ST. LOUIS -- African American community leaders Shuron Jones and Akeem Shannon have been knocking on doors day-in and day-out for months now.
Jones is the secretary of the Ward 15 Democrats. Shannon is a member of the Communications Workers' Union of America (CWA) Local 6300.
Both are members of the St. Louis Workers' Education Society (WES) and are currently staffing the WES Votes voter registration campaign.
With the Missouri August primaries right around the corner, WES is feeling optimistic about voter engagement and registration in the region it covers, which includes the communities in Wards 8, 9, 15 and 20.
Building local networks
As a 501(c)3 non-profit, WES cannot endorse candidates, but it can register and educate voters, which lead to the creation of the WES Votes campaign.
"Voter engagement and turnout is abysmally low in St. Louis, especially in working class, African American communities," Jones told the People's World.
"However," she added, "this isn't because people don't care. It's because they feel like no one listens."
"We are trying to challenge the cynicism. We are trying to register, educate and activate, while also building WES' base."
Undoubtedly, the Workers' Education Society wants to see higher turn-out in the up-coming August primary and November general election. But its goals aren't altruistic. WES also wants to build a network of community leaders who are ready to fight for working families in St. Louis, and to hold elected officials accountable.
In the two-short years since its founding and the purchase of its headquarters (at 2929 S. Jefferson Ave.), WES has built a robust and active network of community partners, collaborated with the Painters District Council 58 sponsored an Advanced Skills Workforce Center, grown to a membership of over 600, a monthly sustainer base of nearly 100 and has received on-going generous financial support from a number of unions - including IBEW Local 1439, SMART Local 36, Laborers' Local 110, SEIU Local 1, Painters' District Council 58 and the Operating Engineers' Local 148.
"The Workers' Education Society is unique in the non-profit world," WES secretary-treasurer Don Giljum said. "We are entirely self-sustaining. We receive absolutely no grant or foundation money. We are entirely funded by our members, sustainers, supporters and union allies - people and organizations who see a direct benefit from the work that we do."
A community-labor coalition
Giljum, the former business manager for Operating Engineers' (IUOE) Local 148, is no stranger to labor-community collaboration. He led Local 148 for 27 years, while helping to build a number of grassroots labor-community organizations like Jobs with Justice and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care.
WES purchased its headquarters from IUOE 148 in September of 2014.
"People want to be a part of what we are doing because we are strategic, and have tactical, long-term plans for activism in our service communities," Niles Zee, a Ward 8 leader, said.
For example, last year WES helped increase voter turnout in Ward 20 by nearly fifty percent (compared to prior off-year ward elections). Cara Spencer, the new Alderwomen, has championed increasing the City minimum wage to $11 per-hour, fighting for workers' rights and reigning-in payday loan companies and their obscene interest rates.
Job training-and political education
"Voter engagement and registration is a central part of our mission," Zee added. "On-going adult worker-education is another part of our mission, which is partly why we've partnered with the Advanced Skills Workforce Center."
Last year the Painters' District Council 58 sponsored Advanced Skills Workforce Center (ASWC) was created. ASWC's goal is to specifically identify women and people of color from low-income communities for pre-apprenticeship training in the painting industry.
"Last year we graduated forty-five African American men out of our training program," Steve Wayland, director of business development for DC 58, said. "Nearly ninety percent of those graduates were placed with union contractors and are now members of the Painters' Union."
The ASWC program has graduated eight participants so-far this year. The summer program started in early July. On Tuesday's and Thursdays, WES facilitates labor history and political education classes with the ASWC participants.
"Part of our curriculum includes connecting union members to elected officials and candidates," Giljum said. "We want ASWC participants to have a direct link to the folks who represent them."
Labor-backed candidate Peter Merideth (80th District) and Bruce Franks (78th District) both addressed ASWC participants this spring as part of the WES Votes campaign.
Merideth, a life-long resident of the Shaw community, former neighborhood association president and lawyer, has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, as well as the St. Louis Central Labor Council, IBEW 1349, IUOE 148, the Painters' DC 58, Laborers 110 and Firefighters 73, among many others.
"Good paying, union jobs are the backbone of our communities. When unions are strong, our communities thrive," Merideth told the PW. "The Painters' and WES are confronting the challenge of unemployment, especially among African Americans, head-on. Their training program is a model that should be duplicated everywhere."
WES Votes will continue registering voters until the October deadline.
"We hope to dramatically increase voter registration and engagement in our concentration areas as we head into the August primary and November general election."
"To us, voter registration and engagement, political education, and union training classes are all connected," Jones continued. "They are all part of a larger effort to build workers' power here in St. Louis. We are trying to redefine labor-community worker-education for the long-haul."
"This is what non-traditional organizing looks like," Jones concluded, as she headed off to register more voters. "This is what democracy looks like."
Photo: WES organizer Adam Rosen talks with a community member named Val. | Workers Education Society
