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Is There a Problem Over at Mic #5?

That was one of the many questions asked during today’s Special Nominating Session.
The answer to this question was that a brawl was almost taking place at microphone 5. Most of the central microphones on the floor had been surrounded by the Yellow Shirts and all access to other delegates was affectively blocked. At Microphone 5 a member who was not wearing a yellow United for Lee T-shirt had managed to beat the Yellows to the mic and was holding her own while waiting to be heard. When she was finally allowed to be heard by President Gerry McEntee she told a story of being threatened, disrespected and even handled by the Yellow Shirts because she had risen to nominate Danny Donohue for Secretary Treasurer. She had to threaten back that if anyone else laid a hand on her she “was going to #%$& them up.”

So what could have led to a near brawl around one of the 15 or so microphones dispersed throughout the convention floor? It was nothing short of a political maneuver to present Secretary-Treasurer Candidate Lee Saunders in the best light and the other candidate Danny Donohue less dramatically.

Mr. Saunders is currently Mr. McEntee’s right hand man at the International in D.C. and Gerry is determined that Saunders is the one to replace him when the President decides to retire, perhaps as soon as the next International in 2012, during the U.S. Presidential Primary Election Season.

While hand picking one’s successor in office has been quite popular with monarchs the world over our AFSCME International Union is intended to be a democratic organization that works for and by the members themselves. Our leaders earn the respect and support of the membership and are then elected to positions of greater and greater responsibility as they prove themselves capable of truly democratic leadership.

Earlier in the day many members had brought up that it seemed unfair that the Convention’s daily newsletter today was yellow. Members brought up that this was inconsistent with the traditional color scheme of AFSCME which is of course green.
Gerry answered this by holding up a newsletter from some prior convention that had been printed in red. Even that red had a green streak through it. And how is it that an International staffer happens to have a newsletter from some bygone convention just handy at the podium?

Well the yellow newsletter was just the beginning of the unfair practices employed today by McEntee and his followers to try and get their man, Saunders elected to the powerful Secretary-Treasurer office recently vacated by the retirement of Bill Luce.

With legions of Yellow Shirts surrounding most of the microphones and the Donohue for AFSCME supporters trying to get to microphones to nominate their candidate the crowd began a cacophonous yelling and banging that the chair could not be heard and the nominations could not proceed. This went on for 15 solid minutes and was almost about to subside when the chair yelled out that he could go on like this all day. At that point the noise increased again and caused even more frustration with the chair and other folks on the stage. The sound out was a show of the power of the membership that we could shut the whole show down if the dirty politics was going to be the order of the day.

Finally after the tension at microphone 5 was relaxed some we could get on with nominations. And who is first called upon but Gerry McEntee, this time not wearing his Presidential hat but acting as a member, down on the floor to give a less than inspiring speech about the great qualities of Lee Saunders. Now I don’t know Lee but I do know that I would not want to be represented in the International by someone who would stand by and allow the kind of political antics on the convention floor that we saw today.

Throughout the nomination of Saunders the Yellow Shirts dominated the microphones and gave testimonial after testimonial regarding Saunders. When they were finally through talking about Saunders they all went up in front of the stage and clapped and cheered for him while some groovy tune played.

No sooner had this wrapped up and the Yellow Shirts returned to their seat than there is McEntee again back on the stage, still wearing his yellow shirt and calling for any other nominations for the open position. Members subsequently nominated and seconded Danny Donohue for the position. A number of members took the microphone to call for a point of Order that the President remove the yellow United for Lee T-shirt he was wearing on the stage in front of all the delegates.
He refused to take off the shirt, claiming that he can do whatever he wants and even threatening a member who was blowing a whistle.

Another important question asked on the floor today was whether a member who had earlier agreed to add their vote along with all the members of their Local delegation to vote as a block for the same candidate, could back out of that agreement and cast his or her own ballot for the candidate of their choice.

This question was never answered to the satisfaction of the member who asked it or the rest of the body. It seems that some delegates signed a page before coming to the convention that they would add their vote to a block vote for Saunders. A member in Juvenile Corrections from Nevada I met today at the Red Sox game told me that he had signed a page pledging to block vote but after seeing the shenanigans on the convention floor today He wanted to switch his vote to Donohue but was not sure how to do it. Again it was not adequately explained by the Elections Committee Co-Chair.

After Danny’s nomination the question of the Yellow Shirts on the stage and the return of McEntee to the role of Chair even after he had gone to the floor to nominate Saunders. It was heard around the convention by me that Mr McEntee should have remained on the floor until after all the nominations had been completed and the Special Nomination Session had ended. He took control once again and cut short Donohue supporters who wished to speak on his behalf.

So where does this go from here? Firstly there had better be a blue newsletter tomorrow. Blue is the color of the Danny Donohue campaign.

Ed Shultz is rumored to be joining us tomorrow. Perhaps we can get word to him of the improprieties going on at the AFSCME Convention and he can share it with his radio listeners on progressive stations across the country and on his MSNBC cable show.

