Today, the AFL-CIO’s blog discusses unions and the response to Katrina — one year later. Here’s an excerpt that reveals how AFSCME was there for our Gulf Coast members:

Michele Baker, a custodian supervisor for the New Orleans schools and president of AFSCME Local 872, called her union representative once she got to Baton Rouge. Within hours, a group of AFSCME members showed up at the church to bring money and other aid to the Bakers.

AFSCME asked her to join a press conference to talk about her experiences and to travel around the country, telling people what happened. As a result, Michele was offered a job as an AFSCME organizer and now works in Milwaukee. Her husband, Alex remains in Baton Rouge with the transit authority, but he will return to work in New Orleans Sept. 1. He says the two are committed to making a long-distance marriage work.

Follow the links below for AFSCME’s archived coverage of the aftermath of Katrina:

“Victimized by Wind, Water and Politicians”

“Misplaced Priorities — Gerald W. McEntee”

“Attacking the Culture of Poverty — William Lucy”

President McEntee blogs today at Huffington Post about AFSCME’s new political action committee created to ensure the right-wing doesn’t railroad gerrymanderd federal redistricting plans in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Here’s an exerpt:

Yesterday, in Nashville, TN, AFSCME announced the creation of Foundation for the Future - a new 527 group we are creating in partnership with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and NCEC Services.

The mission of the Foundation for the Future is to help Democrats prepare for the congressional redistricting fights that will occur in a few short years.

The stakes are high. Over the next decade, 36 state legislatures will determine congressional district maps - and of these, 20 have at least one chamber within four seats of changing hands.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee has become a regular guest blogger on the Huffington Post, a major progressive blog and news website. Check out his most recent post about how AFSCME and coalition partners plan to defeat anti-worker politicians across the country.

Here’s an exerpt:

With less than three months until Election Day, here’s the bottom line for every activist in the progressive movement: the only thing that matters is returning power to the people of this country. From the Iraq War to skyrocketing health care costs to privatization attacks on Social Security, Republican Party rule has been a disaster for America.

Today is the final day of the 37th AFSCME International Convention. We’re delighted to hear remarks from our brother, Reg Weaver — President of the National Education Association as well as closing remarks from President McEntee and Secretary-Treasurer Lucy. We’ll also take part in a “Salute to Public Service.”

And even though we all know everything there is to know about the 21st Century Initiative, the rest of the world found out about it in an article in today’s New York Times. Here’s a quote:

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced plans yesterday to spend $60 million more a year to campaign for universal health coverage, to unionize 70,000 workers annually and to register 280,000 union members to vote.

We had a great time this week and hope to see you in 2008 in San Francisco!

We just completed the first-ever AFSCME town hall meeting, “Our Voices, Our Future.” Thousands of AFSCME members, in small groups, discussed the challenges facing our union. Through the use of a high-tech network of laptops, we were able to submit our thoughts and come to consensus on ways to build a stronger union with a more active membership and on how to improve the image of public service workers.

Tammy Wallace, a state employee from Indianapolis, IN drove three hours — taking the day off from work — to kick off the meeting with these words of encouragment:

“In Indiana, we lost our collective bargaining rights with the stroke of the Governor’s pen .. so as you work today to come up with ideas and plans to make our union stronger, think of me — the rank and file member who works everyday, who needs this union, who can’t afford to see us fail.”

At the end of the meeting, we had a preleminary report on the results of the town hall. In a few days we’ll have the full report and will post it at www.afscme.org.

By Willie Wallace, Local 3491, Council 62

My name is Willie Wallace, I’m a city employee from Gary, IN and today, my union is going to attempt something never done before by an organization our size. The thousands of us delegates here in Chicago are going to take part in an interactive town hall meeting where we’ll put the 21st Century Initiative into action.

We’re going to do something really cool here in Chicago. As individuals and in small groups we will offer up our opinions and ideas on working in the public sector in this country and on being members of this union. We’ll be divided up into tables of ten with a facilitator and a laptop to record and transmit our responses on several questions and topics. Picture it: 500 tables, 500 facilitators, 500 laptops – one gigantic brainstorming session. It’s sounds pretty interesting and totally unlike anything we’ve ever done before. It’s definitely more high-tech than the old-fashioned flipchart or white-board.

Our answers and ideas will be put up on giant screens in the convention hall, and we’ll vote as individuals on which ideas we think are best. In the end we’ll have a single document that truly reflects the will of our union. Our ideas and opinions will then guide our leaders in the days, weeks, months and years to come. It really is democracy in action!

