PEP March 2005: Editorial, Lillian Roberts: Helping our own, fighting for our members


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Public Employee Press

Helping our own, fighting for our members

By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

Black History Month at DC 37 always leaves me with mixed emotions. The celebrations of the heroes, culture and progress of my people — and one of the major groups in our union — are always uplifting. The top-notch presentations of the Black History Committee and the locals are meaningful to members of all backgrounds, because the pain and triumphs of black history have helped create America’s economy and history.

I am very proud that District Council 37 offers members a more extensive Black History Month agenda than any other union, and I personally participate in most of the events. For me, as a black woman, it’s a month of reflection — about where we have been, where we are today and where we are going.

I am saddened to see that we have lost ground in recent years, and to realize that everything we have gained can be snatched away by those who want to concentrate wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands.

But that’s the cruel reality we face:

A few years ago, none of us imagined that most important achievement of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal — Social Security — would be endangered. With less private retirement income and fewer inheritances, African Americans depend on Social Security more than others (see page 7). President Bush’s privatization plan would hit us harder by draining funds from the current system.
A study released recently by David Jones, head of the Community Service Society, shows that barely half (52 percent) of the black men in New York City were employed in 2003. Long-term unemployment creates terrible personal and family suffering, which can lead to the crime, drug use and separation “that many New Yorkers believe are part of the bad old days,” said Mr. Jones.
According to the United for a Fair Economy report, “State of the Dream 2005,” nearly half of the recent progress in the median income of people of color was wiped out from 2000-2003. Since 2000, about 300,000 African American families have fallen below the poverty line.

I am also saddened that we recently lost two of the greats, actor and activist Ossie Davis, and Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in Congress.

Mr. Davis paved the way for generations of black performers, emceed the 1963 March on Washington with his wife and acting partner Ruby Dee, eulogized Dr. King and Malcolm X, and never wavered in his lifelong commitment to working people and civil rights. Ms. Chisholm, “unbought and unbossed,” was the first woman to seek the Democratic nomination for president. She blazed a trail for women in politics and many women in union leadership. We mourn both of them, but their inspiration and their strong values of work and struggle for social justice live on for us and for younger generations.

Ms. Chisholm, born to immigrant parents, a factory worker father and a domestic worker mother, got an education and taught before moving into politics.

Mr. Davis found solace from the poverty of his preaching family in school, where he loved to read Shakespeare.

Despite the many reasons for gloom, I am optimistic as we face the future together because we have a union that is unexcelled in leading the fight for justice and pushing open the doors of opportunity.

Like Ms. Chisholm and Mr. Davis, DC 37 members can reach their own destiny through education. Our Education Fund, which I founded in the 1960s, has helped thousands to get high school diplomas and advance on the job. Many members go to college at the union, and some have become lawyers and doctors.

Taking the fight to Washington
At DC 37, we also provide counseling for the troubled; legal services for those with landlord, matrimonial, consumer and other problems; quality representation in grievances and contract negotiations; and Health and Security Plan benefits that help with the cost of drugs, eyeglasses and dental work.

We help our own and we defend our own. When massive layoffs were threatened in 2003, we rallied 30,000 strong at City Hall and we saved most of those jobs. Our continuing battle to preserve the civil service system safeguards this vital gateway to the middle class, and this year I have made a campaign for affordable housing for members a high priority.

We are going to have to take some of today’s issues to Washington — the impossibly high drug prices that threaten our benefits, the attack on Social Security, the White House plan to cut health care and education, and the immoral war that is killing our young and bleeding our economy.

The labor movement means black and white together, working together and fighting together. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. And that is why I can face the future with optimism.