Democrats look for votes at AFSCME convention
1984 1984-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 7 →
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B RAY MARKEY
SAN FRANCISCO-The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) just concluded its 26th International Convention in San Francisco. Over 2700 delegates attended, representing over 1 million members. AFSCME is now the largest union in the AFL-CIO.
Three main items were on the agenda: The first was the election of the International president, secretary-treasurer, and International vice presidents. Gerald McEntee and Bill Lucy were reelected without opposition. This election effectively ended the warfare within the leadership that surfaced with Executive Director of District Council 37 Victor Gotbaum's losing campaign against Jerry Wurf in 1980. Gotbaum was reelected as International vice president.
The second major item was a celebration of AFSCME's successful organizing drives that have made it the largest public-service union in the AFL-CIO. AFSCME projects an additional increase of 200,000 members in the next two years.
The major theme of the convention, however, was the defeat of Ronald Reagan and the election of Walter Mondale. Keynote speakers echoing this theme included Walter Mondale, Willy Brown, Ed Asner, George McGovern, and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, among others. Every aspect of Reagan's anti-labor, pro-military policies was scrutinized and attacked.
Mondale, reiterating the themes of his campaign, stressed that he would be a strong leader, that he is for the nuclear freeze, and that now is the time for all Democrats to unite behind his campaign. There were a number of labor party resolutions submitted, but the convention voted to table them rather than allow a discussion to take place on the floor of the convention.
AFSCME continued its progressive stance on most social and foreign policy questions. The convention re-affirmed its position in favor of the ERA, payequity, and the nuclear freeze. It attacked Reagan's military budget and opposed his position on the MX and Cruise missiles.
The convention took a strong nonintervention position on Central America, opposing the allocation of all military and economic aid to these dictators as well as the use of U.S. military forces to either support or overthrow existing governments.
Secretary-treasurer Lucy reported that 40 percent of the members are women; 30 percent are Black or Latino. Of the total membership, 415,000 are state employees; 335,000 are city workers; 105,000 work in school districts; and 130,000 are divided among various titles.
Breaking the work force down in occupational titles, AFSCME has approximately 400,000 members in healthcare; 190,000 clericals, 110,000 technicals and professionals, and 100,000 in law enforcement and corrections.
Overall, AFSCME continued and even strengthened its position as a leading progressive force within the AFL-CIO. However, on bread-and-butter issues such as maintaining its members' standard of living and job protection, about the only advice the leadership offered was to elect Walter Mondale, or put another way, defeat Ronald Reagan.
Ray Markey was a delegate to the AFSCME convention from Local 1390 in New York City.