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MORE INFORMATION Nickel and Dimed, on (not) getting by in America; Barbara Ehrenreich, Granta Books. It can be ordered online here. seiu.org Website of the Service Employees International Union, which has 1.7 million members in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, working as nurses, doctors, social service workers, building cleaners, police and corrections officers, librarians, head start employees, maintenance workers, lab technicians, nurse assistants, and more. The union's Fight for the Future campaign can be found here. afl-cio.org Website of the AFL-CIO, the US equivalent of the TUC, representing 13 million workers in 60 unions. It was formed in 1955 by the merger of the American Federation of Labour and the Congress of Industrial Organisations

The US goes to the polls on 2 November to elect a new president. Anne Dixey looks at the involvement of US unions - and the issues at stake for them - in the campaign

Heroes of labour

Dolores Sands is a hero in the eyes of her trade union in the US. And that's official. This may seem like typical American hyperbole, but the fact remains that Dolores and her 2,000 fellow "heroes" make up a campaigning army that has never been seen in the history of US politics.

In the largest non-party effort by a single organisation in a national election, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is spending $65m to send workers like Dolores to campaign full time in 14 battleground states in the run-up to the presidential election.

The union-paid volunteers have taken leave from their jobs as health workers, cleaners and janitors to knock on doors, register voters and staff phone banks. Their aim? To defeat George W Bush and put John Kerry in the White House.

Dolores, a 46-year-old nursing home assistant from Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, joined up after seeing her healthcare coverage eroded and her nephew sent to war in Iraq. Her concerns are echoed by union members around the country.

What is different about Dolores is that she is a lifelong Republican who raised her three children to support the party. At the last election she voted for George W Bush.

"I am upset with the way the country has been going with the war, jobs and what he has done to the unions," she says. "I have never had this bad a time, personally, as I have had over the last four years with George Bush as President."

She changed allegiance to the Democrats after becoming more active in her union, over concerns that care for the elderly was being under funded. It is a decision that has split her family but, she says, "I just felt that I needed to do something to try and make a change" .

The union's plan is to make sure its own members and their families are registered to vote and to help others in the labour movement do the same and reach out to workers in the swing states. "We believe that when workers talk to workers, they can convince them to act," says SEIU secretary-treasurer Anna Burger.

Between April and election day on 2 November, they aim to have made more than six million contacts with voters in key states. Unions spoke to Democratic presidential candidates even before John Kerry got the nomination. He now has most of their support, not because he is a Democrat, but because he stands by their main aims of health care for all and a free voice for the union movement.

The American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), made up of 60 unions representing 13 million people from teachers to teamsters, is also reporting record numbers of volunteers.

On 2 September, Labour Day, the AFL-CIO organised the largest single-day election mobilisation in the union movement's history. More than 15,000 union members and leaders went door to door to talk with a million union households across the country.

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said as he campaigned in Missouri: "The prolonged jobs crisis tears at the fabric of America's middle class. Never before have working people been so energised about an election."

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, agrees that times are hard for many of America's 140 million workers.

"It is pretty bad. This is the first presidential administration since the Great Depression where we have had a net loss of jobs. It has not happened for 70 years. Even for those people lucky enough to be employed, wages are not rising in real terms."

The reason, he believes, is a combination of redistribution of income through taxes, and the steady erosion of collective bargaining rights. And with only 13% of workers belonging to a union - down from 20% in 1983 - the movement is fighting for survival.

"A whole union-busting industry has grown up over the last 30 years," says retired Democrat congressman David Bonior. "In 75% of organising drives, employers will hire law firm unionbusters. It drags out elections and there is often illegal behaviour. We have seen a green light for the corporate world to go after workers."

Mr Bonior, a politician during the terms of six different presidents, is now professor of labour studies at Wayne State University in Detroit and chair of the charity American Rights at Work.

"The loss of jobs in the industrial mid-west is staggering. There is a fear among people out there that they are going to be next," he says.

"Since 1996 there has been no increase in the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. It is immoral. People are paid below the poverty level. Ten million people are getting the minimum wage. They have to work two or three jobs and are not around for their kids. It is a terrible situation."

But will things really be different with John Kerry in the White House?

"It is hopeful," David Bonior says, "but it is not a robust hope." For his part, Mark Weisbrot believes Kerry's pledges to turn the situation around are deliverable.

Dolores Sands, who has given up four months of her life to campaign for John Kerry, doesn't think he will solve all the country's problems. But she does believe he will makes things better. And she says that, for now, is enough.

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