Why I Walk

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/15/why-i-walk/

Why I Walk

It’s not easy getting out of bed on a weekend morning to spend your day going door to door talking with union members about the importance of voting. Eileen Toback, AFL-CIO political organizer/Voice@Work campaign, spent her third weekend with dozens of union activists in Northern Virginia and describes why volunteering valuable free time is hard—but necessary.

Why do union members and their families get up on Saturday mornings to visit other union members’ houses? They have the same inclination to want to sleep in on the weekend or get the long list of personal errands done. So why did 130 people from Virginia come out this past Saturday to knock on more than 1,800 union household doors?

When people ask me that question, I think about how I will be helping inform union members and their families about the upcoming election and our endorsed candidates who are fighting for health care access and improving our children’s education. At stake this election are dozens of state legislative races, and we have the opportunity to take back the state Legislature for working families.

And then I go out on the neighborhood walks.

I meet and talk to the union families and I hear their stories about working harder every year just to keep from falling behind and how they wonder how their children will ever be able to do as well as they have, let alone dream about doing better. I am reminded that it really is about my brothers and my sisters—and their families—OUR family, having a say in our future; having a chance at getting ahead and not fighting so hard just to break even.

FULL story at link.