TO ENCOURAGE THE CONTINUED ORGANIZING OF STATE EMPLOYEES

WHEREAS, the American Federation of Teachers has successfully organized and currently represents state employees in Connecticut, Illinois, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Guam, and since the AFT has established the Federation of State Employees to deal with state employee issues and concerns; and

WHEREAS, there are hundreds of thousands of state employees throughout the country who have no effective union representation and are therefore subject to the same abuses faced by unorganized public employees everywhere, and since these abuses have become particularly acute in these times of budget cuts and layoffs; and

WHEREAS, the AFT has proven itself to be effective at all levels of public employee representation and has actively worked to benefit the interests of all public employees; and

WHEREAS, state employees throughout the country are seeking effective union representation to deal with job security, wages, hours, and the other serious issues currently facing state employees; and

WHEREAS, the AFT realizes its strong commitment to organizing the unorganized to help them in their struggles and to bring greater strength to the labor movement:

RESOLVED, that the AFT will increase its efforts to organize state employees and gain for them all rights of labor including the right to strike for all state employees it represents and provide them with the effective representation they so richly deserve.