We must make sure that delegates who have pledged to vote as a block are allowed to be released from that pledge and vote their own conscience. I have heard from more than one member who wants to change their voted based on what they saw Tuesday on the convention floor.

I think that the President has shot his buddy’s campaign in the foot by trying to show Saunders down the memberships throat because he wants to work with someone hwo knows how to be his subordinant. AFSCME is a last bastion of democracy in America and the members are determined to keep it that way and come out of convention strong and able to build and grow the membership. We can not allow an attempt to unduly influence the election of Bill Luce’s successor as Secretary-Treasurer. Mr Luce has said the he supports Danny Donohue, now McEntee needs to lead a fair and clean election or get out of the way and let us do it.

More tomorrow from the convention floor.

Vicki Kennedy In The House!

We jsut saw a short tribute video of Ted Kennedy. He spelt Kennedy...L-A-B-O-R!
Now Vicki has welcomed us to Teddy's home town, BOSTON!

She is reminding us of the Kennedy family committment to Labor, John, Bobby, Teddy, Patrick...91 years of Kennedys standing for Labor in the Congress.

There are still over 100 Kennedy children and grandchildren. There will be more Kennedys in Government advocating for Labor.

She acknowledges Teddy's gratitude for AFSCME's members working so hard for health care reform when we already have health care. We stood up and continue to stand for those who have less than we do.

Vicki has plrdged that she will always stand with us as her husband did during his life.
Standing Ovation and Hugs on the stage.
Stay Tuned--we are back to resolutions.

Resolutions Resolutions Resolutions

Mid-Day Update from the Floor.
Many Local 53 Alternates have been invited to the floor while the delegates are out having lunch or a smoke break. We are grateful for the opportunity to take part in the proceedings, adding our yeah's or nay's to the collective voice of the Convention.

There are three books full of 70 Resolutions. Will we get to all of them? Probably not. Will we get to most of them? Probably not.

Most of the Resolutions coming to the floor right now involve reaffirming our commitment to workers in child care, corrections, Head Start, and the myriad of other important jobs and programs AFSCME members do every day. These resolutions are all passing with no opposition.

Now we are into the "Special Order of Business", honoring Ted Kennedy. McEntee calls him "Labor's True Champion".
Stay Tuned.

Day Two:Live from the Convention Hall

I'm up here in the nosebleed section of the bleechers where Alternate Delegates are relegated.
The other 53 Alternates are up here with me flattening our asses on the metal bleechers.

The Donohue supporters in their blue shirts and the Saunders supporters in their yellow shirts are marching around the hall making tons of noise. They have been called to shut up and sit down as McEntee gavels the group to order.

The Minnesota Delegation is still at it screaming, "We want Danny" but everybody else seems to have quieted down. No that's not it they are screaming for more tables and chairs because they don't have enough to seat their deleates from the Great State of Minnesota.

Council 28 delegates are currently behaving themselves as McEntee begins to honor the Retirees and the Next Wave members.
Stay tuned for updates all week.

Convention Day One
It was a hot and humid day in Boston as the 39th AFSCME International Convention officially got under way with the banging of the gavel by President Gerry McEntee. The theme of the convention is Ready to Fight, Ready to Lead and there is quite a fight brewing in the campaign to replace recently retired Secretary Treasurer Bill Luce.

The politicking is everywhere, from the silly yellow noise sticks the supporter of Lee Saunders are littering the floor with, to the “Thank You Bill Lucy” signs everyone was waving that were provided by the Danny Donohue supporters. One Local 443 Delegate remarked to this blogger that even the placement of the delegates from the different states appeared to her to be very political. Nominations are tomorrow with voting on Thursday and again on Friday if there needs to be a run-off vote.

The delegates from Local 53 are Sue Hendrickson, Brad Samples, Karen McElroy, Paulette Thompson, Reidoon Inman and Angie Simpson.
The Alternate Delegates are Marvin Rife, Cynthia English, Ken Blair, Rosie Barnard, Steve Fossum and Brett Clubbe.

About an hour into the event we listened to a speech by recently retired Secretary Treasurer Bill Lucy. Mr Lucy spoke about his hopes that AFSCME will remain a union that works for its members rather than an organization whose members feel are working for it.

This was followed by committee reports and a couple of resolutions. One Resolution was put forth by Council 28 which proposed changing the rules of the convention to require that 90% of business be completed before the convention can close. Apparently in the past only 74% of business was attended to during the convention, in between the speeches and the back patting.

When it looked like the resolution was doomed to fail the membership voted to send it back to the resolutions committee, who had just recommended that the body vote to kill the resolution. Round and Round it goes on the convention floor. We will see what the Resolutions Committee does with it.

Then we broke for the rest of the day so more committees could meet and prepare for nominations for Secretary-Treasurer. Tomorrow we will also here from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

More from the floor tomorrow and hopefully I will get the photo shortcoming solved and be posting images as well.