What Could You Win?

The Grand Prize winner will receive:

Videos will be judged in several categories, including age and geographical location. Turn Around America tour cities and/or states with separate competitions include:

  • Chicago, IL
  • Cincinnati, OH
  • Cleveland, OH
  • Columbus, OH
  • Denver, CO
  • Detroit, MI
  • Maine
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • New Hampshire
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • Pittsburgh, PA
  • Portland, OR
  • Rochester, MN
  • St. Louis, MO
  • St. Paul, MN

All winners will be announced on the no later than June 24, 2008.

Official Rules

AFL-CIO
“Turn Around America: An Online Video Competition”

Official Rules

Sponsor:

“Turn Around America: An Online Video Competition” (the “Competition”) is seeking online video submissions that answer the following questions: “How can we turn around what most of us agree is our country's wrong-headed direction? What's not working? What changes would you like to see? How do we get it done?” Videos will be judged in the following categories (see descriptions below):

  • Grand Prize
  • Young Activist
  • Tour Cities
  • Our America


The Competition is sponsored by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (“AFL-CIO”), 815 16th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006.

Timing:

The Competition will commence accepting videos at 9:00 a.m. (EDT) Thursday, April 10, 2008 and will conclude at 5:00 p.m. (EDT) Tuesday, June 10, 2008.

Online voting for the “Our America” award will begin at 9:00 a.m. (EDT) Friday, June 13, 2008 and will conclude at 5:00 p.m. (EDT) Thursday, June 19, 2008.

Winning entries in all categories will be announced online no later than Tuesday, June 24, 2008.

Eligibility:

The Competition is open to residents of the United States, including the District of Columbia and its Territories, who are 14 years of age or older as of April 1, 2008, and are or become registered users of http://www.youtube.com (“the You Tube Site”). To become a registered user of the YouTube Site, you must register for an account and agree to the YouTube Site’s ”Terms of Use” set forth at http://www.youtube.com/t/terms (“Terms of Use”). There is no fee or charge to become a registered user of the YouTube Site. All video submissions must comply with the YouTube Site’s “YouTube Community Guidelines” set forth at http://youtube.com/t/community_guidelines (“Code of Conduct”).

Employees, officers, directors, agents, representatives and independent contractors (and their immediate family members and members of the same households, whether related or not) of the AFL-CIO, Jasculca Terman & Associates (“JT”), The Balsera Communications Group (“Balsera”), YouTube, and the Competition judges, are not eligible to participate or win a prize. The Competition is subject to all federal, state and local laws and regulations and is void where prohibited by law or regulation. By participating in this Competition, each Participant agrees to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to the Competition. The Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any participant that it determines, in its sole discretion, is ineligible to participate in the Competition.

All entries must include a valid e-mail address for the entrant. In the event of a dispute as to the identity or eligibility of a winner, the winning entry will be declared made by the "Authorized Account Holder" [defined as the natural person who is assigned to the email address by an Internet Access provider, online service provider, or other organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.)] of the email address submitted at the time of the entry.

Submission Requirements:

Entries must be submitted on the www.turnaroundvideocontest.com website after video is uploaded through the YouTube Site. In order to complete your entry, you must provide the information requested on the www.turnaroundvideocontest.com website submission form. Entrants who fail to provide the requested information by the contest deadline of 5:00 p.m. (EDT) Tuesday, June 10, 2008, for whatever reason, including failure to receive the automatically generated e-mail, will not be eligible. The AFL-CIO’s privacy policy applies to the use of personal information that you submit. The AFL-CIO’s privacy policy can be found at http://www.aflcio.org/siteguides/privacypolicy.cfm.

Your video needs to answer the following questions: “How can we turn around what most of us agree is our country's wrong-headed direction? What's not working? What changes would you like to see? How do we get it done?” Your video entry may answer these questions through any visual expression, including song, poetry, speech, and/or comedy, as long as your entry is in the form of a video. There is a limit of one entry per participant. Video entries are not eligible if they:

  1. Are deemed irrelevant, profane, pornographic, violent, offensive, potentially libelous or inflammatory.
  2. Contain copyrighted materials not owned by the entrant and used without permission, or use the logo or trademark of a company or other third party without permission, such as photographs, artwork, images, symbols, brand names, music, lyrics, video clips, text and other materials, regardless of whether they are available online.
  3. Contain unauthorized images of identifiable people, invade someone’s privacy, reveal confidential information, or otherwise violate third party rights without permission.
  4. Reference any political person, party, candidate, corporation, association or other legal entity in any way.
  5. Disparage the Sponsor.
  6. Are more than 3½ minutes in length.


