Spread the Word!

Members are leading the way in the national effort to organize.

Tony Padilla has mastered the art of organizing. Every day the AFSCME Local 127 (Council 36) vice president shows up at worksites across San Diego with a “How are you today?” smile, a copy of his organizing newsletter, Sound Off, and a firm “Here’s why you need the union!” handshake.

Padilla’s campaign, with the active support of local president Dena Webb, is to strengthen his union, from the inside out. “I really get a charge out of signing up new members,” he says, “because we empower ourselves through strength in numbers. We can be a force to be reckoned with.”

As a volunteer organizer, Padilla is among the growing number of AFSCME rank-and-file members who are staffing the phones and pounding the pavement to recruit new members in AFSCME’s unprecedented national effort to organize the unorganized.

AFSCME’s goal, approved by delegates to the recent International Convention, is the addition of 75,000 members annually beginning in the year 2000. Much of the groundwork is already being laid, as AFSCME members educate each other as to what works and what doesn’t, as we develop organizers like Padilla and others featured on the following pages, and as we structure ourselves to best support each unit’s unique organizing efforts.

From coast to coast, AFSCME members are “spreading the word” that union membership increases the strength of current members and gives new members the benefits of union protections. Fortified with enthusiasm, guts and commitment, these organizers are building a bigger, stronger AFSCME.