AFSCME Helps Stem the Red Tide
by Patricia Guadalupe | November 10, 2011
While we celebrate the big win Tuesday night over the anti-union Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, AFSCME also played a key role in other victories this week.
In Iowa, the Senate will remain in Democratic hands, due to the efforts of many AFSCME activists who helped former television news anchor Liz Mathis win in a special election over Republican challenger Cindy Golding, 56 percent to 44 percent.
Special elections for statewide office don’t usually get that much attention, but this one was indeed special. Democrats were holding on to a very slim margin (26 to 24) in the Senate when Republican Gov. Terry Branstad appointed a Democratic senator to a statewide board and then called for a special election – obviously hoping for a GOP win because that would mean a 25 to 25 tie in the Senate.
Guess who would break that tie? The Republican lieutenant governor. And guess what a Republican majority would mean? A rubber stamp for changes to collective bargaining rights, among many other GOP schemes against hard-working Iowans.
That’s why right-wing former U.S. Senator and GOP presidential wannabe Rick Santorum, and national conservative groups such as The National Organization for Marriage, went out en masse to the Hawkeye State, shilling for Golding.
AFSCME helped send them packing.
In the western part of upstate New York, more than 30,000 AFSCME union families told Republican Chris Collins to pack it up as Erie County executive, picking comptroller Mark Poloncarz, 53 percent to 47 percent. Poloncarz’s win is especially significant, as he becomes only the second Democrat in half a century to take over the county’s top elected position.
Incumbent Collins had entered the race as the favorite, backed by conservatives and nearly $2 million in his war chest – outspending Poloncarz nearly 3 to 1 – but AFSCME members went to work. In the end, the AFSCME team knocked on nearly 8,000 doors – more than 1,500 on Election Day alone – and participated in a number of other activities to help send the message that Collins needed to go.
Collins had been bad news for workers in Erie County. Under his tenure, his cronies got fat paychecks while 14,000 jobs disappeared. He cut programs, closed city health clinics and privatized some services. That’s all over now.
This week across the country, hard-working Americans occupied the voting booth and sent a big message.
