WHEREAS:
The City of Los Angeles is in a fight to stay united and to remain the great City that it has become; and
WHEREAS:
Secession movements are underway in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood areas; and
WHEREAS:
AFSCME District Council 36, representing approximately 8,000 L.A. city workers including 2,000 newly organized Recreation Assistants who have just won their first contract. Council 36 continues to win, through hard fought struggle, decent wages, benefits and working conditions and secession is a direct attack on labor and these good union jobs; and
WHEREAS:
The secession movement is created by anti-union individuals who have privatization and contracting out as their goal and who have built a campaign based on lies and false information; and
WHEREAS:
If these areas are successful in seceding, the high level of public services that hardworking AFSCME members and other union members, including our brothers and sisters in SEIU, provide to all the residents of Los Angeles, will be greatly reduced, taxes will go up, services will go down, thousands of union jobs will be lost, and hard earned pension benefits will be in jeopardy; and
WHEREAS:
The hardest hit residents will be the poor and people of color; and
WHEREAS:
If this effort is successful in Los Angeles you can be sure that the privatizers across America will have a new weapon to use and will be appearing in your community soon.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That all AFSCME members everywhere will tell their family and friends who are eligible to vote in the City of Los Angeles, including the Valley and Hollywood, to learn the truth, get the facts and then vote NO on secession on November 5, 2002; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the International continue to offer the great power and influence of AFSCME to our brothers and sisters in Los Angeles to defeat secession and to keep Los Angeles as one city; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
The President McEntee be commended and given our appreciation for being one of the first national leaders to get into the fight to preserve the great City of Los Angeles and to protect AFSCME members and their jobs.
SUBMITTED BY:
Roy Stone, President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 2626, Council 36
California