we will have their backs.”

“When you think you can’t knock on one more door, I need you to keep plugging away,” she added.

Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, said the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that took away women’s reproductive rights in 2022 was the first time in modern history when freedom was diminished rather than expanded.

“All of a sudden our kids and grandkids … have fewer rights than we do,” she said. “They will not grow up with the rights we had.”

In saying so, she touched on another rally theme and rallying cry: that while Donald Trump and his dangerous Project 2025 threaten to take away many of our hard-won freedoms, we are not going back.

“We can win this!” Weingarten said. “I feel it!”

Speakers also included the James Williams Jr., the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT); Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); as well as several union members and Pennsylvania elected officials.

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