CHICAGO—In his valedictory address to the AFSCME convention in Chicago this week, union President Lee Saunders, who is retiring after 14 years in the top job, urged its delegates to “keep the pressure on” to oust anti-worker politicians from public office this fall.
“We’ve got to be a leading force to get them the hell out of office,” Saunders declared at his union’s convention, meeting in Chicago’s McCormick Place. Describing the pols as having a “cruel, corrupt agenda,” Saunders added. “We’ve got to kick them out.”
‘The best way to save our democracy is to participate in it to the fullest this fall. We need one of our most aggressive mobilizations ever in the midterm elections.”
Saunders was not explicit in how many of AFSCME’s 1.4 million-plus members he expects to hit the hustings between now and the November election, but the union’s “Green Machine” has traditionally been one of the most activist politically among all of organized labor.
And during the current white nationalist and radical right GOP Donald Trump regime, it’s needed to be, Saunders admitted.
Upon entering the Oval Office for the second time, Trump launched an all-out assault on government workers, particularly federal workers and the programs they run. Many, if not most, of those programs benefit the states in providing services to the U.S. people—everything from job counseling to social services to joint federal-state programs such as Medicaid.
And that’s where AFSCME’s workers become Trump’s targets, too. Because when Trump cuts federal benefits for state and local residents, the AFSCME members who help run those programs and disburse those benefits lose their jobs as well.
To elaborate on one example Saunders cited, he lauded the union’s win over the Trump regime’s attempt to eliminate the Institute of Library and Museum Services. ILMS is a small federal agency that gives out more than $200 million yearly to local libraries and museums for everything from special exhibitions to refurbishing museums and buying new computers for libraries. Library workers and museum workers—whom AFSCME has organized—seek, get, and run those grants.
Take away the grant money and the state and local workers AFSCME represents are out of jobs.
ILMS was scheduled to disburse more than $200 million worth of grants in this current fiscal year, which ends September 30. Trump tried to kill the agency, and in his budget for the new fiscal year, still wants to do so. AFSCME, other unions, the American Libraries Association and other non-profit groups sued in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to keep it alive—and won.
“We have fought back at every turn. You did that, AFSCME. Our members did that. We have fought them as they’ve tried to decimate the federal workforce. We have fought their attempts to slash funding for libraries and museums that support AFSCME jobs. We fought back when Elon Musk tried to compromise our private Social Security data. We fought back.”
“We fought their cuts to child care and home care. That’s what AFSCME does. We fight back. We fought them as they’ve tried to rip health care and food assistance away from working families. We fought back. We have fought them in the courts. We have fought them in Congress. We have fought them in state legislatures; we have fought them EVERYWHERE.”
And the union will have to keep fighting, he warned. Because the oligarchs and their political puppets “are rigging the political game every day” against all workers, not just government workers.
“Wealth is being hoarded at the top. Inequality is growing. The rich keep getting tax cuts, while everyone else gets a hole in their wallet every time they fill up their tank or pay the utility bill. Working people deserve better. Working people deserve better. Working people deserve better, don’t you think?”
If anything, the picture is becoming ever more dire for workers, he warned, as the oligarchs leap on artificial intelligence (AI) to eliminate jobs and “privatize public services…to make some fat cat rich.”
Other unions and workers are sounding that same warning, particularly the postal unions, who have battled Trump attempts to dismember the Postal Service, trash its union contracts, privatize the profitable routes and turn them over to Wall Street, while cutting back or eliminating service to the rest of the country.
The solution to such scorched-earth tactics from the 1%, Saunders said, is mass mobilization at the polls this fall, both to save programs and to save democracy itself from Trump and his troops.
“Talk to your co-workers about what’s at stake in November,” Saunders urged the delegates. “Educate and organize every single day. Get out and vote. Get your friends and neighbors out to vote. And vote for candidates who will make life more affordable for working people. Who will invest in public services and respect public service workers.
“Who will fight for our safety on the job and our dignity in retirement. Who will fight for our freedom to organize and our seat at the table. Who will fight to preserve and protect the democracy that we love.”
“Our voice can’t be silenced or stifled. We can never hit the mute button. We can never be quiet.”
While Saunders’s speech opened the convention on August 17, a parade of prominent unionists was scheduled to follow him to the podium over the conclave’s following days. They include AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride—who is also retiring—and the presidents of the three U.S. unions which are bigger than AFSCME’s 1.4 million members: Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten, National Education Association President Becky Pringle and Service Employees President April Verrett.
The convention’s Thursday session will add Mark Hancock, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees—AFSCME’s equivalent north of the U.S. border—to the list—along with the only two invited politicians, both strong progressives: Longtime worker advocate Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D).
Schakowsky, a leader in the fights for reproductive rights, workers’ rights, safe staffing in health care facilities, and equal pay for equal work—among other causes—is retiring after more than two decades of representing Chicago’s North Side and close-in suburbs. She’ll receive a special public service award. Ellison is a leader among AGs in the fight against Trump, his ravaging of public workers, his crusade to eliminate all brown-skinned immigrants, and his white nationalism.
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