The AFL-CIO, JT, and Balsera will review all entries and will only allow the posting on the Competition’s website of videos that conform with these Official Rules, including the Submission Requirements and Eligibility rules and the Code of Conduct, as determined by the Sponsor and its agents, in their sole discretion. Non-conforming entries, as determined in the sole discretion of the Sponsor and its agents, will be disqualified from the Competition and will not appear on the Competition website. Decisions of the Sponsor and its agents are final and binding. The person who submits the entry, or, in the case of a minor, the person’s parent or legal guardian, is deemed both the owner and entrant, and accepts all responsibilities for the video and for the consequences of posting and publishing the video, and represents that he/she owns or otherwise has the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to post and publish the video.

Judging:

AFL-CIO, JT, and Balsera will choose up to 30 videos from all eligible video entries to be finalists for the Our America award, based on the overall impact, originality and creativity in answering the stated questions. The AFL-CIO, JT, and Balsera will select up to 30 finalists for each of the other competition categories; the winners for each of these categories will be selected by the Competition’s panel of judges, listed on www.turnaroundvideocontest.com, who are filmmakers, directors, actors, media consultants, playwrights, and other media industry professionals.

Winners will be selected from the finalists for the following categories:

  1. Grand Prize. Entries will be judged on the overall impact, originality, and creativity in answering the stated questions, to be determined at the discretion of the AFL-CIO, JT, Balsera, and the Competition’s panel of judges. One winner will be selected for this category.
  2. Young Activist. Entries will be judged on the overall impact, originality, and creativity in answering the stated questions, to be determined at the discretion of the AFL-CIO, JT, Balsera, and the Competition’s panel of judges. This category is only open to eligible entrants between the ages of 14 and 25 (as of April 1, 2008). One winner will be selected for this category.
  3. Tour Cities: One winner will be selected from each of up to ten cities where the AFL-CIO will be making a tour stop, with the list of cities to be determined by the Sponsor, in its sole discretion. Tour Cities are listed at www.turnaroundvideocontest.com and are subject to change at the sole discretion of the Sponsor. Entries for this category will be judged on the overall impact, originality, and creativity in answering the stated questions, to be determined at the discretion of AFL-CIO, JT, Balsera, and the Competition’s panel of judges. To be eligible for consideration of a Tour Cities award, the entrant must live within 50 miles from the tour stop city’s center for that city, as defined by Google maps. Judges for the Tour Cities category will include media industry professionals from the relevant metropolitan areas.
  4. Our America Award. From the up to 30 finalist videos selected by the AFL-CIO, JT, and Balsera, in their sole discretion, based on the overall impact, originality, and creativity in answering the stated questions, one winner will be selected by online voters; the video with the most votes during the online voting period will be deemed the winner. The AFL-CIO will post the Our America video finalists at www.turnaroundvideocontest.com by June 13, 2008. Voting will be allowed from 9:00 am EDT June 13, 2008 through 5:00 pm June 19, 2008. Only one vote per email address will be accepted.


All finalists for the Our America award and all competition winners in the other categories will be required to execute an affidavit of eligibility, a release of any and all liability from any claims for damages, losses or injury against Sponsor and/or any of its agents or contractors and/or to third parties arising from use of the prizes and/or the video, and such other forms as the Sponsor may require. The parent or legal guardian of a minor entering the Competition will be required to execute the required documents described above. If any documents sent by any means to a finalist for the Our America award or a competition winner in any of the other categories are returned as undeliverable, or if such person for whatever reason fails to sign and return all required documents within the time specified by the Sponsor or is found not to be eligible or not in conformity with these Official Rules, at the sole discretion of the Sponsor, the finalist for the Our America award or competition winner in the other categories will be disqualified. The video of any disqualified entrant will not be eligible to participate in the Our America award voting and will not be eligible to win a prize in any category. In the event that the first place winning video in any category is disqualified for any reason, the prize will be awarded to the next runner-up who has not been disqualified.

