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Prepared Remarks of Gerald W. McEntee to the AFSCME 37th International ConventionPrepared Remarks for Sisters and Brothers, if there is one lesson to be learned from the Social Security fight, it is this: When AFSCME fights, AFSCME wins! The Social Security campaign is a great example of what we can do together. What we did together. George W. Bush made privatizing Social Security the centerpiece of his second term. Well, we stopped President Bush in his tracks! But it ain't over yet. He said that he's not done with that plan. But I say he is. Are we gonna beat him again? I said, are we gonna beat him again? You bet you are. Because when we fight, we win! Good morning, Sisters and Brothers. We've got serious work to do. I've worked for and been a member of this union for 50 years, been president for 25. I can say that I have never encountered a more hostile climate for working people and for public employees than today's. The simple fact is this: Workers are under attack by the most anti-worker president and Congress in our history. We face budget cuts. Service cuts. Benefit cuts. It's getting harder to negotiate good contracts. Politicians are privatizing our jobs and shipping them overseas. Our workloads are up, staffing is down. We're forced to give up wage increases just to keep our health benefits - and still we pay more. And the very right to join or start a union is under assault. We've faced tough times before. But the challenges we face right now are tougher than ever. A culture of corruption dominates politics. Anti-worker, anti-public service politicians are hard at work. Hard at work bashing public employees, slashing vital services and giving tax handouts to the super-rich. Meanwhile, when we look beyond our great union, we see a smaller labor movement with less power and influence. Look at the mighty United Auto Workers. Once a union of one million, seven-hundred thousand, now down to fewer than half a million. And on top of the assault that's coming at working people and at the labor movement from all sides, we've got challenges inside the House of Labor. You know about the split in our movement that occurred a year ago, here in Chicago. Five unions left the national AFL-CIO and started their own organization, called Change to Win. They left over a false debate between politics and organizing - as if we could have one without the other. Despite the split, the AFL-CIO unions have created a national committee with Change to Win, to take on the political threats and work together to elect pro-worker candidates. Over the years, I've fought in the streets with SEIU and with the Teamsters -- with them and against them. But let me be clear: whether certain unions are in the AFL-CIO or out, nobody's gonna screw around on AFSCME's turf. Nobody's gonna steal our members. But the fact is, no union exists in isolation. We're all in this together. We've got to act that way. We've got to face our challenges head-on, the way we always have in our union. That's what the 21st Century Initiative is all about. The committee looked at our union from top to bottom. Nothing was off limits or out of bounds. Eighty affiliate leaders heard from members all over this country in meetings and town halls. These recommendations for change came from those discussions. This plan is based on one simple principle: We're a better union and we do better at the bargaining table when we have a large and active membership with real political power. Now, you may have members back home who are saying that we're doing pretty well right now. After all, we won the Social Security fight. We elected worker-friendly governors in states like New Jersey and Virginia. We defeated Governor Schwarzenegger's anti-worker ballot initiatives. It's true -- we're fighting, and often we're winning. But we've suffered some huge losses. For example, newly elected governors of Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri took away state employees' collective bargaining rights as their first order of business -- rights we had just won in Kentucky and Missouri. We are not where we ought to be, where we want to be or where we need to be. Number 1: We have to get more members involved in our union. We've got 1.4 million members, but too few dedicated activists. Go to a local union meeting and the same members are always there. You don't see the others until they have a problem. They're the ones who give you a grievance on Friday and then on Monday ask if you did anything about it over the weekend. We need to help leaders strengthen their locals because the locals are the backbone of our union. Here's what one of your Brothers in Ohio said at a discussion about the 21st Century Initiative: "You can have a group of 300 people that are in the local union. But if only 10 of them are doing something, how good is that 300?" We need to provide leaders and activists with a leadership institute, so they can get the training they need to become more effective at motivating and activating their members. Number 2: We must hold politicians accountable. For us, politics is not a sideshow; it's the main event. We elect our bosses. We say that all the time. But do we get it? Listen to this. I am embarrassed to tell you. Exit polls show that in 2004, fewer AFSCME members voted than unionized families in general. And four out of 10 AFSCME members voted for our anti-worker president. That's right. They voted for George W. Bush. Clearly, we must elect people who support us.And then, we must make sure they do what they say they will do. Let me give you an example. There's a state senator by the name of Stephen Sweeney in New Jersey. A Democrat... a member of the Ironworkers union. He used to be called "friend." Not anymore. He said state workers should accept a 15-percent pay cut to help New Jersey through budget woes that state workers didn't have anything to do with creating. He said the workers shouldn't get their pay back after they were locked out by the government shutdown. He wanted to cut health and welfare as well. This from a man who draws three salaries -- two of them paid by taxpayers. He's a state senator. He's a freeholder, elected by the voters in his county. And he works for the Ironworkers. Yet he's telling our Sisters and Brothers to take a pay cut? That's why we ran TV and radio ads to hold him accountable. That's why we're going to defeat him when he's up for re-election next year! We are going to teach State Senator Stephen Sweeney a lesson he will never, ever forget! When it comes to politics, our allegiance is to our members and our issues -- not to any one candidate or party. We must create a year-round political action program so we never let up the pressure. And we have to recruit a forty-thousand member army of activists by the 2008 election. About 75 percent of our members are registered to vote, but we must increase that to 90 percent. We also have to get 25 percent of all AFSCME members to contribute