Taking the Election Results & Forging Ahead
"Stand Up — Keep Fighting!" proclaims the button pictured on the cover of this magazine. That slogan comes straight from a memorial service for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (see related story), and it could not be more timely.
Nov. 5 brought defeat to many pro-worker candidates, but that result can hardly be blamed on organized labor. Unions in general — and AFSCME in particular — achieved historic highs in terms of voting, member mobilization and campaign contributions.
Union members constituted at least 26 percent, and maybe as much as 30 percent, of the vote for pro-worker candidates. That's 7 points higher than a decade ago. As President McEntee declared a few days later, "We're doing the best we can." Applied to AFSCME, the point is very well taken. Among AFL-CIO affiliates, the International was the most-active, best-organized contributor to candidates who stand with us on the issues of greatest concern to our members.
In terms of "people" participation, AFSCME's Green Machine also led the union charge. Before the balloting and again on Election Day, thousands of members and staffers volunteered around the country to work in both non-partisan ("GOTV") and partisan campaigns. The following pages show some of those members in action.
BACK TO THE ATTACK. Nov. 5 is history. Labor's — and AFSCME's — fights continue. But the fights have become more difficult and in most cases more urgent. We must move not only resolutely but also quickly to address them.
The issues are familiar to most members: sensible solutions to the nationwide budget crises; a genuine prescription-drug benefit under Medicare; rigorous protection of the Social Security system and of worker health and safety; an end to the Bush administration's relentless assault on union and civil service protections; and, of course, opposition to the privatization of public services.
Those priorities may change, and others may be added to the list. As President McEntee said, commenting on the right wing's bountifully endowed and at times vicious election campaigning, "Now that we realize what we're up against, we'll be redefining the issues we ought to stand on."
Meanwhile, we are forging ahead on the toughest problems. For example, members of the Washington Federation of State Employees/Council 28 recently mounted a large demonstration to protest a near-doubling of their health-insurance premiums; and members of Illinois Council 31, embroiled in an especially difficult state-budget crisis, have been protesting and counter-proposing on numerous fronts.
Elections and their victors come and go. Not so the issues that surround them. Win or lose at the polling place, a vigorous union like AFSCME "stands up — keeps fighting" for the essential causes we believe in.
— Roger M. Williams
