Yeah, it’s time for Marty Beil to call it quits

This weekend the members of AFSCME Council 24 held their annual convention, and at that convention a number of seats on Council 24’s executive board were elected. The election of those key seats on Council 24’s executive board was not without some intrigue, as the slate of candidates backed by ASFCME Council 24 Executive Director Marty Beil found themselves challenged by candidates who questioned the union’s staunch support of failed Democratic gubernatorial recall candidate Kathleen Falk, even in the face of polling that showed Falk losing by double digits to eventual Democratic nominee Tom Barrett.

Many members of AFSCME (including yours truly) still question the union’s decision to endorse Kathleen Falk before the Democratic primary field had been set, lending credence to the conservative meme that “big union bosses” were really calling the shots (or at least trying to) in the Democratic gubernatorial recall primary. According to Dan Meehan, a corrections officer who narrowly lost a bid for statewide vice president at the annual convention, members aren’t simply upset – they’re outraged. “Rage is what it is — absolutely, completely,” Meehan said. “My members don’t feel they’ve got a voice anymore.” Meehan, who currently serves as president of WSEU Local 18, went on to say his members are unhappy with top union officials, including Marty Beil.

In response to criticisms of how AFSCME handled their endorsement of Kathleen Falk and the recall election in general, Marty Beil demonstrated how stunningly out of touch he’s become, saying, “I’m sure there’s some Monday morning quarterbacking going on.” Beil went on to add, “There’s a whole bunch of people who all of sudden become political experts.” What Marty Beil doesn’t seem to understand that the very attack he’s leveling against members unhappy with his leadership is that his attack most certainly applies to him.

Throughout the course of the fight to restore collective bargaining rights for public employees, Marty Beil has demonstrated a stunning lack of understanding about the dynamics at play, whether from an electoral perspective or from a public relations perspective. After all, Beil is the same man who famously called former Democratic State Sen. Russ Decker a “whore” and who also said of public employees losing collective bargaining rights, “We’re not going to pull a blanket over our head and pee in our pajamas.” Just yesterday, Beil referred multiple times to Republican State Rep. Scott Suder as a “punk,” rhetoric which clearly won’t win many to Marty’s cause.

While I certainly “get” the sentiment Marty Beil was trying to convey with his comments, comments like those certainly aren’t going to win the public over to the side of public employees. Coupled with the ham-handed (and again, tone-deaf) manner in which AFSCME and WEAC endorsed Kathleen Falk earlier this year – not to mention the millions of dollars of members’ dues Beil poured into that endorsement – it seems pretty clear Marty Beil isn’t the leader AFSCME needs to move forward in our fight to restore our collective bargaining rights.

The members and leaders of AFSCME need to be doing a much better job of articulating our case to restore collective bargaining rights for public employees, and that simply won’t happen with Marty Beil running the show. It’s time for Marty Beil to go, because AFSCME needs a leader who’s going to move us forward and fight our fights both harder and smarter.

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11 thoughts on “Yeah, it’s time for Marty Beil to call it quits

