We’ve worked hard together over the past seven months to defend your rights and benefits. We’ve had some success, but I also know that the battles continue to rage all around us. So many of you have taken pay cuts. Many of you are paying more for your benefits. Some affiliates have fought like hell just to hold on to what they have, and in times like these that is a significant achievement.

But we also have won some important battles.

On July 7, the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association (PPFFA) finally got the cancer presumption law it has worked for over the past 25 years. The PPFFA has made getting cancer presumption its top priority for many years, and the perseverance finally paid off.

Our sisters and brothers have won important political and legislative fights this year in Wisconsin, Alabama, Illinois, Oklahoma, Michigan, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, Iowa and Indiana over the anti-labor, anti-worker crowd of extremist public officials.

And since we outlined our Fighting Back efforts in the last magazine two months ago, that momentum has continued.

In July, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a budget that preserves collective bargaining over health care, a huge but hard-fought victory for the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts.

In June, the Michigan Professional Fire Fighters Union (MPFFU) succeeded in protecting their right to binding arbitration.

Our hard-working sisters and brothers in Michigan have faced as many challenges as anyone in our membership this year. Their anti-labor governor and his extremist Republican allies in the Michigan state legislature have used every strategy imaginable to go after fire fighters. Governor Rick Snyder and his buddies took two swipes at binding arbitration. With rallies, phone calls and e-mails, the MPFFU beat back the first attempt. When legislators introduced another bill to eliminate arbitration, the MPFFU reached a compromise to retain that right.

That accomplishment in the Michigan legislature came on the heels of public votes in two Michigan communities — Jackson and Harper Woods — where citizens sided with fire fighters and defeated efforts to move to the public safety officer system in their towns.

Our sisters and brothers in Ohio reached a significant milestone in June and put themselves in position to overturn one of the worst anti-labor laws that state has ever seen. On June 29, opponents of SB 5 — the anti-labor bill that strips all public employees in Ohio of their collective bargaining rights — delivered 1.3 million signatures on repeal petitions to the Secretary of State’s office — nearly six times more than the 231,000 signatures needed to put the measure on the November ballot.

The effort to gather signatures was just the first step in the repeal process, but the members of the Ohio Association of Professional Fire Fighters (OAPFF) deserve an enormous amount of credit for their hard work to gather tens of thousands of those signatures and ensure that voters can go to the polls in November to make SB 5 a distant memory.

Our sisters and brothers in New York City also had a significant win in June, when it was announced that every fire company that Mayor Michael Bloomberg had put on the chopping block would remain open. After the mayor made his unwise decision to close 20 companies, the Uniformed Fire Officers Association Local 854 and the Uniformed Firefighters Association Local 94 embarked on a vigorous public awareness campaign to let people know that closing 20 companies would have dangerous consequences for those who live and work in New York City.

I was honored to join our FDNY members on June 3 in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall, where 15,000 people gathered for a rally organized by Locals 94 and 854, whose members let the mayor know that they would not rest until he backed off of his reckless plan. Then on June 24, the mayor and the City Council said they found other ways to save money and all of the companies will stay open. I couldn’t be more proud of our New York City locals for their efforts to keep the issue in front of citizens and keep the companies open.

The slow march in Wisconsin to restore the rights of public workers continued on July 12 when six Democrats in the state Senate won their primaries over fake Democrats — candidates who were actually Republicans but got enough signatures to appear on the Democratic ballot, an insidious plan hatched by deceitful anti-worker strategists to slow down the recall effort.

But they failed, and in another state Senate election in Wisconsin on July 19, where there was no primary, the Democratic incumbent won and held on to his seat. That win at the ballot box gave Democrats the first victory in the nine recall elections that will be held this summer in Wisconsin. These elections are an indictment on Governor Scott Walker himself.

I know the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin will be working extremely hard over the summer to ensure Democrats win these recalls because winning these elections will allow Democrats to take control of the state Senate and overturn the governor’s anti-worker law and derail his anti-worker agenda.

These are all significant wins, and I feel confident that you are gaining some traction in this debate over the value of your service to your communities.

But these fights aren’t over. In so many states, our opponents already have scripted their next steps and are planning to make another run at your rights and benefits in an upcoming legislative session. That’s why it is so crucial that you don’t wait until the next legislative session begins before developing your strategy to protect your rights and benefits. Now is the time to make a plan and build bridges with lawmakers who will help affiliates deflect bad legislation and promote your interests.

But that’s not all we have to do. These threats will not disappear until we change the fundamental political landscape and remove those lawmakers from office who don’t value your service or think that you earn lavish wages and enjoy cushy pensions.

We know better. But too few lawmakers know better, and that’s why it’s so important to get those people out of office and replace them with public officials who are willing to support you. Until we accomplish that, affiliates will continue to play defense as they try to keep the anti-worker lawmakers at bay, and every year will look like 2011. I don’t think anyone wants that.

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