For Immediate Release
Monday, August 24, 1998
AFSCME President Urges Delegates To Make Unprecedented Commitment To Organizing
Honolulu, Hawaii —In his keynote address marking the start of the 33rd Biennial Convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO, AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee spoke of the need for an unprecedented commitment to organizing, political action and professional integrity.
Even though it is the largest public employee and health care workers union in the nation and it has enjoyed a number of significant political and organizing victories, AFSCME has now created an ambitious plan for the union’s future. The plan -- outlined in AFSCME’s "Task Force for the Future" report -- embraces a new approach to organizing, grassroots political activism and the union’s high integrity.
"Unions are no longer willing to sit back and accept declining membership. Instead we are all out there fighting to organize new workers. We’re fighting to bring working men and women under the flag of the American Labor movement," McEntee said.
McEntee emphasized that there are vast opportunities to sign up future union members. Specifically, just in the 24 states where public employees have the right to collectively bargain, there are almost 2 million unorganized workers, and there are millions more in the public and private sector who don’t have good wages or decent benefits. One place that AFSCME will be waging an aggressive organizing drive is Puerto Rico, where an AFSCME-led coalition fought for and won collective bargaining rights for over 140,000 public employees.
AFSCME has long been heralded as one of the most politically active organizations in the country -- despite aggressive counter-attacks by ultra-conservatives, and McEntee today pledged to keep the pressure on conservatives. By way of example, McEntee pointed to the "Paycheck Deception" measures that are sweeping the country.
"What they [conservatives] want to do is prohibit unions from spending one red cent on anything that can fall under the broad headline of ‘political action or education.’ ....You know and I know that silencing unions is not campaign finance reform -- it is payback."
McEntee said these anti-worker forces are paying back AFSCME and Labor for helping to re-elect President Clinton; for becoming an effective political force that can actually challenge the radical right; and for coming up just a few seats shy of "turning Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America into a footnote in the history books."
In addition to maintaining a strong political action program, McEntee stressed the continued need to counter privatization attempts. McEntee said privatization exists because we live in "a world in which politicians make slick promises and look for easy fixes to hard problems."
AFSCME is having success in fighting privatization. In Youngstown, Ohio, a for-profit prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America is widely thought of as a failure -- with even the governor now calling for its closure. In Hawaii, a landmark court ruling said that public employees have the inherent right to do public work. The court ruled on the Hawaii case after seven public employees at a landfill were fired so that a private contractor could come in and do the job. United Public Workers, an AFSCME affiliate, took them to court, and won.
McEntee closed his keynote address by asking delegates to support the "Task Force for the Future" plan for continued growth by taking specific action. He called on delegates to support a resolution to amend the union’s constitution to raise the monthly per capita tax rate 50 cents in 1999 and another 50 cents in the year 2000 -- the equivalent of an annual $6.00 increase in dues for AFSCME members. The increase would enable the union to have the necessary resources to organize, wage political action campaigns, and maintain the union’s high integrity.
"This increase will give us the resources to make real strides in organizing. To insure that our union remains a clean union. To fight privatization wherever it rears its ugly head. To fight extremist politicians who want nothing more than to kill our union."