at least $100 a year to the PEOPLE program, our political fundraising arm. If we don't do all these things, more anti-worker politicians -- like the governors of Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri - will take away our rights. Number 3: We must make health care reform a top priority. Every time you go to the table, be it with the city, the school board, the state or the county, the first thing you hear is, "You've had a good plan for a long time, but times have changed. We have to cut back those benefits and your members will have to pay more." Members know how important this issue is. When the International Union sent an e-mail out asking our members to share their health care stories, we received almost a hundred responses in the first hour. One of our Sisters, Jill Wilhelm of Clear Lake, Iowa, wrote: "I am a single mother of two, struggling to make ends meet. I cannot even try to get ahead in my bills because they keep rising and then my small raise is consumed by rising health insurance costs. "We seem to find the money to keep fighting a never-ending battle in Iraq, but can't help the middle-income Americans who are producing the soldiers that are fighting for our freedom." And while we're on the subject, I've got to say it: It's time - past time - that our soldiers, our sons and daughters, come back home to their families. It's time that our sons and daughters come back to their lives. AFSCME has to be a leader in advocating a comprehensive national plan for health care reform and our councils have to be active in reform efforts in their states. Number 4: We must increase our membership and grow by organizing new workplaces. In Iowa... Six thousand child care providers and 2,500 home care providers recently said "Yes" to Council 61. In Puerto Rico... Six-thousand, four hundred corrections officers are today part of AFSCME Council 95. In New Mexico... One thousand, three hundred university employees are negotiating their first contract with Council 18. In New York... One thousand, two hundred workers at Lifespire won a tough campaign to form a union with CSEA. And New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine just signed an executive order last week formally recognizing our Child Care Workers Union! The providers - as many as 7,000 - will be jointly represented by AFSCME Council 1 and CWA Local 1037. We've also organized over 21,000 new Retiree members and chartered two new chapters just since our last convention. We're now at 221,000 retirees. Let's give a round of applause for the Retiree delegates in this hall! These victories - and all the many others we have achieved - are great. But our net gain in membership since 1999 has only been 75,000. Why? Because we have lost members due to layoffs, contracting out, decerts and attrition. And it takes time to go from winning representation rights to winning a first contract. That's why we need to do more -- much more -- and involve every member of our union in these efforts. Our goal is to win representation rights for 70,000 workers per year. We will recruit and train thousands of volunteer member organizers and we will ask every major affiliate to create an organizing program. If you already have one, we'll ask you do to more. Number 5: We must increase the capacity of affiliates and create a stronger, more cohesive union. Our affiliates must have everything they need to carry out their core functions, from politics to organizing to bargaining, communications, education and more. And the International has to be there to help. We cannot afford to act as individual locals or councils because our adversaries are simply too big, too powerful and too well coordinated. They act in concert; that means we should, too. How will we fulfill these ambitious plans? How will we accomplish these transformational changes? We are asking for an increase in the International Union per capita tax of $3 per member per month, phased in over three years. This will support the bold and ambitious programs I've just described. If we recognize the importance of our fight, we must raise the money necessary to wage our fight effectively. Our Retirees realize how essential this is. They established a 21st Century Committee and have already voted to increase their minimum dues and the retiree per capita tax. Only with additional resources can we organize new members. Fight privatization. Build political power. Reform health care. Activate current members. And train more activists. And there's one more challenge we must take on. We've got to build respect and support for public services and public service workers. Support from the public, the politicians, the media and from our own members. You've heard citizens grumble and curse as they stand in line to get their licenses renewed. They complain about the long wait, but they don't realize that there were 10 workers behind that counter a few years ago, and now there are only two. They blame us, when they should blame the anti-public services, budget-cutting leaders. We must develop a bold, comprehensive plan - including TV and radio ads - to project an image of public services that is worthy of you, the members of AFSCME. In fact, we've launched a brand new website so that we can do a better job of communicating who we are and what we do. All of this means that we will speak with one voice about the value of what we do -- not as the International, not as councils, not as the locals, but as one united AFSCME! We're using every tool we can think of to spread the message that we are 1.4 million people who go to work every day and are proud to serve America. We are on the front lines of every emergency and every disaster in every community, the first on the scene, and the last -- the very last -- to leave. We're the people who make communities strong and keep families healthy. And we don't just go to work every day and do our jobs. We're good neighbors. We're active in our communities. We are veterans, volunteer firefighters, Little League coaches and Scout leaders. We raise money for cancer research and run marathons to help find a cure for AIDS. We volunteer at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Sisters and Brothers, we know who we are. We know our story. We have to tell it, tell it again and again and again. Keep telling it so that the nation knows the importance of what we do. Let us stand for public service. Let us stand for an America that lives up to its ideals. Let us stand for an American dream that every American can truly have a chance of achieving. Let us stand for an America where workers are treated with dignity and respect. Let us stand for a more powerful AFSCME. Let us embrace the 21st Century Initiative. Let us get bigger and better and bolder together! Together we can do this. Together we can make it happen. Together we can strengthen our union for all of our Sisters and Brothers. Thank you and God bless. God bless America!
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