Armed for Battle
AFSCME will fight more effectively with greater resources.
Secretary-Treasurer Lucy told the Convention that while AFSCME is fiscally sound, additional steps should be taken to improve the union’s strength. The following is an excerpt from his speech.
At this Convention we consider issues critical to the future of the union. Among the most important of these are constitutional amendments regarding dues, how we collect them, how we protect them, and how we will use them.
We must always keep uppermost in our minds that virtually every dollar the union receives is earned by and comes out of the paychecks of men and women who work in some of the toughest, meanest, riskiest jobs in this nation.
Our members see their dues dollars as a kind of insurance premium on a policy that protects their economic security, and they expect the union to treat their dollars with diligence and respect.
First, let me report that over the past two-year operating period, we at the International have stayed within budget, we stayed within program, and wound up with a small surplus.
In the same period, however, costs have increased greatly in just about every category. The effect has been to decrease the resources available for essential services and activities.
Over the years, departmental services have been diminished as we have had to meet the increasing cost of organizing, political action, education and membership communications.
We cannot afford to defer these activities if we hope to overcome stagnant membership figures and increase our strength. We now need some 40,000 net new members each year just to remain even in terms of our current status.
We’re now fighting privatization, resisting right-wing attacks, campaigning for pro-worker politicians. The program for strengthening the union as we turn the corner of the century depends upon strengthening the resources.
We can provide these resources through a small dues increase. We should also eliminate the hardship exemption. We have come to understand that while we created the hardship mechanisms to give some relief to local unions, that these systems have become a real detriment to our receiving the resources to carry out the work. Because of hardship exemptions, some $2 million has been denied district councils and local unions.
We must also monitor the financial statements of councils and large local unions — subordinate bodies of 2,000 members or more. We are a very large organization. Within the union, there are more than 24,000 elected officers and others who have authority to sign checks or use affiliates’ credit cards or to make expenses against the local union and its accounts.
Few of our people are elected to office with a broad background in business management or with administrative experience. But we now must operate like a business.
Within the overall union, income from dues combined with funds for insurance, health and welfare plans bring about $1 billion dollars a year into the control of voluntary officers at our locals and councils. We’ve got a responsibility to make sure that these dollars are used for the purposes for which the members paid them — to protect and promote their economic security.
After securing the well-being of the members of our union, our collective challenge is to use our collective power to build a just and a civil society here and to help those who are trying to build the same abroad.
