Wisconsin Soldier Answers the Call
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This cross-post from AFSCME profiles Sgt. 1st Class Chet Millard, one of hundreds of AFSCME members serving their country in the active military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Millard was on the Oct. 12 cover of Time magazine.
Every day, public service workers answer the call of duty. Many—police officers, firefighters and corrections officers, for example—take enormous risks to save lives.
Others keep our roads in good repair, make sure our children arrive safely at school and perform back-breaking work caring for the sick and disabled.
Others, like the hundreds of AFSCME members who have been placed on active military duty since 2001, have gone an extra mile by serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or in the United States.
Sgt. 1st Class Chet Millard is one of these dedicated public service workers. Employed as a corrections officer at the Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls and a member of Local 219 (Council 24), the 32-year-old commander of Wisconsin National Guard’s 951st Engineer Company has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.
91 Unionists Killed in 2008, 49 in Colombia Alone
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A total of 91 union members were killed worldwide last year, the same number as in 2007. But more than half (49) were killed in Colombia alone, 10 more than last year, making it once again the most dangerous country for trade unionists, according to the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC’s) “Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights.”
The Colombian government has not vigorously investigated or prosecuted the killing of trade union members. At the current pace of investigations and trials, it would take 37 years to prosecute the backlog of cases. And the caseload is growing—the rate of killings, which had fallen for a few years, jumped sharply last year by 25 percent, says José Luciano Sanin, director of Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Union School), a leading Colombian think tank.
