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.
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.
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