ADAPT
Locks Horns with Union
120 arrested in Chicago when ADAPT
refused to sign statement supporting institutions
by
ADAPT Staff
Chicago—Last month,
ADAPT confronted Council 31 of the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) on their support of reopening
the state’s Lincoln Developmental
Center institution, and AFSCME’s refusal to endorse any legislation
supporting home and community-based services for people with disabilities.
AFSCME responded by asking ADAPT to sign a statement supporting institutions
authored by AFSCME director Henry Bayer, and when that didn’t
happen, Bayer had over 120 people arrested for blocking the doors,
elevators and parking lot of the AFSCME building.
“They typed up a statement supporting institutions and asking
for money, and then couldn’t understand why we didn’t want
to sign it,” said Mike Oxford, Kansas ADAPT organizer. “It’s
impossible to negotiate human and civil rights issues with people whose
only concern is their own pockets…no matter how many people
are warehoused and deprived of their liberty as a result.”
ADAPT has met repeatedly
with AFSCME leadership, receiving a commitment from Gerald McEntee,
the union’s president, to
sign on to legislation that supports home and community-based services
and supports for people with disabilities and the elderly. That promise
was never kept, and was one of the reasons ADAPT visited the Council
31 offices.
“For an organization that has its roots in the civil rights
movement, their treatment of people with disabilities is even more
despicable,” said Randy Alexander, Memphis ADAPT Organizer. “The
union and its members make a lot of money by advocating to keep people
with disabilities and older folks stuck in nursing homes and other
institutions instead of being able to live in their own homes like
other people. It’s unconscionable that the union fights for workers’ rights
at the expense of our rights. In ADAPT, we know that you can’t
have one without the other.”
The arrests at AFSCME concluded a week of ADAPT action in Chicago.
The week began with a national forum on affordable, accessible, integrated
housing, attended by federal officials who heard testimony from people
with disabilities about the lack of adequate housing and the discrimination
they have experienced when trying to secure a place to live. The forum
was followed by three days of action on the streets that included gaining
a commitment from Governor Blagojevich for permanent closure of the
Lincoln Developmental Center, and assuring ADAPT a seat at the table
as Illinois enacts its Money Follows the Person demonstration.
The next ADAPT action will be in Washington, D.C. April 26-May 2,
2008, when ADAPT celebrates its 25th anniversary.
This article is a
press release issued by ADAPT, and is reprinted
here with permission. ![]()
