Many AFSCME members take great risks to serve their communities. On Wednesday, at the AFSCME 47th International Convention in Chicago, our union honored them and paid tribute to three members who made the ultimate sacrifice on the job, while promising to fight for safer workplaces.
Jacob VanSickle, a member of the Michigan State Employees Association, paid tribute to his fellow union member, Danny Kerstetter, a motor carrier officer who was struck by a vehicle while on the job in 2024.
He described how Kerstetter’s widow, Katie, along with members of MSEA, are fighting to ensure that motor carrier officers, conservation officers and corrections officers have the same pension that other Michigan law enforcement officers receive.
“We will continue fighting until every person who wears that badge — and loves them — is taken care of,” said VanSickle.
Rayneika Robinson, a member of Maryland Council 3, paid tribute to Davis Martinez, a parole agent who was killed in 2024 during a home visit.
After Martinez’s death, Robinson said that she and Council 3 members vowed to fight for safer workplaces for parole officers like Martinez, so that the same tragedy doesn’t happen again.
“Our union held vigils — and then we held the state accountable. We made our presence felt at the Capitol until we secured the Davis Martinez Public Employee Safety and Health Act,” Robinson said.
Mitchell Spruiell, a corrections officer and a member of Texas Correctional Employees Council 907, honored fellow CO Jovian Motley, who was killed in the line of duty.
“We could not allow his death to become another name, another statistic or another tragedy people talked about and then forgot,” said Spruiell.
Together with Motley’s mom, Tammica, who was featured in a video that played in the Convention hall, members of TCEC 907 fought to pass the Jovian Motley Act, one of the strongest correctional workplace safety bills ever signed into law in Texas.
“Too many of us — nurses, highway workers, sanitation workers, social workers and more — deal with unsafe working conditions every day. Too many of us have lost a union sibling on the job,” Spruiell said.
Convention attendees shared the names of fellow co-workers who lost their lives while on the job and vowed to never stop fighting for safer workplaces.
