Lee Saunders is a historymaker. He is the first Black president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). He was elected to the position in 2012.
Recently, Saunders spoke to rolling out about what it’s like to have a seat at the table and why workers around the country should fight for the same access.
What is the importance of what you do every day?
We represent 1.4 million public service workers across the country in every occupation you can imagine in the public service, the public sector, the nonprofit sector, and also in the private sector who perform vital public services, whether it’s picking up the trash every day, providing those unemployment insurance checks, working those highways in correctional facilities, having administrative support and help in the state and local offices across the country.
We have individuals who drive emergency medical trucks to save people’s lives every single day. We have public sector work, child care, and home care. We have all of those folks in our union and we provide them through being a part of this union, AFSCME, a seat at the table where they can sit down, and negotiate wages, working conditions and benefits.
Often safety issues where they can have that seat at the table to negotiate those things they care about, and their communities care about; also because they provide the central services to the community, and people expect that they’re going to be treated fairly on the job.
What is the significance of unions?
We have some difficult times regarding collective bargaining for public sector workers. We are not covered under national law, so we have got to fight, and strategize about getting collective bargaining state by state, city by city, so public service workers have that seat at the table.
Dr. King understood that. He understood the connection between labor rights and economic rights. He got it. He was planning the poor people’s march back in 1967/1968 when we had a major strike. A strike that changed the history of this country, the trajectory of this country, where 1,300 sanitation workers went on strike because they had problems. They had two of their brothers killed in a trash truck, where they were getting out of bad weather, and they sat inside the trash truck. The mechanism was a fault, it would fail, and it crushed them right in that truck, and they had been fighting for a union.
They wanted to be represented by [Memphis local union] 1733, they wanted to have that seat at the table. They wanted to be treated like men and be respected for the work that they did. It was hard back in those days, carrying those big tubs on the top of your head with trash dripping down, working in every kind of weather situation when it was raining or snowing, but they were performing their duties for the public service and they had enough. They were tired of being treated like second-class citizens. When those two men were killed they said, enough is enough and they went on strike. They were represented by 1733, and although we didn’t have the right to bargain with them in the city, we represented those workers. We took a stand, we knew this was going to be something that was very important that might change history, and that the public sector representation of public service workers across the country.
Dr. King understood that, and he understood connecting labor rights with civil rights and economic rights, and even though he was planning to poor people’s march, he decided it was absolutely necessary for him to show his support and travel to Memphis, even against the wishes of many of his advisors. But he traveled to Memphis to show his support and talk about the need for these workers to be recognized and be treated like men.
What does AFSCME make certain when they’re negotiating for those mothers and women?
We want to negotiate a fair contract for those workers we represent. That includes better pay, stronger benefits of a pension, it’s someone or something. When someone retires, they can live in dignity. We want them to have health insurance so they can provide for their families. If their families are sick, if something happens to a family member, we want them to have that insurance.
We want them to have protection, safety and health protections on the job. If we would have had those protections in Memphis in 1968, possibly that accident would have never happened, but we didn’t have the ability to do that, because we didn’t have a seat at the table.
We also connect with our communities in a very important way where people understand what’s going on. We educate folks about the importance of public services and how people rely upon public services every single day. Hopefully, the clean water that you’re drinking, and all of those kinds of things that you think about in public services provided by our members, and for them to provide the best of services, they need a seat at the table to talk about the challenges they’re confronted with so we can come to a solution regarding, not only their pay and benefits but changing the environment at the workplace so they have better lives.
What would you say to a young person who wants to have a career being in a union?
Why is that a career you’ve elected? Why is it something you want our community and future generations to be involved in? Back in the 50s and 60s, my dad was a bus driver in the city of Cleveland.
He was not doing well, but he was getting by. He had a decent salary. He had that salary, he had those benefits because there was a unionized workforce of the Amalgamated Transit Union represented those city bus drivers. When I was growing up in Cleveland, Black families would move from the south to the north, and you’re aware of this being in Chicago because they had the opportunity to have a better life.
Then, in Cleveland for African Americans, it was either working for the bus company, post office, rubber plants, steel plants, or auto plants. That’s why people migrated to the north so they could get those jobs, and those industries were hiring African Americans.
My dad would always tell me sitting around that kitchen table, “If you ever start working and you are in a union environment, you join that union and you’ll be active because this is helping you put food on the table.” My union is doing this, the collective strength of our union having that seat at the table, negotiating wages and benefits, and [my father] was able to. No, we weren’t rich by any means, but he was able to send my brother and me to school.
