A Few Words from President McEntee

A Monumentally Important Victory

Sisters and brothers:

Last night we won a monumentally historic victory when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive health care reform bill by a vote of 219-212.

1. Working together, we made it happen. In the days leading up to the vote, we executed a union-wide grassroots, grasstops and communications campaign that achieved the following:

2. Nearly 10,000 contacts to Congress. Aided by an aggressive robo and live call operation in our targeted districts, AFSCME members braved jammed phone lines and placed thousands of calls to Congress and backed them up with thousands emails.

3. Nearly 7,000 retiree calls. AFSCME sponsored a retiree patch through operation in cooperation with the Alliance for Retired Americans, with a message of closing the prescription drug donut hole.

4. More than 40 AFSCME grasstops contacts. In the days leading up to the vote, I joined more than 40 AFSCME statewide and local union leaders and staff to call and write targeted members of Congress armed with talking points on specific issues, including the excise tax and abortion.

5. Targeted advertising and branding. AFSCME executed a major television ad campaign with HCAN and Americans United, which ran in targeted districts and in DC during the run up to the vote. We also launched an aggressive online ad campaign to generate calls to Congress from the netroots.

This week, AFSCME will join HCAN to launch a major television ad campaign in key Democratic districts to assure our friends who took tough votes that we have their backs. And we will conduct grassroots work to ensure that the final, simple-majority vote in the U.S. Senate goes our way.

But though our work continues, let’s take a moment to savor this historic victory – and the lead role AFSCME played to secure it.