Millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on faith-based “empathy training” that silences discrimination concerns and penalizes protected union activity. DOH employees are calling for it to stop. Sign their petition here.
The last few years have seen a rise in worker momentum, with unionized workers raising their voices to demand higher pay, safer working conditions and more.
Like many DCYF workers in Washington, Taylor Andrews-Garcelon loves her clients but has felt her job get more stressful and dangerous in the last few years.
“I value all of my clients and their relationships with their kids,” she said. “Despite Washington being so much further ahead than other states, I see it as unsustainable for the people in the field doing their jobs.”
Andrews-Garcelon has seen cases of fentanyl-exposed children under 2 skyrocket in recent years. She’s been threatened at gunpoint on the job. And she has been denied backup in unsafe home situations.
AFSCME President Lee Saunders praised the White House’s announcement Thursday that the Biden administration will forgive student loans for an additional 78,000 borrowers — including many AFSCME members — under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
AFSCME President Lee Saunders congratulated Nicole Berner, a longtime labor lawyer and general counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), on being confirmed to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
In this year’s State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden highlighted his administration’s achievements over the past three years and vowed to continue fighting for working people.
AFSCME applauds his accomplishments and strongly supports the Biden-Harris administration’s vision for the future, which includes defending our nation’s democracy, protecting a woman’s right to choose and making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, among other things.
The public sector has finally recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of last year, there were 22,000 more public service jobs in the nation than in February 2020, just before the pandemic started.
This is cause for celebration for everyone in our communities, but especially for workers of color, who have been historically overrepresented in state and local government jobs.
