Public Employee Press

2012 ELECTION
AFSCME president at DC 37
"Get out the vote!"

Lee Saunders, the recently elected president of DC 37's parent union, visited District Council 37 on Sept. 24 and addressed the delegates' monthly meeting.

Saunders thanked the delegates for their support in June at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees convention in California, where he was elected to lead the 1.4 million-member union.

"Now it's time to come together as one union," he said at the beginning of the meeting.

Saunders also laid out the AFSCME strategy to help President Barack Obama get re-elected in November.

"We will have boots on the ground in several of the swing states, like Florida and Ohio," he said, referring to the thousands of union activists who will be mobilized to go door-to-door to help get out the vote for Obama.

He also criticized Republicans for trying to turn the United States into a "right to work for less country."

Saunders told the delegates that they should not rest until the members of Local 2021, who worked at the city's off track betting parlors, get the retirement benefits they are entitled to.

At AFSCME, he introduced plans for a coalition- based initiative that would reach out to communities beyond the labor movement.

"It's important to reach out to them because they are feeling the same pain that we are," said Saunders, who also has set up a nationwide pension task force, whose members include DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

—Alfredo Alvarado

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