In his latest entry on the Huffington Post, AFSCME President McEntee urges the Democratic National Committee to seat the delegates selected by the voters in Florida and Michigan:

I have a simple reason for wanting the delegates elected from Florida and Michigan to be seated in Denver: I want the Democratic candidate to carry those states in November. Florida and Michigan are two states whose Electoral College votes will be critically important in the fall. We should win them both.

Read the full post.

Just like his previous State of the Union speeches, Pres. Bush’s address last night was nothing but a rosy painted picture of what’s going on in our country, all references to reality removed to protect the not-so-innocent.

The bottom line is that our nation is in considerably worse shape than it was when Bush took office. Do you want to know how bad? Check out this chart on “The Legacy of George W. Bush’s Presidency” prepared by the House Democratic Caucus.

Dan Brown at The Huffington Post showcases some of its lowlights:

• The number of Americans living in poverty has jumped from 31.6 million to 36.5 million.
• The uninsured population has grown from 38 million to 47 million.
• The annual total premium cost has nearly doubled from $6,230 per family to $12,106 per family.

What we saw last night was an address filtered through “BushVision®”, lacking any meaningful references to the mortgage and credit crisis, the trade deficit, or the rising cost of gasoline. Bush chose instead to trumpet his proposed economic stimulus package, the same deal that AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee has called “a band-aid, half-hearted solution to the economic crisis we’re facing.”

We don’t need more empty rhetoric. What we need is concrete measures like state fiscal relief to help states and local governments maintain health care and other vital public services.

If given the chance, says the AFL-CIO, 60 million American workers say they would join a union. Now we have unbiased evidence of just how true this is: Union membership in the United States grew – overall – by 311,000 members last year, according to this report by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As noted in Think Progress, this is the first increase in 25 years and the largest single-year increase in overall membership since 1979 – a jump from 12.0 percent in 2006 to 12.1 percent in 2007. That growth – led by health services – happened despite significant employer opposition. That’s what happened to employees of Walker Methodist Health Center in Minnesota, as reported last year in this AFSCME WORKS cover story.

Last year, 48,000 workers chose AFSCME as their union. In a statement, AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee says:

“AFSCME’s growth, which has been consistent even during challenging times, is now part of a broader trend that’s spreading throughout the union movement.”

We’re reassured that workers are organizing in ever-greater numbers, but we’ve got to end the harassment. We need to keep up the pressure on Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which will makes it easier – and more fair – for workers to form and join unions. Read more about this great news at the AFL-CIO blog.

The Supreme Court has just refused to hear a case that let major banks complicit in the Enron fraud off the hook from paying damages to investors hurt by the scandal.

As a story in The Washington Post said:

The ruling is a staggering setback to the movement to expand investor rights. Often, financial experts say, business partners and corporate advisers are the only deep pockets left to tap after a scandal-ridden company has succumbed to bankruptcy.

If this was not enough, only a few days earlier the court ruled that third parties can’t be held liable for damages in cases where they aided schemes to commit fraud. The case, known as Stoneridge Investment Partners v Scientific-Atlanta, is also bad news for working families.

Why?

It’s simple. Think about the mortgage crisis, for example. Mortgage brokers and investment banks built a system in which they generated huge fee revenues and then passed off risk to investors. These risky mortgages were packaged by Wall Street bankers to sell to investors like our public pension funds.

Now that there’s a mortgage crisis, our retirement funds could be hit by losses that would make Enron look pennyante. Meanwhile, the parties responsible have less to fear now because, just like the banks involved in the Enron scandal, they may be immune from litigation.

In the end, the failed CEOs who led these companies walk about with hundreds of millions of dollars as working people are left holding the bag. This is why the fight for investor rights is also our fights because, ultimately, it’s things like our mortgages and our retirement that are on the line.

In spite of grim recession forecasts from leading economists like former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and tough times ahead for working families, Pres. Bush’s supporters in Congress have once again denied health care to 10 million children from low-income households. For the second time in three months, a vote to override Pres. Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has failed.

