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Special to the 39th AFSCME Constitutional Convention

Public services, public workers and the very concept "the common good" are under unprecedented attack in our nation. We must not mistake what is happening today for just more of the same right-wing attacks we have endured for years. What we are seeing is qualitatively different. In reaction to attacks on public education from California to Puerto Rico students and workers through decisive actions have launched a new student and civil rights movement to defend public education and oppose privatization. We should eagerly support and help lead this movement now.

MOVEMENT TO DEFEND PUBLIC EDUCATION! (Support Resolution # 28)

We are now witnessing a concerted anti-public education, union-busting campaign far more dangerous than Ronald Reagan's firing of the PATCO air traffic controllers in 1981. The federal Department of Education's "Race to the Top" program is being used to force cash-starved states to enact anti-public education regulations, including increased charter schools, more standardized testing and attacks on school employees' seniority rights. There is a vigorous debate being waged within teachers' unions today about the need to oppose rather than capitulate to these attacks. The teachers' unions are the largest labor organizations in the nation. If they lose their seniority rights, AFSCME will be the next target. The loss of seniority rights could spell the end of unions as a voice and shield for the American working class. We must come to the defense of public education now. If we cannot, or will not, defend a public institution as universally popular as public education, then we will never be able to defend other public services, and with them, our jobs.

In California, Florida, New Jersey, Detroit, and Puerto Rico students and school workers have conducted mass actions in defense of public education and against privatization, and for opening up the universities and colleges to more minorities, poor students and the undocumented. The new student movement is led disproportionately by young black and latina/o students (including undocumented students) who know that public education is their key to a better life. In California, AFSCME supported many of these events. Rank & file AFSCME members participated and provided inspiration and leadership to the students. We need to keep developing AFSCME's involvement in this direction to provide the youthful dynamism we need to win.

President Obama's election was an optimistic expression, especially by younger people, that real positive change was possible. We must provide support for youth to organize and fight for their futures by defending public education, which is under the most serious attack since its inception, by Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

Strengthening this new youth-led civil rights movement, which desperately needs our organizational know-how, financial and material support and co-leadership, is the only proven strategy we have to win. The only reason our union would not choose to build the new movement and organize our fight on an independent basis is because our fear of unleashing the dynamism and power of a new, youth-led movement is greater than our fear of what we know is the other choice – the defeat of our unions and the end of the public sector, beginning with the destruction of public education as we have known it. If we conquer our fear and embrace the joy and the optimism of the new movement, we can win.

TAX THE RICH NOW! (Support Resolution # 51)

The oligarchs who ran our economy into the ground are determined to come out of the recession with even more money and control over society. They are using their crisis to bust unions, lower expectations for free public services and privatize everything that they can, while blaming public workers for the crisis.

Both political parties are trying to get us to accept a decade of "sacrifice" to resolve the governments' deficit dilemmas. Apparently they think that we have forgotten that for decades our living standards have been steadily eroded by concessions, while the rich accumulated historic levels of wealth. Every cent stolen from the working class through concessions, layoffs and service cuts has been funneled to the super rich, not the "taxpayers" (since the rich hardly pay taxes). It is no wonder the gap between the richest people and the rest of us has grown to pre-1930 levels.

Our nation's infrastructure and our city's need to be rebuilt and people need jobs. We need a vast expansion, not contraction, of public jobs to accomplish this task. But the politicians say there's no money. This is a lie. Today the corporations share of the total taxes collected is a small fraction of the percentage they paid in the past, leaving workers and middle-class people to carry the load. The question is not do we pay more or less taxes, but whose paying. A vigorous campaign in favor of taxing the corporations and the super-rich, who created the financial crisis and are growing wealthier through it, could solve the funding crisis, disarm the Tea-Party right-wing populists and be enormously popular with most American voters. The attack on public services and public jobs rests on the theory that we cannot tax the corporations, banks and rich to pay for both real health-care reform and the maintenance of public education as a fundamental right. Top Democrats believe that if they pursue a policy of taxing the rich they will lose the financial backing they need to win future elections. That is incorrect, and we need to pursue progressive change unencumbered by that incorrect political calculation.

