To: ASEA Members
From: ASEA Executive Director Jake Metcalfe and ASEA President Dawn Bundick
Subject: Janus Decision
Dear fellow ASEA/AFSCME Local 52 member,
Early this morning, the US Supreme Court issued a decision that is the latest in a long line of attacks against public workers.
In their Janus vs AFSCME ruling, the Court made it easier for anti-worker forces to rig the economy further by dividing working people. And while the Court’s decision is disappointing, we know that the real decision about our union’s strength and future doesn’t lie in any court’s hands but in our own.
We believe that in the wake of Janus, our union will continue to be strong, because we know that union members like you will join together and say that no court can decide how strong our union is—only we can decide that.
We expect that, over the next few weeks, you’ll be hearing from groups that want to divide working people, undermine our Alaska PERA, and decrease the stability in our work we all hold dear. Special interests that want to cut public sector jobs and privatize prisons and other public services—groups like the Freedom Foundation—will tell you that you “lose nothing” by dropping your union membership. There could be nothing farther from the truth.
Unions, like ours, through grit, sacrifice, and hard work have brought working people freedoms that were not thought possible even 50 years ago. The progress we’ve made over the decades—fair working conditions, excellent healthcare, good wages, a secure retirement—happened because we made the choice to be a union member and had the courage to fight for a better life.
It’s a choice that only we can make—and that no court can take away. Let us stick together, and continue to fight for the respect and good jobs that Alaska needs.
In Solidarity,
Jake Metcalfe
Executive Director, ASEA/AFSCME Local 52
Dawn Bundick
President, ASEA/AFSCME Local 52