A Rousing Call to Arms
By Clyde Weiss
NOTE: The Web edition of this article has been edited to comply with Federal Elections Commission regulations.
The union and the country "stand at a defining moment" in history, one in which social, economic and political forces combine to open up new possibilities, AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee told Convention attendees at a lively and colorful first session.
Sec.-Treas. William Lucy, speaking the following day, emphasized that AFSCME members "must always remember our past" as the union enters a new century. He recalled the corporate excesses of the Reagan-Bush White House, when "millions of jobs disappeared from the U.S. economy — good paying, industrial jobs."
Together, McEntee and Lucy set the stage for the challenges that await each of us as union members.
"What kind of America do we want in the 21st century?" McEntee asked. "More importantly, what kind of America do we want our children and our grandchildren to inherit?"
Americans, he made clear, will have a chance to answer those questions at the polls in November: "Make no mistake about it — the lines have been drawn, with working families on one side and right-wing extremists and their Big Business buddies on the other."
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AFSCME — now the nation's largest union — can stop this right-wing juggernaut "if we launch the most intensive grassroots mobilization this country has ever witnessed." What's needed: "More phonebanking than ever before, more pounding the pavement, more knocking on doors, more personal outreach to co-workers, neighbors and friends." Thus, McEntee added, "The election is our opportunity. And our responsibility."
LUCY TAKES STOCK. "In years gone by, we grew up thinking there were things we could believe in about America," Lucy told the delegates. But the basis for those beliefs drastically changed during the 1980s with Reagan's "supply side economics." Lucy called that "the trigger mechanism for the 12-year corporate feeding frenzy where mergers, leveraged buy-outs and consolidations ran rampant across the nation and across the world."
The consequence: "Bank rip-offs and failures, and subsequent home losses, farm foreclosures, and savings and loan scandals" at a higher rate than any time since the Great Depression, he said. The Reagan-Bush era also marked a period of "globetrotting corporations" that exploited workers, spoiled the environment and produced "immoral salaries for CEOs."
AFSCME "learned a valuable lesson during this time that we are now putting into use," Lucy said. For example, the union this year launched the Corporate Affairs program, aimed at ensuring "corporations in which we hold equity [through public employee pension funds] will maintain sound corporate governance policies. We will not sit on the sidelines and witness a return to corporate greed at the expense of workers and shareholders nationwide."
In the union's own house, AFSCME will enforce a "zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the misappropriation of our members' funds." Honest mistakes are one thing, Lucy declared, but a deliberate intent to defraud is something else entirely: "If you do the crime, you can count on doing the time."
BONIOR BOOSTS AFSCME. House Democratic Whip David Bonior of Michigan, once an AFSCME member himself, told Convention delegates that the power of our union to determine the country's future is more than its size — 1.3 million members.
It's the importance of our mission and our vision, he said. "It's the fact that AFSCME has always understood that the work of the labor movement will never be complete so long as any worker suffers in poverty."
As the Convention unfolded, speaker after illustrious speaker joined AFSCME officials to rally the troops for the tough election-year fight that lies ahead. Those taking the microphone included President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Reps. Richard Gephardt and Sheila Jackson Lee.
MUMMERS ON PARADE. While McEntee and Bonior set the tone for the serious side of AFSCME's Convention, Philadelphia's homegrown entertainment, the colorful and musical "mummers," brought merriment into the convention hall.
A six-member drill team from Pennsylvania's Quehanna Boot Camp of Local 3769 (Council 13) presented the Stars and Stripes in a moving martial ceremony. Children and grandchildren from AFSCME's family helped lead the Pledge of Allegiance. And the national anthem never sounded better than when Harold Palmer, regional director of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE)/AFSCME Local 4's Central District, sang it in his powerful, melodious voice.
As they did with the speeches of McEntee, Bonior and others, the crowd hung on every word.