According to a recent U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee report, when employment growth slows, demand for SCHIP increases. As The Hill reported:

“[A] recession would create an additional strain on federal and state budgets as more people’s incomes fell to make them eligible for federal assistance through Medicaid and SCHIP. Extrapolating from the events of the recession at the beginning of the decade, the committee projected that as many as 1.1 million children would sign up for Medicaid or SCHIP each year a recession held.”

With the current economic slowdown and the increase in unemployment, more families are facing tough times.

As Jeremy Funk of Americans United for Change said:

“There is no better ‘economic stimulus’ they could have offered for the millions of parents who have to ask themselves every time their kids get sick: “Is it bad enough to see a doctor?””

To read more about this latest attack on SCHIP, check out this post at the AFL-CIO blog.

On February 12, 1968 — 40 years ago — 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., decided that enough was enough. They went on strike to force the city to recognize their union, AFSCME Local 1733. The walkout capped a long history of mistreatment and disrespect amid shameful working conditions.

The strike was a defining moment for the modern labor and civil rights movements. Officially, the men were after rights and raises, but the signs they carried made clear that their struggle was for much more — dignity and respect.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support the striking workers. The evening of April 3, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of strikers and supporters. The next day, he was assassinated.

Visit AFSCME.org for more on AFSCME, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike.

A series of events are being held in Memphis to celebrate MLK Day — read more on the AFL-CIO Blog and watch the video clip below from WREG-TV for details on how AFSCME and the labor movement are working to make Dr. King’s dream a reality.

With unemployment approaching 5%, families losing their homes due to the mortgage crisis and oil at record highs, George Bush decided to speak the truth… somewhat. He acknowledged that the U.S. economy is facing some challenges.

Kudos, George. Bush still refused to acknowledge the economy might be heading towards a recession despite predictions by some of the country’s leading economists.

Of course, less than a month ago, Bush was noting the strength of the economy and crediting it to his tax cuts for the wealthy:

“And [my economic] plan worked. If you think about where we were coming out of 2001 and where we are today, you can’t help but say the plan worked; cutting taxes helped stimulate economic growth.”

You might think that his change of mind on the state of the economy would merit a change of mind on the solution. Not so. He’s expected to propose yet more tax breaks for the wealthy.

Democratic leaders in Congress are ready to fight Bush for an economic stimulus package that works for working families. Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, sums it up: “This is going to be a battle over doing more of what George Bush has done for the past six years, or doing more for the middle class.”

AFSCME President McEntee comments on New Hampshire election results on the Huffington Post:

But Tuesday’s stunning win is about more than election results. This isn’t a horse race. This is a fight for a better America, an America that lives up to its ideals, an America where the basic promise of our country will ring true again – that if you work hard and play by the rules you can get ahead and give your children the opportunity to live a better life. This is a fight to end the war in Iraq, give every man, woman and child the medical care they need, and revive America’s middle class.

Read the full post.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee professed his support of striking television union writers right before crossing their picket line to appear on the “Tonight Show.”

Say what? So much for walking the talk.

Tula Connell covers the hypocrisy in her post on Firedoglake, where she writes, “Expressing support for striking workers means not crossing the picket line. Not. Ever.”

Read the full post.

It’s down to the wire in Iowa. AFSCME has endorsed Senator Clinton and our members are working hard to get out the vote for her campaign. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, quoted in a report from Workers Independent News, says:

“With Hillary Clinton as our president, we will build a better America. We will create an America that lives up to its ideals. Together, we’ll make history.”

(listen to the mp3 from WIN)

With the contest so close, it’s possible that all three top Democratic candidates will finish within a few points of each other and that there will be no definitive winner in Iowa. In his recent entry on the Huffington Post, McEntee reminds us that despite some clear differences among the candidates, we must remember that ultimately, we are all in this together:

“It’s important for all of the Democratic candidates and their supporters to remember that we’re all on the same side with the same goal – taking back the White House for America’s working families and making it the people’s house again.”