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By GREGORY N. HEIRES
DC 37’s national union is engaged in a war against Republican Gov. Jeb Bush’s effort to destroy the civil service system, privatize government services and cripple the labor movement in Florida.
AFSCME has launched a statewide fight-back campaign. The goals are to sway public opinion against Bush’s scheme, rally the state’s 100,000 public employees to combat it, and to make sure his lease on the statehouse ends with the 2002 election.
Over the long term, AFSCME aims to strengthen the union in Florida, where questionable voting practices last year led to the Supreme Court decision that in effect selected George W. Bush as president of the United States.
Hector Coto, assistant director of the DC 37 Professional Division, and former DC 37 Rep Gladys Camacho were among more than 50 unionists that AFSCME dispatched to Florida in March to participate in a counterattack.
Bush’s plan would undermine civil service there by:
- removing 16,000 state workers from the career service system, leaving them with no job protections
- cutting the work force by 25 percent over five years,
- privatizing government services,
- allowing supervisors to fire workers without cause, and
- eliminating seniority and bumping rights in layoffs.
More than 1,500 AFSCME activists and public ?employees traveled from around the state to the capital, Tallahassee, for a boisterous April 9 rally against Bush’s “Service First” initiative. Some traveled over 500 miles to get there.
“We’re not going to roll over,” said Gerald W. McEntee, international president of AFSCME, who describes the Bush plan as union busting. “We’re not going to give up,” McEntee said. “Hell no.”
Some labor officials have characterized the Bush offensive as payback against unions for fighting for a fair vote count in Florida in the presidential election.
At the rally, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney told Gov. Bush, “You and your brother George W. Bush stole the votes of thousands of Floridians, and we will not let you steal the future from thousands of state employees.”
In recent weeks, AFSCME activists like Mr. Coto and Ms. Camacho put in long hours as they prepared for the April 9 mass demonstration, gathered signatures from state workers on a petition against the plan, and visited workers at job sites and in their homes.
“We run into some apathy, but the Bush plan is giving the union a new life,” Mr. Coto said. “When your job is threatened,” he said, “that’s a reason to become united.”
Ms. Camacho, who retired late last year, said her approach to mobilizing members for the petition drive and demonstration relied on a little New York bravado.
“A lot of people felt the plan was a done deal,” said Ms. Camacho. “But I said, ‘Don’t give up. If someone is going to kick you, you are going to get up and fight.’”
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