The first time retired papermaker Linda Deane went out canvassing door-to-door she went with the late Dan Lawson, a labor champion and USW political organizer during the 2014 gubernatorial election. That year, Lawson’s USW team contacted about 40,000 so-called “drop off” voters, who don’t normally vote in midterm elections.
For Deane, who is a retired member of USW 900 and also the President of the Western Maine Labor Council, her number one reason for doing campaign outreach was to prevent former Governor Paul LePage from making Maine a “right-to-work” state. As a dogged and fearless campaigner, Lawson was the perfect mentor.
“I was nervous at first, but he took me under his wing and I’d follow him,” Deane recalled. “For a little while I’d listen to him talk and then finally I got up the courage to knock on a door and start talking to people. It wasn’t all that bad. Just tell them why you think it’s important to vote and what the candidates have done to help labor. Most of the time you get pretty good responses.”
Although LePage won that year, enough pro-labor legislators were elected to stop his anti-worker agenda.
Deane’s door rap is pretty simple. She introduces herself as a USW member, asks if the resident is planning to vote, provides a flier detailing pro-labor candidates we have endorsed and asks if they have any questions. This gives her the opportunity to debunk some of the lies they may be hearing in political ads. Often, union members thank her for doing the work.
“I remember this one older woman who asked me a lot of pertinent questions and I really felt that she was going to vote for the person we were supporting because someone came and answered her questions,” said Deane. “I walked away and thought, ‘wow. I really made a difference with this woman.’ And that happens more often than you’d think.”
Her only complaint about these campaigns is that they aren’t done more frequently to engage and inform union voters instead of just once every two years. This year, Deane says her biggest reason for knocking on doors is to protect democracy.
“Democracy is my driving purpose. If we don’t make some changes we are going to lose any sense of democracy in this country,” she said. “I also don’t want to have to fight “right to work” every other week down at the State House. I want to get some other laws put through.”
The Maine AFL-CIO's Labor 2022 political program is getting rolling. Would you be up for joining a door to door canvass talking to other union members? If you are interested, let Sarah at maineaflcio dot org know.