Public Employee Press

AFSCME Convention
We fight, we win!

DC 37 delegates help launch new plan for organizing, politics and union power in the 21st century

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

Six thousand unionists from throughout the country and Puerto Rico added another page to Chicago’s legendary labor history when they united at AFSCME’s 37th International Convention and approved a bold new plan to build a more powerful union.

The Bush administration is “the most hostile for working people and public employees” he has seen in 50 years, AFSCME president Gerald W. McEntee told the delegates, alternates and guests at the convention, held Aug. 7-11 at the McCormick Center.

McEntee called on the delegates to fight the growing anti-worker forces by passing AFSCME’s 2lst Century Initiative. The initiative, created after a two-year, top-to-bottom evaluation of AFSCME, DC37’s national union, would transform the union by sharply increasing organizing and membership to gain strength at the workplace, and by building political power at the ballot box through increased membership involvement.

The massive strategic overhaul also includes creating a national leadership institute, raising the union’s army of political volunteers to 40,000, building a nationwide drive for universal health care and increasing dues by $3 per month, phased in over three years.

Roberts: “Future of the union”
AFSCME’s Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy commended the delegates for approving the initiative. “With your action, we will organize new members by the thousands to build a stronger union,” he said. “The success of this initiative is vital to the future of this union,” District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts told the 600-strong DC 37 delegation in a meeting on the eve of the convention.

President McEntee also acknowledged the thousands of union activists who fought efforts to privatize Social Security and handed George W. Bush the biggest defeat of his second term. “The Social Security campaign is a great example of what we can do together,” he said.

Jimmy Smits, the Emmy Award winning actor from the television series “The West Wing,” helped moderate the convention’s opening ceremonies. “I’m proud to be a member of three unions,” said the Brooklyn native. “But I’m most proud to be here with you. You all have the courage and vision to change the world.”

Smits bought up on stage several members who personified that courage and vision, among them Michael Mitchell. A member of Local 3805 (Council 17) in New Orleans, Mitchell captained a state-run ferry that brought 1,000 people to safety during Hurricane Katrina. “My national and local leaders abandoned me, but my union was there for me,” said Mitchell, who lost his home and turned to the AFSCME office in Baton Rouge for help.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama addressed the delegates at the opening ceremony and highlighted AFSCME’s 1968 Memphis sanitation strike. The 1,000 members of Local 1733 walked out over issues of equality and pay, got support from their community and Martin Luther King Jr., and won union recognition and a raise after King was assassinated. “Ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they work together. That’s what AFSCME is all about,” said Obama.

Sen. Hillary Clinton challenged delegates to take back Congress in November. “Now more than ever, we need to show up on Election Day to take our country back and put it on the right track,” she said. “No one can make the case better than you can!”

In addition to attending workshops, the delegates joined thousands of ­AFSCME members Aug. 9 in a rally in support of 9,000 workers from the Resurrection Health Care System in their four-year struggle to unionize.

The convention featured an interactive town hall meeting where delegates at 500 tables linked by laptop computers discussed concrete strategies to implement the 21st Century Initiative.

Delegates passed resolutions to fight Bush’s health care cuts, to provide alternative forms of union membership and to give the chair of the AFSCME Retiree Council a non-voting seat on the executive board.

“We need to build a national grassroots coalition calling for universal health care, protecting our pensions, and strengthening collective bargaining,” said Roberts, at the conclusion of the week-long summit.

“In Alaska, Florida, Illinois and other states, union rights and benefits have been taken away. This must not continue,” she said. “We’ve got to grow and fight, organize and energize — because when we fight, we win!”