John,
Yesterday was the 74th anniversary of the day that Jackie Robinson became the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, taking the field at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1947. He won so many awards—Rookie of the Year, All-Star for six years in a row, played in six World Series games, and he got the National League’s MVP award in 1949. Before that, he lettered in four sports at UCLA – football, basketball, baseball, and track and played for the Kansas City Monarchs, part of the Negro League, for one year where he batted .345. Many people believe that our movement to end segregation really began in earnest with Jackie Robinson, and I do think there is some truth to the idea that his example helped move our country forward.
As our country continues to deal with our legacy of racism, as we struggle through another particularly difficult week that underlines how far we still have to go to achieve true equality and justice, I think about Jackie Robinson’s example. I think about him as someone who not only achieved greatness individually, but led his life as an example to others and blazed a trail of new possibility, showing us all the way to a brighter, more inclusive, more equal future. As we reflect on his life and his accomplishments, as we ponder our own situation and how much work there is to be done, let’s resolve to follow his example, to lead with purpose, and to bring about a better future for those who follow.
AFGE NOW Organizing Initiative
This has been another busy week for AFGE. We have been focusing a lot of attention on organizing and launching our NOW initiative. Our national organizers are excited to bring this new approach to recruiting new members and engaging the existing membership in more activism. We’re determined not to let the ongoing pandemic stand in the way of our organizing goals. We’ve put together a NOW Recruitment Power Pack (Building Power Edition) that everyone can access from our website.
It includes instructions on holding virtual, online organizing events with breakout rooms. There are resources to help you sign up members online, make your local more visible on social media, including texts and email and other social media. Please check it out! A lot of effort has gone into putting this together so that it’s easy to use. I want every member to have what they need to bring others into our great union, and this NOW Power Pack should get us all going. Please let me know if there’s anything missing that you’d like to see us add to the package and we’ll do our best to help out.
D.C. Statehood
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee voted in favor of sending H.R. 51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act, to the full House of Representatives for a vote. If it is enacted, D.C. would become the 51st state. AFGE sent a letter up to the Hill enthusiastically endorsing it. The more than 700,000 residents of this city deserve full representation in the House and Senate on equal terms with those in the other 50 states. I have no illusions about its prospects in the Senate, but we will continue to support full statehood for the District.
Budget Process
We’ve also been sending letters to all the appropriations committees in Congress as the annual process of putting together a budget gets underway. On Tuesday, we had a call with the entire Washington area Congressional delegation – Senators from both Maryland and Virginia and Representatives from Northern Virginia and all around Maryland all the way up to Baltimore. I took them through almost our entire policy agenda – from the 3.2% raise for 2022 to wage grade equity to paid family and medical leave to strengthening Title 5 and restoring full retirement benefits for those hired after 2013 and much else.
They were all pretty familiar with the issues and very supportive. Now it’s up to us to get more of Congress as supportive of the AFGE agenda as this group is! Please continue to make contact with your member of Congress. The Legislative Conference may be over, but lobbying the Congress is a year-round necessity.
We’ve been taking a close look at the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan. It proposes to invest $18 billion VA hospitals – building 10 new hospitals and modernizing many others. The dreadful Mission Act has a provision that created a closure/modernization review commission. We need to keep lobbying for that commission to focus more on rehab and steer away from any consideration of closures, which inevitably mean more privatization. This infrastructure plan makes me hopeful that the administration is on the side of improvement rather than destruction.
PRO Act
On March 9, the House passed the PRO Act, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021. This bill would impose real penalties on employers who interfere with workers’ rights to organize. Last week we learned that the workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama facility had voted against forming a union.
There has been lots of analysis of the campaign and the outcome. To my mind, the result was strongly affected by Amazon’s use of every dirty, union-busting trick in the book to persuade – some would say coerce—the workers to vote no. The silver lining, however, is that the election garnered so much attention around how difficult it is under current law for workers to form a union without fear of retaliation.
That was the thrust of President Biden’s message to the workers – that the choice to have a union should belong solely to the workers, and that employers should have no say in whether workers unionize. It is a worker’s choice, not the employer’s choice. If the PRO Act were law, I believe the outcome would have been different. Maybe we’ll get another crack at Amazon soon. If so, AFGE will be there to lend a hand.
I hope everyone is enjoying this fine Spring weather we’ve been having. I am always so happy when the weather turns warm and the flowers start to bloom. Let this be a time of renewal for AFGE as well as we again focus on growing and thriving!
Have a great union weekend!
In solidarity,
Dr. Everett Kelley
AFGE National President
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