Why is it important for your union to be involved in political action?

You have more voice as a group than as an individual. Last year, I almost lost my job because of the governor’s proposal to privatize all the doctors and dentists who work for the Department of Corrections. Our local, 110 physicians and dentists, came together, worked with AFT-Wisconsin as well as AFT national—and we saved our jobs.

We are trying to elect people who will be fair to employees and work with the union. All the local officials that we deal with are involved in our grievance process, our pay and contract negotiations and have decision-making authority about the benefits that we receive. It is important that we work with them—and they work with us.

—Robert Martin
Purchasing Agent
for Missoula County, Mont.

What are the three most important issues facing public employees in your opinion?

In my own little world, number one would be understaffing to the point that we cannot provide adequate care for our patients. Number two: understaffing to the point that our safety is in question every single day that we arrive at work. Number three: The disrespect that we receive from those who have the right to hire and fire because they use that against us. They let us know that they are the ones who can end the car payments right now.

—Connie Patillo
Mental Health/Developmental
Disability Technician at Kansas’
Osawatomie State Hospital

How to keep staff in the face of privatization; healthcare, because of budgetary issues, there is the worry we will have to pay for part of our premiums; and recognition that what we do matters and we should be paid as much as private sector employees for the same kind of work.

—Holly Pope
Children and Family Therapist
for the North Central Human
Service Center in Minot, N.D.

What are the three most important issues facing this country and why?

Troop withdrawal from Iraq, because the war is serving to further divide the wealth in the country and positioning the United States as an oppressor worldwide, isolating ourselves from the rest of the world and creating a human catastrophe. Healthcare, which is the number one domestic issue. Unions ought to work to ensure that healthcare is a human right, which is why we need to get behind universal healthcare. Increasing wealth disparity, which is creating a perpetual underclass of low-wage workers and unemployed.

Poverty. Wealth. Health and welfare. Poverty: If we do not head it off, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is going to be irreversible. In a place where there is great wealth and poverty, there is no middle class. There is only one place for me to head and that is to the poverty section. Health and welfare: Living a quality life in my later years, so I am not a detriment to my family, which means protecting my defined-benefit pension and healthcare. I’ve been around people who have worked 10 to 15 years in the private sector and have nothing to show for it.