Nearly 2,000 AFSCME members and activists have converged on Washington, D.C., for the union’s 2007 AFSCME Leadership Conference (June 18-20), where six Presidential hopefuls will make their pitch.

Event highlights include AFSCME’s second Presidential Forum on Tuesday, moderated by “Hardball” host Chris Matthews and covered live on MSNBC. Democratic candidates U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former U.S. Senator John Edwards, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Senator Barack Obama and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will attend.

Popular radio show hosts Ed Shultz and Air America’s Laura Flanders will broadcast live from the forum.

Right after the event, members will have a unique chance to express their support for the Employee Free Choice Act in a massive rally on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, attendees will hear from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Minn. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

For more news and announcements about the event, visit AFSCME.org.

Everyone knows about AFSCME’s political successes last year. Now comes word that 2006 was a banner year for AFSCME when it comes to the growth of our union.

Last year, 50,000 workers gained a voice by organizing with AFSCME. Twenty thousand were child care providers from Michigan who, through a partnership between AFSCME and the United Auto Workers, organized through the largest card check in modern labor history – one that won bargaining rights for a total of 40,000 child care providers. From New Jersey to Iowa, from New Mexico to Oklahoma, thousands more workers are now proudly waving the AFSCME flag.

AFSCME’s successes bucked the national trend. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released 2006 union membership numbers yesterday, reporting a decline of 326,000 union members nationwide. Union density dropped from 12.5 percent to 12.0 percent of the American workforce last year, according to the BLS report.

How has AFSCME managed to add workers while other unions struggle to stem membership losses? We are fully committed to creating growth opportunities through worker political action and running aggressive organizing drives in cities across America. At our convention last summer, we passed the Power to Win plan of the 21st Century Initiative, a bold, new strategy to expand our ranks.

Recent polling shows that more than half of all workers say they would join a union right now if they could. That’s why AFSCME is lobbying Congress hard to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, so workers have the freedom to join unions without employer interference. Speaker Pelosi has said to expect a vote on this crucial legislation sometime this spring.

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.

By Sheri Van Horsen — Member, Council 97 and Candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives.

Political Action was the theme of the day, and thousands of us donned our bright-green AFSCME PEOPLE t-shirts to show it.

How lucky – and proud — I felt to be in front of the entire Convention, looking out on that sea of green, speaking about the power of politics. I emceed a program featuring four dedicated AFSCME brothers and sisters who each spoke of their battles, their bruises, and their victories in electing candidates who support working families. Their stories reminded us that when we get together and take political action, there’s no stopping us.

I decided recently to run for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives because I truly believe in people power. It’s is one of the most exciting and at times difficult things (especially when I’m pounding the pavement in 110 degree heat) I’ve ever done. But I’ve got role models. In fact I got to introduce one of them today.

I was already so excited to be part of the Convention program today that I nearly had a heart attack when I found out that I would also be introducing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She is truly an inspiration to me. She’s a working woman. She raised her family. And she believes in fighting for working people. I decided to run for public office because I believe I should reach higher and that I can do more. Senator Clinton is proof that it’s possible.