AFSCME president Lee Saunders addresses NDC. Image: Marcus Rose
The leader of a sister union in the United States yesterday warned UNISON’s national delegate conference that Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy, workers’ and civil rights could reach the UK.
But Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) also offered a stirring reminder that unions do have the power to fight back.
And his “cautionary tale” mixed with stirring rhetoric was one of the most powerful speeches heard by delegates in recent years.
The AFSCME is very similar to UNISON: it has 1.4m public service members across the US, including nurses and carers, librarians and social workers, paramedics and public safety officers, school bus drivers and sanitation workers, and many others.
“We call our members the everyday heroes, because they truly are everyday heroes who keep our communities safe, healthy and strong,” Mr Saunders said. “We’re proud to provide the public services that many of the people rely upon in the United States every single day.
“We actually have a motto: ‘We make America happen’. So today, I want to say to all public service workers who are part of UNISON. You make the UK happen.”
A story of two bills
After speaking of the long and supportive relationship between the two unions, and noting that this was Paul McCartney’s 83rd birthday, Mr Saunders alluded to the Beatle when commending UNISON on its achievement in pushing the Employment Rights Bill towards law. He particularly noted frustration about the bill, voiced by some in an earlier debate, that the wide-ranging changes to workers’ rights were not happening fast enough.
“Look, writing and passing laws is, as Lennon and McCartney might say, a long and winding road. You are on the cusp of changing millions of workers’ lives for the better. You’ve made it this far because you have done the work. You have elected strong allies, you have put the issues that matter in workers’ lives front and centre. You mobilised uncommon support for this bill. You aren’t there yet, but victory is within your reach.”
Maureen Le Marinel (centre), Lee Saunders and Christina McAnea. Image: Marcus Rose
In contrast, Mr Saunders turned to the dark cloud that has descended over his own country since the election of Donald Trump to his second presidential term, last year.
“I only wish that we had a strong pro-worker majority in the United States Congress. Instead, we are navigating one of the toughest political moments in our country’s history.
“Make no mistake about it, our government has been taken over by billionaires and anti-union extremists who are attacking us every single day, ruthlessly and relentlessly. The wealthiest people on God’s green earth are doing everything in their power to kill our jobs, crush our freedoms and silence our voices.
“Every day, our Congress is inching closer to passing what President Trump calls his ‘one big, beautiful bill’. But let me be clear, there is nothing beautiful about what they are considering right now. If this bill becomes law, roughly 15 million people will lose their health care, just like that. Plummeting revenues will force hospitals and care facilities to lay off workers and even close their doors. Schools will struggle to meet students’ needs, as 3.5 million Americans lose food assistance.
“These are the facts. Nobody is disputing this. This can happen. And working people will pay the price, while the super rich buy more yachts, buy more jets, put rockets into space. These are the same billionaires who want to privatise public services and take away our voice.”
Word of warning
And then Mr Saunders offered a stark reality check. “Here’s a real kicker. They talked about doing this in the election last year, they talked about it, and we had working families and union members support this ticket. Because we didn’t do our job as far as educating and mobilising and organising our communities. And I want to be honest about that; we didn’t do what we had to do to stop this onslaught.
“Let this be a cautionary tale to all of you in this room,” he continued. “If it’s happening in the United States, under the conditions that exist in the United States, if something happens here, the politics change, guess what? It will happen here as well.
“Very much like the Reform Party in the UK, the so-called Maga movement in the US wins by serving working people a toxic cocktail of misinformation. Every single day. They talk about economic populism, anti-immigrant vitriol, and it is, make no mistake, a potentially strong strategy, that could work if we don’t get our acts together.”
Citing more of the horror stories that have come out of his country in recent weeks, including the president’s illegal use of troops to quell peaceful demonstrations, and the kidnap of immigrants, he said: “I’ve got to tell you that these folks have no shame. There is no law they won’t break, no democratic norm they won’t shred, no power they won’t abuse. If we, the people, don’t stand up and fight back, raise our voices and organise and mobilise and educate and fight, by hell, so we can retain our rights.”
Fighting back
The good news is that Mr Saunders believes they can. To a wave of cheers and applause from the UNISON delegates, he asserted that the US trade union movement, with its friends and allies in communities across the country, were “coming together to fight.”
Many left-learning politicians over the years have quoted Martin Luther King Jr. But when Lee Saunders did it, there was a very tangible connection.
“In 1968, Dr King came to Memphis. Some of you know this story. He came to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers, who happened to be members of AFSCME Local 1733. He wanted to end the poverty wage scales, to end the appalling working conditions that these 1,600 African American sanitation workers were experiencing every single day.
“And during the iconic speech the night before his assassination, Dr King, said this: ‘Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars’.
“These are dark and uncertain times, but we at AFSCME are not lost in the darkness, because we can see our North Star, and our North Star has always been organise, mobilise and educate. That’s why we call our campaign, right now, Get Organized.
“And our members are 100% into this. It’s about turning this crisis into an opportunity to protect our jobs, to defend our freedoms, grow our membership and build our power. Our campaign is using every tool imaginable to inform, educate and mobilise members. When workers hear what’s going on, they understand their livelihoods are at stake, they get fired up and they want to take action.
“We are recruiting more members to become grassroots activists. We are turning up the heat on politicians who betray their promises to us. We are bringing members to Washington DC to make the case against the proposed federal budget that could destroy us. We’re building the resources to defeat the anti-worker extremists in 2026 – because we can only change what’s happening in Washington DC today if we vote in 2026 at the federal level, the state level, the local level.”
He also had a note for those rich and powerful in his country who have sided with President Trump. “The billionaires believe we’re going to give up and walk away. They underestimate our resilience and resolve. They underestimate our capacity to organise and mobilise, and they underestimate Americans’ overwhelming support for the freedom to organise in a union.
“We’re going to fight back like never before. We’re going to give more workers a voice. We’ll build our power. We will train more activists and knock on more doors. We will turn out to vote and elect strong pro-worker allies. We will defend the public services Americans rely on and we will stand up for the rule of law.”
In a speech that resonated so strongly with delegates, Mr Saunders ending by urging UK activists to learn from his union’s experiences.
“I challenge you to be fearless. I challenge you to call out lies and disinformation. I challenge you to speak plainly, boldly and unapologetically about who you are and what you stand for. You’ve got to do that every single day. I challenge you to make the case that public service workers’ professionalism and commitment to the rule of law is absolutely vital, to democracy itself.
“And when we stand together, and when we fight together, we win together.”
The article Political turmoil in the US could happen in the UK first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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