AFSCME Activists Help Defeat NY Town’s Merger Plan

November 24, 2009

Local 3178 (District Council 66) Pres. Kenneth Fortier with his anti-merger sign. (Photo credit: Courtesy Local 66)

Approximately 15,000 residents of the 4.6-square-mile village of Johnson City, New York, faced a simple question on their November ballot: whether they would or would not dissolve their municipality and merge it into another. For the members of AFSCME Local 3718 (District Council 66), there was no question. The proposal had to be killed.

The ballot measure was intended to lower the cost of services and reduce property taxes, approximately 126 village employees would have lost their jobs if Johnson City was absorbed into the nearby Town of Union. Among them would have been the 39 members of Local 3718 – blue collar workers employed in public works, water, sewer, refuse collection, streets, parks and other departments.

Local 3718 Pres. Kenneth Fortier, a recycling truck driver for the Village for 24 years, decided the union had to beat the ballot measure at all costs.

The battle to win the public’s hearts and minds began this summer with a simple attention-getter: 500 fans on wooden sticks bearing the words, “I’m a fan of Johnson City Public Works and Water Departments.” Fortier handed them out at the first meeting to discuss a dissolution study committee report. He also testified at the meeting.

Fortier also made a large yellow sign opposing the proposal and “put it on the main draft” before a second public hearing. Then, in September, the union purchased and erected 750 yellow yard signs. The night before the election, members went door-to-door distributing 5,000 door hangers. Next, they helped people get to their polling places. The union also made phone calls.

It was close. Only one vote out of more than 4,000 separated the two sides on Election Day. When absentee ballots were later counted, however, the ballot measure was defeated by 42 votes – 2,257 against dissolution to 2,215 for it.

Fortier is proud of what he and fellow union members did to trounce the proposal. “If it wasn’t for what our AFSCME members did,” he says, “this measure probably would have passed. Our members definitely made a difference.”