Dear Afscme family,

In a year full of hardship and heartache for the AFSCME family and the nation, in the middle of the worst public health crisis in a century, AFSCME members proved once again that we’re at our best when things are at their worst.

AFSCME members served on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, doing their work with poise and professionalism. Across the country, no matter the job, AFSCME members fought through the pandemic for their communities. In 2020, you answered the call to service, even when many of our politicians failed us. Our commitment to the job has only gotten stronger, bolder, braver.

Listen to AFSCME members who’ve fought on the pandemic’s front lines.

Like always, AFSCME adapts and adjusts to the challenges we face. And while our 44th International Convention was supposed to meet in Los Angeles this year, we’ve proven that we can show solidarity even while social distancing.

Over the last two years, the Mean Green Machine has been on a roll. We took to the streets and elected pro-worker governors who will fight with us. We’ve grown substantially, bringing in more than 50,000 new members into the AFSCME family through external organizing over the last two years.

We’ve won major legislative victories nationwide. In Nevada we won the largest expansion of state employee collective bargaining rights in any state since 2003. In California, more than 40,000 child care providers now have a union and a voice on the job. In Virginia earlier this year, we took a historic first step toward securing collective bargaining rights for public service workers.

Learn about AFSCME’s victories since our last convention.

While we’ve risen to the challenge, leaders like President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have demonstrated cowardice and incompetence, refusing to give our front-line heroes the resources we need to fight the worst public health crisis in a century.

Come November, we need the steady leadership of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They are interested in progress, not partisanship. They will fight for our families and our communities. They will unrig the system and build an economy that lifts up working people.

The last four years have been difficult ones. President Trump regularly attacks our union’s foundational principles, while the murders of George Floyd and others have once again laid bare the systemic racial injustices that have plagued our country for centuries.

As a union, we say firmly: Black Lives Matter. We will root out bias where we see it and, in the words of the late civil rights icon John Lewis, we will get into “good trouble.”

It’s up to us, AFSCME family. Our moral leadership has never been needed more.

In solidarity,

Lee Saunders
President, AFSCME