My brother learned that lesson. He was a proud number of the communication workers of America. He was a steward. I became a state employee after going to school in Ohio, and immediately joined the union, as my dad told us to do because we understood the link. We understood the connection of having a family in an unionized environment that could provide for their sons and daughters and siblings and all those other kinds of things.
I moved to Washington and started working with the National Union because the union I joined in Ohio was a part of, or it would become a part of AFSCME, and I started working in the research department. That was what he instilled in me and what he instilled in my brother.
It’s shaped us as far as who we are and what we wanted to do. We always understood those conversations that we would have at that dinner table, and I automatically believe, based on those teachings, if you’re in a union, you’re going to have a better life. I strongly believe that right now, not only a better life for you and your family, but you represent strength in the community
where you can organize the community around certain issues of impact on our communities all across the country.
I’ve been working at this union now for 46 years. I’m the president. I became the president in 2012, and I always think about those conversations I had with my dad, saying, “This is how you can improve.”
It’s a lot of thousands of people and millions of people by providing that seat at the table.
Why would a union need to research information for the future of somebody in their union?
We’ve got to educate, and we’ve got to talk about our successes. We’ve got to talk about our failures. That’s why we need to talk about what happened in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. We got to make that connection. That is a part, not only of AFSCME, but it’s part of American history where Dr. King traveled to Memphis, and essentially gave his life and support of 1,300 sanitation workers. Understanding the importance of having that seat at the table, and having the opportunity to join and be a part a union, he got it.
One thing we have to do, and sometimes we have to do better in a strong way is we’ve always got to understand where we’re coming from.
Why is it important we not back down and still require and demand rights and opportunities in this country?
People are trying to take those rights and opportunities away from us every single day. We’ve got to make our voices heard in the strongest manner, and the way you do that is through collective action. You just look at what’s happening in this country right now. People are actually trying to take our freedoms away from us, whether it’s voting rights, attacking unions and taking away collective bargaining rights from us, not providing necessary child care and home care services, attacking our educational system, which is supposed to teach people what happened in this country: the good, the bad, and the ugly. They don’t want to deal with the bad and the ugly. So there’s an attack on all of us, and we’ve got to understand we have got to collectively fight those attacks and make our voices heard.
We’ve had many successes. Make no mistake about it since 1968, we have got a long way to go, and the divisiveness that exists in this country right now just shows that we’re just a few points away from going backward. We’ve got to concentrate on going forward, and we’ve got to concentrate on organizing, mobilizing and educating our communities. We have the opportunity to fight back, to make our voices heard like never before.
If you spoke at a college graduation, what would the title of your speech be? What are three things you would want them to take away in order to ‘demand a seat at the table’?
I guess that the first thing that comes to mind as far as the title is to “Organize, Mobilize and Educate.” Do something in a positive way. Involve yourself in what is important to you in our communities across the country.
I spoke at Morehouse a couple of years ago, and they have a labor studies program, and we talked about that. It was a great discussion because I not only spoke, but I listened to people, what they had to say and these young people.
Let me tell you something: a lot of folks are concerned about the direction our young people are taking, but I’m not concerned about that at all. What we’ve got to do is to help and provide them with tools. Sit down and talk with them. But more important than just talking is listening to what they have to say. Incorporate that into what we’re trying to do to build a movement that supports working families in our communities across the country. You can see it happening right now with our young people. Some of the language they use, and the things they do, I have no clue what’s happening in the social media world and all those other kinds of things. But I’m telling you they are ready, and they’re preparing. They need people to make that connection between what we have been through in the past, what we’ve been able to achieve, but also tell them the fight is never over. We’ve got to continue to develop the strategy, work with one another, and we’ve got to tell them that they’re going to take the lead.
I’m going to be gone sooner than later, and we’re going to rely on those young people to take the lead. They are ready to do that in a different kind of way, but they have to understand the history and that’s incumbent upon us to talk to them about the history and make the link as far as what we were able to do, the accomplishments we had based upon the challenges we were confronted with, but we still got a lot more work to do.
They’re ready. We can see it in our union, where we’re organizing. For example, in the cultural setting in museums and zoos where young people are taking over those campaigns, they want to be organized. They see the value of having one collective voice on their job, and young people are running those campaigns for us. We kind of step back and say, “Go forward. We’ll provide you with all the help you need, but you go for it.” They know what they have to do, and they know what they want to do. We just have to give them the opportunity to do it, but also teach and listen to what they have to say.