Weekend Warriors Get Out the Vote to Dump Trump

October 18, 2016

It was the Fight for $15 campaign that first attracted Beverly Miller to political action. She saw how effective activism could be. Miller now works at the Rosewood Gardens Rehabilitation Center in Rensselaer, NY. It’s her fear of a Donald Trump presidency that motivated her to sign up as a Weekend Warrior and get out the vote for Hillary Clinton.

Miller lost her father to a gun violence when she was just two years old; he was killed in a robbery. Closing gun control loopholes is a very important to her.

“Hillary Clinton cares about the country as a whole, not just one group of people. I feel that Donald Trump is bringing back the old ways of hate to the US. He is dividing us when we should be as one,” she says. Miller also dislikes Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants.

"I know that Clinton is going to finish what Obama started"

- Bridget Duncan, patient care tech

“The US is a melting pot,” she said, “That is what makes us great. How can he say he wants to get rid of immigrants when the country is built on immigrants?”

Mark Criswell, who works as a CNA at the Palmetto General Hospital in Florida, comes from a non-union family. But once 1199SEIU organized his hospital he began to recognize the value of political action and became a union delegate. Criswell has been an active member of the Fight For15 campaign in Florida. Miami Beach’s minimum wage went up in June.

“We still have a long way to go in Florida, but it is a good start,” says Criswell of the victory. It is very important that people vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, says Criswell, to build on these accomplishments.

“Donald Trump thinks the minimum wage is too high,” he says incredulously.

In New York City, Stephanie Alleyne a longtime delegate at Mount Sinai Medical Center has seen the power of 1199SEIU members’ activism. Alleyne, who has worked as a Mental Health Associate at Mount Sinai for 28 years.

A delegate for the past 15 years, Alleyne signed up to be a Weekend Warrior for the first time in since the year 2000, when Al Gore ran for President. Last week she took the 1199SEIU bus to Ohio to knock on doors for Hillary Clinton.

“I came to the U.S. from Trinidad and immigration reform is really important to me,” says Alleyne, “There are some people who are here so long and never get a chance to get their papers. I know that Clinton is going to finish what Obama started. This is one of the many reasons I love Hillary.”