Blazing New Trails

From the President, Gerald W. McEntee

In 2005, AFSCME put together a coalition of 200 progressive organizations to form Americans United to Protect Social Security. Our coalition destroyed President Bush's attempt to weaken the retirement security of working families by privatizing Social Security.

How did we do it? We took the fight to the people. We targeted members of Congress and mobilized their constituents to confront them in their own backyards. We launched the Take a Stand Campaign, which pressured elected officials to sign a pledge not to privatize Social Security. We united lawmakers who opposed privatization and made clear to advocates that there would be real political ramifications if they persisted. The bottom line: We blazed new trails in aggressive, grassroots issue campaigning — and we won!

Thanks to the Social Security debacle, scandal after scandal in his party and the war in Iraq, the President and his policies are more vulnerable than ever. That weakens his ability to pass additional tax cuts for the rich and a budget that spells disaster for working families and the poor. And that weakens his ability to move forward on his anti-worker agenda. Our problem with George W. Bush is his policies, not politics.

GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM. While Bush and anti-worker conservatives are trying to hold their shaky foundation together, AFSCME is building on its strong one, reinforced by our successful efforts to beat back pension privatization across the country and paycheck deception in California's recent special election. That's why, when anti-family politicians started threatening programs that primarily benefit the poor and middle class, AFSCME launched yet another grassroots public relations and lobbying campaign — the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities. ECAP is our weapon to halt the right-wing Republican-led wholesale slaughter of public services to underwrite tax breaks for the super rich.

Our goal: to stop these anti-worker politicians from slashing health care for struggling families, cutting college loans for middle-class kids and forcing seniors to pay more for their health care ... all to give billions in tax breaks to millionaires. On top of that, our government leaders are using the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast as an excuse for undermining the very programs Hurricane Katrina victims need the most!

Bush and his administration want to weaken public services that our members depend on and provide. They support the oil companies overcharging at the gas pump while raking in profits. They support exporting American jobs and privatizing public services — policies which contribute to a weakened economy.

FAMILIES FIRST. The politicians aren't listening to what the Ameri-can people are saying — that cutting services for families in need to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy is the absolute wrong priority. But through ECAP, we're making them listen and put American families first before big corporations and the wealthy.

Starting in October, we targeted members of Congress in 35 states with town hall forums, ads, direct mail, district meetings and an innovative online protest that has drawn over 30,000 participants who sent a strong message to Congress (for details, go to Act Now). In addition, we had a National Week of Prayer and Action for Compassionate Priorities that included vigils, protests, press conferences and national call-in days.

We won't back down, and we will win — because the administration's plan to cut services and hurt working families on behalf of the rich is just plain wrong. Defeating Social Security privatization was only the beginning of exposing and defeating the anti-working family agenda of Bush and the Republican leadership.