DEFEND DEMOCRACY!

The decrease in taxes actually collected from corporations and the super-rich has provided the wealthy with surplus money to fund think-tanks and foundations. These organizations supply so-called data and scientific "facts" to manipulate public opinion, influence and buy politicians, pay fake "community activists" and determine political, social and economic policies in total disregard for democratic processes. Our elected leaders have essentially out-sourced the responsibility for formulating policy to corporate funded foundations such as Gates, Broad, Skillman foundations. Coincidently their suggestions always include privatization. Currently these organizations are directing national education policy, and are quickly moving into other areas of governance. This is the privatization of democracy itself. And since the corporate agenda can be difficult to enact through democratic means, impoverished cities and schools are now being subjected to appointed Emergency Financial Managers who are given carte blanche control without the consent of those who are affected by the EMF's draconian cuts and privatizations. These practices are undermining the democratic values of our nation.

There is an increasing agreement on basic policy among these corporate foundations and the politicians who carry out their wishes, be they "liberal" or "conservative", Democrat or Republican. This is why AFSCME and other progressive organizations need policies, practices and strategies truly independent of the major political parties and their pro-corporate schemes.

THIS IS THE FIGHT FOR EQUALITY

Due to unions like AFSCME and government-compelled desegregation, minorities and women have made more gains toward equal opportunities in public employment than in the private sector. The attack on public employment is disproportionally affecting these populations and the gains our entire nation has made toward a truer democracy. Minorities, youth, women and poor and disabled are also disproportionately affected by the massive cuts in social services, from welfare to public transportation to recreation and education. The defense of public services and our jobs means organizing those who are suffering most from the cuts. The fight to defend public our institutions and public jobs is a civil rights battle.

We cannot effectively defend our jobs by merely fighting for our contracts. To win, AFSCME must be an independent voice for, and organizer of, those most affected by the service cuts – minorities, the poor and youth. This does not mean merely encouraging them to vote for this or that politician. No serious rights were ever won primarily at the ballot box or by lobbying politicians. The laws and policies that guarantee our rights were won by building mass demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, etc. This was Martin Luther King's strategy, and it works.

The election of President Obama was an historic step for Americans, but it does not mean that we can now rely on the increasingly conservative and disloyal Democratic Party politicians. The greatest danger our union faces now is that we will ignore the reality of what is occurring and simply continue to either openly or tacitly back the Democrats. Every time we have acceded to the politics of the Democratic Party or subordinated our principles and understanding to the political needs of the politicians, we have faltered or suffered a setback.

DETROIT IS READY TO FIGHT & READY TO LEAD (Support Resolution # 30)

In Detroit, the nation's largest black community is under a sustained assault by the corporate foundations and Democratic and Republican politicians. Half of the city's public schools have been closed and are being replaced with publicly-funded charter schools. To supposedly save money, the mayor is actually planning to cut off services to vast swaths of the city, and forcibly displace residents from those areas. Unprecedented concessions are being demanded of city, county and public school workers.

But the home of so many historic civil rights and labor victories has not rolled over. Detroit was the only city to reject mayoral control of its public schools, after defeating a five-year state takeover. We have defeated attempts to takeover and/or privatize the water department. AFSCME has refused to give into concession demands through two and half years of one-sided negotiations. County workers have rejected concessions, despite punitive layoffs. The school teachers are in a constant battle against the appointed Emergency Financial Manager; public school students have led walkouts to keep their school open; activists, students and parents were arrested during a sit-in at the Governor's office; and activist lawyers from the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN) are representing the Detroit School Board in a suit against the EMF. Detroit wants to fight.

The powers that be will not stop demanding concessions from workers until we stop them. To earn the victory this nation needs we must choose the political and moral high ground, concentrate our efforts and resources and fight to win. Detroit must be our Gettysburg! It should serve as a model for workers and a warning to employers everywhere that AFSCME is ready, willing and able to lead the fight for our nation's future.