For CWA Member, It’s All About the Sale
By Shannon Vavra, By Our Hands Contributor
Sue Mure can see straight through any sales pitch when it comes to politics. After all, she makes pitches every day as a service representative at AT&T in Michigan.
“I can ignore the soundbites and everything else,” Sue said. She gets right down to the policies and the values that candidates represent. Sue said one way to tell which candidate is the right person for the job is by looking at his or her past. Based on this metric, Sue is voting for Hillary Clinton in November.
“I like her history, and when I say history I mean from the beginning,” Sue said. “I’m talking about when she was in her early 20s, before the spotlight hit her. She was in the nitty gritty, helping students with disabilities and fighting to stop discrimination. That tells you about the core person and what they’re willing to do.”
Sue has been a member of the Communications Workers of America union (CWA) for 27 years, so she also knows the importance of standing together for benefits, good wages and safety on the job.
“Unity always gets you a better outcome,” she said. “The more people are together, the better you stand a chance.”
Even so, one of the reasons she believes this election is so important is the divide between the wealthiest Americans and the working class.
“For the most part I think we got lost in the shuffle of everybody fighting for their own best interest at the top,” she said.
Sue said the most pressing issues for her are the vacancy on the Supreme Court, workers’ rights, and trade. As a service representative, she is very concerned about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its potential for outsourcing.
“You kind of live under the fact that at the drop of a hat my job could be gone, and it could be moved overseas,” Sue said.
Sue has voted for both parties in the past, so long as they had labor’s best interests at heart.
“I’m not voting against Trump because he’s Republican,” Sue said. “I’m voting against him because he makes no damn sense. He gives no substance. He gives no policy.”
Donald Trump’s position on trade doesn’t add up either, particularly after he’s outsourced jobs at his companies for decades, she said. If he really cared about trade deals and the consequences for workers, Trump “should have brought his work back to the States,” she continued.
For Sue, Election Day provides the opportunity to cut through the spin, the rhetoric, and the political sales pitches — and vote.
“I want the substance. I want the job done.”
