Saturday, June 23, 2012

A Message From AFSCME President Lee Saunders

From the inbox:


Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Yesterday, delegates to the 40th International Convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME), elected us to serve as the next president and secretary-treasurer of our great union. And today we were sworn in to office.

This was a proud week for AFSCME, as more than 4,600 delegates, alternates and guests from across the country came together in Los Angeles to elect new leadership and help chart our future. The Convention held the first debate among candidates for union leadership in the history of the labor movement in the United States. We’d like to thank Brother Donohue and Sister Goff for a vigorous and energetic campaign and for all they have done for AFSCME. We look forward to working together with them in the days and weeks ahead.

Indeed, we are committed to working with every council, every local, every member—everyday. Because now is the time for us to pull together to win victories for working families and our members all across this great country. We know that Wall Street and their allies are engaged in an all-out assault against us and the services we provide. They know that AFSCME stands in the way of their efforts to destroy the middle class.

We have much work to do and big shoes to fill. Gerald W. McEntee retired today after 31 years as AFSCME president. We will honor his legacy by leading tirelessly, and with heart and resolve.

We are AFSCME — we care for America's children, nurse the sick, plow the streets, collect the trash and walk the beat on the streets and in our prisons. We make America happen — and together we will build our strong union even bigger and stronger.

In solidarity,
Lee Saunders Laura Reyes
LEE SAUNDERS 
President
 LAURA REYES 
Secretary-Treasurer

4 comments:

  1. President Saunders,

    AFSCME needs a lot more than the usual pep rally. The fact is that most AFSCME members are not engaged in their union and not part of union culture. That's why so many vote against your endorsed candidates; they identify more with the NRA and their churches than they do with their union. Ask yourself why the majority of Wisconsin AFSCME members refused to continue paying dues once payroll deduction ended. AFSCME is reaping the fruits of decades of emotional laziness, fighting over who is going to be Captain of the Titanic and ignoring the "silent majority" of members who don't really know what the union does or what is expected of them.

    Those who do get involved in the union often quit in disgust and become inactive because union infighting wastes too much valuable time and energy. It is impossible to come up with new ideas because all criticism, no matter how constructive, is taken as a personal attack. This is true at the local, state and national level.

    Here's a little advice I'm sure you won't take:

    1) Try asking members what they want and expect from the union and maintain a two-way dialogue. Your self-congratulatory publications are rarely read and usually ignored. Include some real debate and uncensored letters in your publications and members might start reading them.

    2) Stop ignoring "fringe issues" and directly address the considerable number of AFSCME members who vote for anti-union candidates based on guns, abortion, race, gays, etc.

    3) Have AFSCME leaders study the science of propaganda. Most Americans are emotional voters and it is not enough to simply give them "the truth" and expect them to act logically. Your enemies are clearly experts at propaganda but you know next to nothing.

    4) AFSCME should support people like Brad Friedman who are fighting election fraud and the blatant stealing of votes by the GOP. It makes no sense to tell your members to work their butts off in elections when your enemies can simply hack the vote. AFSCME should also become heavily involved in the issue of voter disenfranchisement by GOP elected officials.

    5) Remember that Barack Obama is NOT your friend. You may support him over the openly fascist Republicans, but he is the kind of comrade who doesn't back you up when the shooting starts and is more likely to shoot you in the back. Indeed, he bears personal responsibility for the GOP victories of 2010 because he deliberately tried to do as little for working people as he could manage. Give Obama some real criticism. Criticism from the left makes him far more upset than the openly racist attacks of the GOP. Keep the pressure on.

    6) A wise leader learns from his enemies. The Tea Party was successful because they started at the bottom, running candidates for office in the kind of elections where few voters bother to show. You have to start a long-term project of building a labor party from the grassroots. Your nonsense about "holding Democrats accountable" is a joke and they know it. As Rahm Emmanuel told Obama, labor can be ignored and screwed because labor has nowhere else to go.

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  2. All unions should consider this, especially since the Democratic Party politely ignores GOP election fraud:

    Richard Charnin believes there was fraud involved in the Wisconsin recall and predicted it might occur before the election. His pre-vote model predicts three scenarios. Barrett wins in two of them and fraud makes Walker the winner in the third. Charnin feels the exit polls which showed a very tight race were accurate. That would suggest that Walker could win but Charnin believes the vote results showing a comfortable win are not honest.

    Lots of math here. Charnin says if you won't do the math, you can't either accept the results we're getting since 1988 or critique what he's saying. I don't like the math but I respect the level of detail I see in this work.

    Regarding Obama;

    "The base case assumption in the 2012 Wisconsin Recall True Vote Model is that Obama had a 60% vote share – a conservative base case assumption. He had a 56.2% recorded share, far below his 63.3% exit poll (2545 respondents). The probability is virtually 100% that Obama’s True share exceeded 60% (based on the 2.4% exit poll margin of error). The discrepancy is a very strong indicator that Obama did much better than his 56% official share. In other words, the 2008 election was fraudulent, but not enough to cause Obama to lose."

    http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/2750/

    http://richardcharnin.com/ObamaProof.htm
    http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/obama-may-win-the-true-vote-and-still-lose-the-2012-presidential-true-vote-projection-model/
    http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/massive-1988-2008-exit-poll-discrepancies-a-probability-analysis/

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  3. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/mark-ames-the-lefts-big-sellout-how-the-aclu-and-human-rights-groups-quietly-exterminated-labor-rights.html

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  4. Seems like this is a sinking ship.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/303856/twilight-unions-john-fund

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