Competition entrants who are selected as winners will be required to provide the AFL-CIO with a high-resolution version of their video.

The categories are not mutually exclusive and a video may be selected as the winner in more than one category.

Prizes may not be awarded for every category (and, in the case of the Tour Cities category, in every city) if, in the sole discretion of the AFL-CIO, JT, Balsera, and the Competition’s panel of judges, no eligible entry meets the requirements for that prize.

The winners for each category will be announced online at www.turnaroundvideocontest.com no later than June 24, 2008. Winners will be notified by mail, telephone, and/or email, at the Sponsor’s sole discretion.

Contest results may be obtained by sending a written request to info@turnaroundvideocontest.com after June 24, 2008.

The decisions of the Sponsor and the Competition judges are final with respect to all aspects of the Competition.

Prizes:

The winner of the Grand Prize category shall be awarded the following:

  1. $2,000 cash award.
  2. Broadcast of the winning video at AFL-CIO rallies.
  3. Broadcast of the winning video, in whole or in part, as part of a television advertisement.

The winner of the Young Activist category shall be awarded the following:

  1. $2000 cash award.
  2. Broadcast of the winning video at AFL-CIO rallies.
  3. Broadcast of the winning video, in whole or in part, as part of a television advertisement.

The winner from each Turn Around America Tour city shall be awarded the following:

  1. $1000 cash award.

The winning videos in the Tour Cities category may be broadcast at AFL-CIO rallies and/or broadcast as part of a television advertisement, as determined by the Sponsor.

The winner of the Our America category shall be awarded the following:

  1. Broadcast of the winning video on the Turn Around America and AFL-CIO websites.

Prizes are not transferable and no substitutions are allowed except by the Sponsor, who reserves the right to award a prize of equal or greater value if the advertised prize is unavailable. Winners may claim their prize via e-mail by sending an e-mail with their name, complete mailing address and phone number to info@turnaroundvideocontest.com or via regular mail to: AFL-CIO, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, Attn: Turn Around America Video Competition. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to the minor’s parent or legal guardian. Prizes that are not claimed by July 14, 2008 will not be awarded. All taxes and other expenses related to any prize are the responsibility of the winner.

Sponsor reserves the right to cancel the Competition, in whole or in part, in the event that an insufficient number of eligible entries are received, as determined in the sole discretion of the Sponsor.

Entrants agree that the broadcast of a winning entry in any form or manner has no monetary or other ascertainable value.

All entries become the property of AFL-CIO and will not be returned. By submitting a video for the Competition, each participant grants the AFL-CIO the right to use the video and the name of the entrant for any purpose, including, without limitation, the right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, and edit, modify and adapt the video, in any and all forms of media, including the right to sublicense, without having to obtain additional permission from the participant or grant any consideration apart from participation in the Competition.

Cost:

There is no cost to participate in the Competition. No purchase is necessary.

Rounds:

There will only be one round in this Competition.

Limitation of Liability:

If for any reason the Competition is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Competition, the Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual who tampers with the Competition, and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, entries. Sponsor is not responsible for problems or technical malfunctions of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, or computer equipment, software, failure of any e-mail to be sent from or received by the Sponsor on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to participant's or any other person's computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any materials in this Competition.

Sponsor does not warrant, endorse, guarantee or assume responsibility for the content of any video submitted for this Competition. Opinions expressed in the video entries are the personal opinions of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sponsor. The AFL-CIO may, but is under no obligation to, verify the information set forth in an entry prior to publication.

By participating in the Competition, each participant agrees to indemnify, defend and hold the Sponsor, JT and Balsera, their officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from any and all losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) (i) in connection with or resulting from participation in the Competition and/or acceptance, possession, or use of any prize(s) including, without limitation, personal injuries, death and property damages, and (ii) based on publicity rights, defamation, copyright, trademark, invasion of privacy, or any other violations of law. Entrants acknowledge that Sponsor is not responsible or liable for any warranty, representation, or guarantee, express or implied, in fact or in law, relative to any prize.

Jurisdiction:

Any dispute that may arise hereunder shall be brought solely in the appropriate state or federal court sitting in Washington, D.C., and participants consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue of such court.