'You are the power of this union'
AFT president urges new era of grass-roots labor activism

“There are large and small ways to get involved, but the important thing is that, in some way, every member of this union says, ‘Count me in,’” said AFT president Edward J. McElroy during his keynote address at the union’s 79th national convention, held July 19-23 in Boston, Mass.

“Count Me In!” the theme of this year’s convention, “applies to everything from volunteering for union political efforts, to helping our brothers and sisters affected by last year’s hurricanes, to taking part in union organizing,” said McElroy.

“There are powerful interests at work in America today that aim to destroy every shred of economic, political and social decency won by working Americans over many decades,” McElroy warned convention delegates. These attacks can only be stopped, he said, if every union member is willing to stand up and be counted.

“You and your colleagues who do this work each and every day, you are the power of this union,” McElroy told thousands of AFT members. “You fight the fights, you win the victories. We all need to go out and enlist more members into your kind of activism because so much depends on the members of their union saying, ‘Count me in!’”

Broad, grass-roots activism shows the union’s true colors and exposes the bogus charge that labor is simply a self-interested group with a narrow agenda. “Just because a lie is repeated over and over doesn’t make it true,” McElroy countered. “Unions are built by activists and volunteers. Members get inspired by common values we believe in, a moral center, a cause.

“There are times when a union must act. This is one of those times.”

Dangerous days
Now is the time to create a dramatic change in this country, McElroy noted.
“We have a golden opportunity to sweep out of office those who would undermine the role of government to promote the common good, those who would destroy public education and the union movement, and those who would take away retirement and healthcare benefits—starting with this November’s congressional and gubernatorial elections and ending in two years when we put a friend of all we stand for in the White House.”

McElroy detailed many of the immediate and long-term threats facing each of the divisions. The White House is pressuring the National Labor Relations Board to strip nurses’ union rights. In addition, the effort to deny overtime pay to health professionals gives hospitals and other healthcare providers little incentive to end mandatory overtime and to institute safe staffing levels in order to improve the quality of patient care, said McElroy.

“I wonder if they think that will help solve the nurse shortage. Each and every one of us has to take a stand to stop the destruction of our healthcare system,” he said.

Higher education is reeling from budget constraints and attacks on academic free speech. Public employees have seen governors in Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri steal their rights to union representation. Paraprofessionals are particularly vulnerable to the types of budget attacks circulating through states that would force cuts in vital health, information, guidance and school services that teachers and students rely on.

And then there are the broad, overarching issues that put the AFT and labor in the crosshairs, McElroy stressed. The current administration’s economic policies “have led to a widening gulf between the very rich and the very poor—and they have left many in the middle class teetering toward the latter.” The White House also is behind plans to destabilize and privatize Social Security, and “now there is another threat to retirement security—the collapse of pension promises.”

Our mission
The AFT response, McElroy said, must be as broad as the attacks themselves, and it will require resources. “We need additional resources to properly pursue a number of important organizing opportunities. At the same time, we must continue to provide the excellent services upon which our members rely,” the AFT president emphasized.

Volunteers and activists built the AFT, and they still hold the key to the union’s future, McElroy said. He mentioned several projects begun over the past two years that exemplify this spirit: the Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program, which builds long-term relationships between rank-and-file members and their Capitol Hill representatives; and the AFT e-Activist network, which uses new technology to quickly connect AFT members to Congress.

Although external threats abound, one of the biggest threats to the union’s future is entirely in our hands. “Frankly, we have lost some of that activism as we have relied less on members and volunteers and become bigger, more structured and dependent upon union staff. We have to make sure that members don’t look at union membership more as a way to receive services than as a way to be part of a cause.

“We are going to continue to develop this grass-roots political mobilization,” McElroy pledged. “There is no other way to achieve what our union needs to do.”

A ‘new spirit of activism’
During the convention, delegates were given a crucial take-home assignment as AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour asked them to return to their locals prepared to launch efforts that will generate a new spirit of unionwide member activism. The AFT’s mobilization efforts must be expanded to ensure the union’s continued clout and effectiveness, said LaCour.

“Those of you here today are already doing so much, but if you can do just a little bit more, the effect will be magnified a hundred times,” he said. This means volunteering for organizing or political action campaigns or for local union activities to make the “culture of organizing” in the AFT a reality. By engaging all members at the grass roots, he said, “we must turn nonmembers into members, members into activists and activists into leaders.”

LaCour urged AFT leaders and activists to use every activity of a local—from preparing for contract negotiations to political races—as an opportunity to get members involved. “We seek an ‘organizing way’ to do everything,” he said, so that members begin to talk about the union as “we and us, not it and them.”

The AFT secretary-treasurer outlined a number of projects the union is undertaking to help affiliates in this endeavor, including more resources directed to affiliate organizing, working with the AFL-CIO in a volunteer mobilization program and creating an infrastructure of information technology to support member activism.

He also urged delegates to jump into the Count Me In program by completing pledge cards promising to participate in one or more union-building activities. “Count Me In is more than a chant, it’s a commitment to member involvement,” LaCour said. “We need the entire union movement ready to accept the volunteer spirit.”

To sign up or learn more about the program, visit www.aft.org/CountMeIn.