Gwen Mills is the international president of UNITE HERE, the hospitality workers union. Before becoming the union’s first-ever female president earlier this year, she served as secretary-treasurer and political director, overseeing UNITE HERE’s swing state field canvass programs.
I’m not anxious about the results of the election.
Don’t get me wrong, as the leader of a union of 275,000 hospitality workers in this
country, the outcome in November will have massive implications for us. Will we spend
the next four years on defense, fending off attack after attack as Trump and his allies
attempt to crush unions, deport our immigrant members, and take away women’s
rights? Or will we be able to stay on offense, with a Harris administration that enables
us to focus on improving wages and working conditions in the hospitality industry?
We could spend a lot of time trying to read the tea leaves on races that are within the
margin of error. Or instead of being anxious, we can instead focus our energy on the
margin of effort. My union, UNITE HERE, is choosing the latter.
UNITE HERE is running the largest independent labor-led canvass operation in the
country. Over 1,650 housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, concessions workers, and
more have already knocked on over 3 million doors. By election day, we’ll be more than
2,000 strong, aiming to hit at least 3.5 million doors in ten key battlegrounds.
Close elections are won or lost on the ground. Billions of dollars will be poured into the
airwaves, generating a cacophony of noise that many voters are desperate to tune out.
The answer to cutting through the noise? A real person, from your community, knocking
on your door to have a face-to-face conversation. It’s old-fashioned, lowercase “d”
democracy. Neighbors talking to neighbors about the issues in their daily lives.
We’re not your typical paid canvass. Our own union members—workers who are
leaders among their co-workers, who know how to organize—take a leave of absence
from their jobs to work full-time as canvassers. Every day, they’re out in their
communities talking to other working-class voters with similar demographics about real
kitchen table issues.
When our members, predominantly women of color and immigrants, knock on their
neighbors’ doors, they bring a unique credibility. Through cycles of investment in real
door-to-door organizers, we win elections, and we build the movement needed to push
the winners to deliver for working people.
For that reason, our canvassing program is about more than the immediate election.
When we knock on doors in Philadelphia, our first question in hard-hit neighborhoods is:
“Do you have a job?” We open the conversation with what’s really on their mind, and
connect people to hospitality training opportunities, pathways to a good union job. And
we discuss politics and get out the vote.
Gregory Moody was born and raised in North Philadelphia. He joined our hospitality
training program in 2022 and was trained as a cook. He was then hired at the stadiums
and became a member of UNITE HERE Local 274. Earlier this year he went on strike
with his coworkers to fight for fair wages, health benefits, and respect. Now he’s
applying the organizing skills he learned with the union to canvassing full-time for
Harris, talking to his neighbors about their future.
Nancy Chávez is a dishwasher at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and a member of Culinary
Workers Union UNITE HERE Local 226. She’s a leader among her coworkers, and
she’s knocking on doors, talking to her neighbors about the economy and the fact that
Latinos can make the difference in this election.
Kearra Rosales, a member of UNITE HERE Local 11, works alongside her aunt and
grandmother at the Downtown Doubletree in Los Angeles as a front desk agent. Last
year she went on strike to protect healthcare and secure her grandmother's access to
insulin. Now she’s knocking doors in Tucson for Kamala Harris to improve healthcare
access in working class communities.
The ground game is often dismissed, seen as a last-ditch effort. It shows in the $165
million fundraising shortfall that grassroots groups are facing. But when elections are
this close, canvassers like Gregory, Nancy, and Kearra can make the critical difference
with voters who share their experiences and are on the fence about who to vote for, or
whether to vote at all.
In 2020, Democrats won the decisive states of Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania by
just 124,608 votes combined. UNITE HERE mobilized over 440,000 infrequent voters to
vote for Biden, including 125,000 who had not voted in the previous presidential
election. In Nevada and Arizona, the number of these voters exceeded the margin of
victory. That is the margin of effort.
So in these final six days, don’t sit around fretting about the polls. Go knock on some
doors, or support groups that are.