That’s true more than ever this year, Buesing said. Right-wing legislators are attacking not just your services, jobs, wages, benefits, and collective bargaining rights, he told AFSCME members; they are also attacking retirement rights, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, and the rights of gays and lesbians. It’s not a coincidence, Buesing said, but a deliberate attempt “to provide distractions and divide us within our ranks and among our allies. We must not allow this to happen. If they divide us, they win.”
The right-wing’s goal, Buesing said, is to distract workers from the real issues they face, including “the excessive corporate power of Wall Street, where a few prosper and rest of us work for less and less – if we’re fortunate enough to be working at all.”
Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide went even further. He called the attacks an attempt to dehumanize and discriminate against entire segments of society. “It’s the politics of hate, the politics of division,” Seide said.
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Helena Doe-Brown, Transitions Healthcare Local 1337, receives applause as delegates support the local’s fight for their first contract. |
A slide show connected the dots of how a small cadre of Republican legislators is behind it all, including Representatives Keith Downey, Steve Drazkowski, and Mary Kiffmeyer, and Senators David Hann , Gretchen Hoffman, Mike Parry and Dave Thompson.
They are among the legislators who are trying to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers, attack their ability to earn a living or provide decent public services, and deny child-care providers the opportunity to unionize. They are also the same legislators sponsoring constitutional amendments, including one that would destroy unions and a second that codify hatred and discrimination by banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota.
“What is so frightening about two people loving each other and wanting to make a commitment?” Seide asked. The proposed marriage ban is both an injustice and a diversion, he said
“They want to distract, divide and destroy us. They want to take away every right that we have.
Then, urging members to stand united inside and outside their union, he said: “If they want to discriminate against gays, then I’m gay. If they want to discriminate against blacks, browns or yellows, then I am black, brown or yellow.
“I am AFSCME. I’m the Building Trades. I’m a Steel Worker. I’m a Nurse. I’m SEIU. I’m a worker.
“Everyone in this room is a worker. We are members of the working class. We produce the wealth – not the rich, not the banks, not the corporations – but us.”
It’s what AFSCME does
Videos traced the legacy of AFSCME, including the landmark strike by sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, the fight in Minnesota in the 1980s for equal pay for women, the sacrifices of public service, and AFSCME’s role at the center of the uprising this winter in Wisconsin.
“Either we hang together or we hang separately, do you agree?” Seide said. “Everyone in this room -- everyone we represent -- is a worker. We are all workers. We are one.”
This article is reprinted from the AFSCME Council 5 website.
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That’s true more than ever this year, Buesing said. Right-wing legislators are attacking not just your services, jobs, wages, benefits, and collective bargaining rights, he told AFSCME members; they are also attacking retirement rights, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, and the rights of gays and lesbians. It’s not a coincidence, Buesing said, but a deliberate attempt “to provide distractions and divide us within our ranks and among our allies. We must not allow this to happen. If they divide us, they win.”
The right-wing’s goal, Buesing said, is to distract workers from the real issues they face, including “the excessive corporate power of Wall Street, where a few prosper and rest of us work for less and less – if we’re fortunate enough to be working at all.”
Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide went even further. He called the attacks an attempt to dehumanize and discriminate against entire segments of society. “It’s the politics of hate, the politics of division,” Seide said.
![]() |
Helena Doe-Brown, Transitions Healthcare Local 1337, receives applause as delegates support the local’s fight for their first contract. |
Different attacks, but the same source
A slide show connected the dots of how a small cadre of Republican legislators is behind it all, including Representatives Keith Downey, Steve Drazkowski, and Mary Kiffmeyer, and Senators David Hann , Gretchen Hoffman, Mike Parry and Dave Thompson.
They are among the legislators who are trying to strip collective bargaining rights from public workers, attack their ability to earn a living or provide decent public services, and deny child-care providers the opportunity to unionize. They are also the same legislators sponsoring constitutional amendments, including one that would destroy unions and a second that codify hatred and discrimination by banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota.
“What is so frightening about two people loving each other and wanting to make a commitment?” Seide asked. The proposed marriage ban is both an injustice and a diversion, he said
A call for unity
“They want to distract, divide and destroy us. They want to take away every right that we have.
Then, urging members to stand united inside and outside their union, he said: “If they want to discriminate against gays, then I’m gay. If they want to discriminate against blacks, browns or yellows, then I am black, brown or yellow.
“I am AFSCME. I’m the Building Trades. I’m a Steel Worker. I’m a Nurse. I’m SEIU. I’m a worker.
“Everyone in this room is a worker. We are members of the working class. We produce the wealth – not the rich, not the banks, not the corporations – but us.”
It’s what AFSCME does
Workshops traced the legacy of AFSCME as a union that fights for human rights, civil rights and worker rights. Delegates learned more about the history and the threats to the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, the right to a fair share of what they produced, the right to retire with dignity, and the right to a future.
Videos traced the legacy of AFSCME, including the landmark strike by sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, the fight in Minnesota in the 1980s for equal pay for women, the sacrifices of public service, and AFSCME’s role at the center of the uprising this winter in Wisconsin.
“Either we hang together or we hang separately, do you agree?” Seide said. “Everyone in this room — everyone we represent — is a worker. We are all workers. We are one.”
This article is reprinted from the AFSCME Council 5 website.