“We will never let our fate be decided by anybody but us,” AFSCME International President Lee Saunders told 600 delegates on the opening day of Council 5’s annual convention in Bloomington. “When we come together, when we organize together, we can change this state and we can change this nation.”

After highlighting victories the union has won since Council 5 was created 10 years ago, Saunders warned delegates they must keep fighting to defeat the threats that public employees still face.

Those threats are as visible as anti-union rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and the campaign of Jeff Johnson, the Tea Party candidate for governor who has promised to “go all Scott Walker on Minnesota.”

“Our very existence as union members depends on us re-electing Gov. Dayton this November,” Council 5 president Judy Wahlberg reminded delegates. “Our future is up to us.”

On Thursday, Johnson again publicly demonstrated his opposition to AFSCME. He teamed with representatives of the national Right to Work Legal Foundation and pledged at a Capitol campaign event that, if elected, he will repeal collective-bargaining rights for child-care providers.

“The last thing Minnesota needs is a Scott Walker clone,” Saunders said. “He might plan on going Scott Walker on us, but we’re going to go AFSCME Minnesota on him.”

Council 5 of AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, represents 43,000 public employees and other workers in Minnesota.

Turning the tide
Saunders praised the courage and vision it took for Councils 6, 14 and 96 to take “a leap of faith” and unify 10 years ago. “Our entire union is stronger for that action,” Saunders said. “It was the right move at the right time.”

On the day before delegates vote on the Executive Board’s FIVE FOR THE FIGHT proposal, he urged them to continue the momentum they created. “It is our responsibility to build not just a moment, but to build a movement – and rebuild a movement. This is the mission that inspires all of us to keep going.”

Ten years ago, Saunders reminded delegates, Tim Pawlenty was governor. Pawlenty led years of budget cuts, outsourcing of public services, attacks on public workers, and tax policies that favored the rich.
“We watched our economic security evaporate and public services deteriorate,” Saunders said.

But Council 5 fought back. It not only led the fight to oust Pawlenty and extreme legislators, it led a new path for Minnesota, including new investments in education, restoring tax balance, and raising wages for the lowest-paid workers.

“Continue to make this state go forward, not backward,” Saunders urged. “If anybody thinks we’re going to give up on this fight, sisters and brothers, they are wrong. We don’t give up. We don’t give in. We fight back.”

In other action at the convention Thursday:

• Council 5’s executive board, locals, and individuals donated $9,196.63 to the food shelf at Neighbors Inc. That’s four times more cash than last year’s convention collected for the food shelf at CHUM in Duluth. Neighbors Inc. serves more than 600 families in Inver Grove Heights, South St. Paul and West St. Paul, including union members who lost their jobs after the shutdowns of Rainbow food stores and Dakota Premium’s packing plant. Director John Kemp says the food shelf is serving 25 percent more people than it did a year ago.

• Scott County Local 2440 won the 2014 Mike Buesing Local Union Development Award. Through a series of escalating actions, members of this local fought off management’s attempts to eliminate general wage increases. Management’s proposal would have made all pay raises arbitrary and left all raises completely in the hands of supervisors. Members’ actions in the workplace expanded into a show of force at a County Board meeting. More than 125 members and fee-payers showed up demanding the general increase. County commissioners were so convinced that they backed the union. The result: A three-year contract with across-the-board raises each year – and a local more engaged and active than ever.

• Dennis Frazier, of Arrowhead Region Local 66, won the 2014 Communications Award. Frazier was praised for his advocacy of raising the state’s minimum wage and other Council 5 issues.