AFSCME: Fighting, Protecting and Rising Up
AFSCME is celebrating its 75th Anniversary and WORKS celebrates the key moments in the union’s history. In this issue, we look at the union’s role in fighting for health care reform, protecting Social Security from privatization, electing Pres. Barack Obama and rising up in Wisconsin when Gov. Scott Walker gutted collective bargaining. That was the spark that ignited pro-worker protests across the United States and it inspires us as we look toward the next 75 years of AFSCME’s history.
Reforming Health Care
(Photo by Jay Mallin)
In July 2008, AFSCME launched a nationwide campaign for quality, affordable health care for all. To ensure the broadest support for President Obama’s health care reform, AFSCME led the formation of Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. A June 2009 rally on Capitol Hill drew more than 10,000 supporters, including 2,000 AFSCME activists. “We have an historic opportunity to achieve what Americans need: health care reform with increased efficiency and more choice,” said Pres. Gerald W. McEntee at the rally.
During the two-year campaign, AFSCME activists made more than 100,000 personal visits, phone calls, e-mails and letters to their members of Congress.The campaign also featured AFSCME’s “Highway to Health Care Reform” bus tour, which visited 19 cities in 10 states, urging the public to demand real reform from their members in Congress. AFSCME leaders and members also testified before congressional committees. The massive grassroots mobilization and lobbying efforts were instrumental in the Affordable Care Act’s passage. President Obama signed the landmark legislation on March 23, 2010.
Preserving Social Security
(Photo by Earl Dotter)
In 2005, Pres. George W. Bush launched an ill-fated effort to privatize Social Security. Why did it fail? Because AFSCME members and retirees showed up at every stop of his road tour and expressed outrage at his plan to turn Social Security into a system of risky personal investment accounts that would be dependent on a volatile stock market. In April during
the campaign, AFSCME working members and retirees joined more than 3,500 other union activists from around the country to voice their outrage in a rally in Washington.
In a dramatic and historic procession, scores of U.S. senators and representatives filed onto the layered stage to stand as one to send Bush and his congressional allies a roaring message: “Don’t privatize Social Security!” then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, President McEntee and other speakers denounced Bush’s plan, which he ultimately abandoned. Today, AFSCME is a leader in the new national Campaign to Strengthen Social Security, a coalition of 60 groups dedicated to preserving this safety net.
Bringing Hope to America
(Photo by Jay Mallin)
AFSCME’s 38th International Convention in San Francisco in July 2008 endorsed then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for President of the United States. “If we can just unite this country around a common purpose then there’s no obstacle we cannot overcome,” he told nearly 6,000 enthusiastic delegates, alternates and guests, via a satellite address. “We need a president who doesn’t denigrate public service by privatizing jobs every chance he gets, but who promotes their value like AFSCME does.” Also addressing the Convention was then U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) who made a passionate call for AFSCME members to ensure victory for Obama in the November 2008 election. “We have to work hard, but the reward is a nation and a government that upholds our values,” she said. “We can’t do that without AFSCME.” For 10 weeks after the Convention, thousands of AFSCME activists fanned out across the country knocking on doors and making phone calls to win back the White House.
Pulling Together Across the Country
(Photo by Amber Arnold)
When corporate-backed politicians, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, mounted an unrelenting attack against unions in February 2011, AFSCME fought back to preserve collective bargaining and prevent the destruction of the working class. In the state where AFSCME was born, thousands of Wisconsin public service workers and supporters stormed the Capitol in Madison to oppose Walker’s anti-union bill. Many AFSCME activists also visited their representatives to make their case. Although the union-busting measure passed, the Wisconsin uprising ignited a national grassroots movement of workers standing up for the right to be represented by a union. Fired up and energized, AFSCME activists helped launch a campaign to recall senators who supported the bill. As a result of the successful recall of two Republican senators and the resignation of another Republican senator (who was targeted for recall) months later, Walker lost his 19-14 working majority, putting the state Senate at an even 16-16 split. Walker himself, along with his lieutenant governor and four Republican lawmakers, are on a recall ballot this summer, after more than 1 million people signed petitions.