  1. I was at the convention this weekend and I can tell you, Meehan is bitter because members called him out on the claims he made to the paper, and he didnt convince anyone of anything other than that he seemed like an angry man with no basis. First, with the endorsement of Falk, as was pointed out to Meehan, they interviewed several candidates, including Falk, Vinehout, Lafollette, Erpenbach, Obey, and Barca. They tried to get Barrett to come in for an interview , and he said he was too busy and he never set anything up with them. They felt blown off.(This was before he announced he was running, a week or two prior to us turning in the signatures. Out of the candidates that did agree to come in, Barca and Obey in their own interviews just kept pushing for them to endorse Barrett (again, after being pushed off, and never getting a call back) instead of pushing themselves. Vinehout and Lafollette did not have a solid plan on how to restore collective bargaining. So basically Falk was the only one who told AFSCME she had a plan and this is how she’d do it. WEAC endorsed Falk soon thereafter, and I remember the outrage that people had about that. I personally called Martys office and left a long voicemail about how I didnt think Falk was the best candidate, and to please think this over, and not to follow WEACs steps and endorse her as well.
    Marty called me back, and we ended up having a half hour phone conversation, to which he gave me his personal cell phone number to call anytime I wanted to discuss any union problems I had, or to “shoot the shit” He explained to me the previous story and told me about the survey they were going to email members for their input, and a transcript of the interviews. Which I received, and voted on. Again, this is me as a low level steward, that Marty called back, discussed with at great length, and did convince me, who at the time, had Falk as my least likely choice in the primary. Another thing is, unions have always endorsed in primaries. And they dont always go for the same candidate. I remember in 2008, AFSCME National endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Dem primary, meanwhile SEIU endorsed Obama, some State AFSCME Councils endorsed Hillary as well. Or in 2004 AFSCME endorsed Kerry, and SEIU endorsed Howard Dean (might be the other way around, but not sure) so it is not something new. After the primaries, they always fall in line and all unions end up endorsing the same candidate. Now on to Meehan, he accused Paulette and Marty of trying to sneak the endorsement on a day he wasnt at an Exec board meeting. Paulette had the notes of that meeting with her, and it showed they tried to discuss the endorsement, Meehan moved to table it until the next meeting. The next meeting came, Meehan was absent from it, and a member, not an Exec, but a member made a motion to take it up for a vote. With the length of time on the recall being shorter than a normal campaign, they decided to vote on it. Was it sneaky? At first impression it would be, but when Meehan was told this story, he was then was told by another E-Board member that his attendance has been a problem at meetings, and that they can’t wait around to see when he’s going to be there or not. He did not try to deny it, he said he couldnt get the time off. While I know corrections officers are being worked to the bone. He shouldnt make statements that can easily be proven inaccurate, and then attacking Marty, Paulette, or anyone else for his own problems of not being able to attend meetings. The unions were on a time restraint and needed to act soon because of the less time available in a recall election to campaign. . Theres a reason Meehan didnt win the election, and it wasnt because of Marty, or Paulette. In his speech Saturday, he came across as an angry man, with no basis and attacked Marty and Paulette when they have done nothing close to what he was accusing them of, right after we all suffered a crushing defeat last Tuesday. He had no plan of action when asked “How are we going to move forward from here?” Again, I was at the meeting, and I can tell you when he spoke, there were a lot of eye rolls, or soft gasps from members on his behavior and accusations, not from E-Board, but the delegates like myself who were listening to something that was the equivilent of a union buster trying to convince employees “The union doesn’t do anything for me” and when you ask that union member “When was the last time you went to a meeting to have your voice heard?” They are silent or have no response, or come up with excuses how the meeting times arent convenient, etc. At the end of the conference, we asked the candidates, whoever wins, will the loser support the winner and stand together?, and ALL candidates said yes, including Meehan, so it was kind of a shock to see that article, literally the next day where Meehan was the only person quoted of making those attacks against Marty and Paulette.

    1. Mike, do you condone the kind of language Marty has used? Do you think it’s the smartest move from a PR sense to call lawmakers “whores,” “punks,” and a “sonofabitch?” How many hearts and minds do you think Marty’s language is winning over to our side with his rhetoric?

      1. You are right on! I believe we had this argument before in regards to perception. No one will ever win the hearts of Wisconsinites with foul language and poor behavior.

  2. It is so apparent to me, especially from the previous “explanation” on the selection of Kathleen Falk for Wisconsin Governor Candidate that Union leadership is in as big a crisis as union membership itself. It’s simply a matter of public administrative expertise and lack of professionalism. Rank and file Union members just don’t understand public relations. How can they rise from the ranks to undertake these tasks? There must be American companies who realize they need smarter unions. Go to them, as well as the state universities and seek help, both financial and administrative, on how to bring American unions into the twenty-first century. Please.

    1. Cat, I’ll just disagree with one point you made, which is your comment that rank and file union members just don’t understand public relations. I’m one of the rank and file union members in AFSCME, and I think I understand public relations better than the average bear, and I know I’m not alone within the ranks of my union.

      It’s our leadership that appears to be tone-deaf.

  3. Zach, you’re a good writer and a smart individual, but you’re not paid to do public relations for the unions. The profession of public relations is an inbred thing, controlled in large part by companies that have large stakes in the commercial media. Don’t know if you’re familiar with that or not. It’s painfully obvious that union leadership is not. It’s similar to the difference in being represented by a lawyer or an influential law firm. Sad. But that’s America today.

    1. Maybe they should pay me to do PR for them. 😉

      Seriously though….I think anyone who assumes a position of leadership within a large organization like a labor union should at the very least have a working understanding of public relations.

  4. Yes to all of the above. AFSCME and WEAC did the same thing, pre-endorsing. WEAC is having the same internal strife with perceived co-opting of their own members for upper-echelon political dealings.
    Bye, bye Marty and Mary. If unions are to regain their own credibility, this sort of old-fashioned, in the BAD sense, backroom deal has gotta stop. Backing pre-failed candidates does NOTHING for the union movement. If democracy ought to really flourish in the light of day ANYWHERE in America, it ought to be in labor unions.
    MBB

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