By Terri Mast

IBU National Secretary-Treasurer

The Convention passed a resolution supporting the Working Families Party and the concept of fusion voting. However, many delegates had misunderstandings about what these two things are.

The Working Families Party was founded in 1998 in New York by a coalition of labor and community based organizations including the Northeast regions of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), locals of the garment and hotels workers’ union (UNITE HERE), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and Citizen Action. The Working Families Party is also endorsed by the AFL-CIO. Its legislative agenda includes universal healthcare, rent regulation, a living wage and closing the income gap through progressive legislation. Its overall goal is to build a party that will attract blue-collar Republicans and liberal Democrats as well as the growing numbers of independent voters.

Fusion voting is a strategy used by the Working Families Party. It allows candidates to run as the nominee of more than one political party for any public office. The votes that each candidate receives are tallied by party and then combined. The combined vote has been effective in the states where it has been used by pushing the margin of victory over what it would have been if the candidate had run only as a Democrat or Republican.

This is an incentive for politicians to be Working Families Party candidates because they can see where the winning votes came from. The Working Families Party and fusion voting will give labor an opportunity to gain votes from the places we have been loosing them, such as the Republican Party and Independent candidates. It will also give us an opportunity to hold political candidates accountable to our issues. To be a Working Families Party candidate a politician will have to sign onto our agenda, and when they are in office and don’t hold true to it, we will have the power to rescind our affiliation with them the next time around.

The Working Families Party has expanded to Connecticut and Oregon. They are now gathering signatures to place an initiative to legalize fusion voting in Oregon and there are plans for the Working Families Party to do the same in Washington in 2007.