By Shirley Brown, Westlake Hospial Housekeeper, Chicago, IL

My name is Shirley Brown. For the last 10 years, I’ve been a housekeeper at Westlake Hospital, one of the eight hospitals in the Resurrection Health Care chain. I speak for my fellow employees when I say that it warmed our hearts to see all our AFSCME brothers and sisters out there supporting us in our struggle to form a union with AFSCME Council 31.

Let me tell you why I want to form a union. I’m a housekeeper. My colleagues and I keep the hospital clean. We make sure that infections don’t spread. A clean hospital gives our patients confidence that they’re in good hands. Without us, the best doctors and the fanciest equipment could not heal our patients.

But at Resurrection, while they spend money to put marble floors in the lobbies, they skimp on basic supplies for us to do our job. And while our CEO Joseph Toomey gets paid millions of dollars, housekeepers start off at $8 per hour. If we want our families covered on health insurance, we pay nearly $200 a month.

I have co-workers that have taken their children off of their insurance because they can’t afford it. Imagine that… full-time employees of a Catholic hospital whose children don’t have health insurance. So we decided to form our union.

The Catholic Church says that all workers should be allowed to form unions, free from fear and intimidation. Resurrection knows that.

But instead of following the Church’s teachings, they responded immediately with a union-busting campaign. Because of this campaign, my co-workers often tell me they want a union, but they’re afraid.

Why are my co-workers so afraid? Here are a few things that Resurrection and their union busters have done in my department:

They are constantly sending out anti-union letters that try to make us feel like there’s no point in organizing with AFSCME.

They’ve even fired 4 of my co-workers who are union supporters. All this at a Catholic Hospital.

Sometimes in our struggle I feel lonely. They try to scare me. They try to isolate me. They want me to feel like there’s no hope.

But when I looked out and saw a sea of green today, I didn’t feel lonely. I felt like I have every single member of AFSCME right there with me, telling me to never give up.

The theme of our rally today was “It’s Time.” And I knew by looking at my brothers and sisters what time it is….IT’S AFSCME TIME!

Alan Peterson, a city worker from Enid, OK, spoke a few moments ago to the AFSCME convention about his fight to form a union with AFSCME. Check out his blog posting at DailyKos for the full story about how forming a union has turned him into an activist and changed the way he votes.

By Sandie Zerjav, Local 1565, Council 4

My name is Sandie Zerjav and I am a corrections officer from Coventry, Connecticut. When I first went to work for the Department of Corrections, there had been a union for years. Honestly, it was something I took for granted.

But now I realize that no union can be taken for granted – that there are workers all across this country who are struggling to form a union. Often they are fighting management that uses dirty tricks and scare tactics to keep workers from joining together for more power.

There is no better example of this struggle than the 10,000 workers at Resurrection Health Care here in Chicago. These brave men and women have been on the front lines of an organizing fight for the last four years. All they want is a union with AFSCME. But management at this supposedly “charity” hospital is fighting them every step of the way with threats and firings.

That’s why it’s so important what I, and the thousands of other attendees at this year’s convention, will be doing today. We’re going to show up – all together in AFSCME green – and rally in front of the hospital. We’ll show the workers of Resurrection that their AFSCME brothers and sisters stand with them in this fight. We have their backs today, and we’ll have their backs until the fight is done and they have the union they need and deserve.

Yesterday at AFSCME’s 37th International Convention, members spoke loudly and clearly for change, passing key components of the 21st Century Initiative – the most far-reaching reform plan in our union’s history. The support, while not unanimous from the nearly 3,500 delegates, was certainly overwhelming.

Members said YES to more political power; YES to more organizing; YES to a new leadership institute; YES to mobilizing a 40,000-member activist army; YES to stopping the attacks on public services and taking back America for working people. In the words of AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee in yesterday’s keynote address: “Let us get bigger, better, and bolder … together!

To fund the plan, delegates passed a $3 per month dues increase (phased in over three years) that will raise $60 million. $24 million will go directly to AFSCME grassroots affiliates. The other $36 million will fund priority national campaigns, “get out the vote” political efforts and legislative battles to defeat measures that seek to privatize public services.

You can check out today’s convention newsletter for more details about yesterday events, which also included speeches by Senatory Hillary Clinton and progressive talk radio host Ed Schultz.