Establish an AIDS Policy and Education Program

So, as a steward, you have to first check that your local or council has a joint labor/management health and safety committee or a special AIDS committee to deal with AIDS issues and to establish a policy. Your AFSCME staff representative can show you model policies. Second, you should arrange for and schedule AIDS information and training sessions for the members of your local. You can ask your staff representative to help you, and you may even want to find a local community AIDS organization to assist. Do it before you need to. Perhaps the hardest thing to do will be to drum up interest among your members to attend. You may be surprised to find, however, that many people really would be interested in learning more about AIDS, it’s just that they don’t want to "show too much interest" in the subject fearing that some people might get the wrong idea.

Try to select a couple of people in your unit who are generally respected by everyone else; talk to them about the need to prepare for dealing with AIDS and HIV disease, not only at work, but also in terms of the members’ personal lives. With their support, you should be able to generate enough interest to establish an AIDS committee and get support for an educational session.

For people who have not yet met someone who is living with HIV disease or AIDS, the idea can be frightening. It can be more frightening if their first encounter is at work where they have no control over when and how often they are going to be around the person with AIDS.

The whole situation can be less intimidating if an AIDS education program introduces your co-workers to someone who has AIDS or at least to a video that shows interviews with people who have the disease. In this way, people can begin to understand that AIDS isn’t really some "thing," but a disease that happens to a person. And it’s the person who counts.