Solidarity serves a larger purpose

“Sisters and brothers, this is the time for transformation.” Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) would return to this theme many times as he spoke to the delegates of the 2013 state convention of Minnesota AFSCME Council 5. “Solidarity serves a larger purpose,” he said, “and that is to make life better for working families throughout our nation. We are here for nothing less than transformation.”

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He went to warn that others are interested in transformation as well, but transformation of a different kind. The radical right “envisions an America where public services are outsourced, government dies of starvation, working people have no rights,” retirement is insecure, and the right to vote is compromised.

Saunders pointed to the current shutdown of the federal government as an example of how a small group of extremists in the Republican party are willing to harm millions of people, including here in Minnesota, in a cynical attempt to get their way and eliminate the Affordable Care Act when nothing else has worked for them. “That’s not how it’s done in our America,” said Saunders.

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He also spoke passionately about the devastating condition of Detroit, Michigan and the efforts of AFSCME to get national leaders, including President Obama, to provide some relief. When the Michigan state government took over the city and “filed for bankruptcy the first thing they said they were going to do was to attack public service workers and attack retirees . . .who on average make only $19,000 a year.”

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Saunders addressed retirement security in general observing that fewer than 50% of private sector workers have no pensions at all. And these workers hear all the noise and blame public workers for what they have. “What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to flip that argument, brother’s and sisters. The question shouldn’t be: you’ve got it, I don’t, so why do you have it? The question should be: we’ve got it, you don’t, why don’t we fight so you can get it?”

Lee Saunders was elected president of AFSCME, replacing longtime president Gerald McEntee, at the union’s 40th International Convention in June 2012.

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