Organizing for Power
From state to state, workers are organizing with AFSCME for a voice on the job. Here are some recent victories:
CONNECTICUT
In the Town of South Windsor, 41 food-service workers voted to form a union with Council 4.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Some 200 workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Operations chose Council 26. The workers manage facilities, maintain buildings, and perform warehousing, delivery and printing tasks.
MASSACHUSETTS
Forty-four cafeteria employees, custodians, bus drivers and parapro-fessionals employed by the Avon Public Schools elected to join Council 93.
NEW YORK
Some 1,200 care providers for the developmentally disabled — in an organizing campaign by Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/AFSCME Local 1000 — have reached a card check/neutrality agreement with Lifespire Inc. They have until Feb. 1 to demonstrate a majority. In addition, 60 dining-service workers of the Cobleskill Auxiliary Services, a corporation under contract to the State University of New York, voted overwhelmingly to form a new private-sector local with CSEA. The union also represents non-teaching employees at SUNY Cobleskill.
OHIO
A wall-to-wall unit of 53 workers employed by the Cardington Local Schools voted to join the Ohio Association of Public School Employees/AFSCME Local 4.
PENNSYLVANIA
Despite an intense anti-union campaign by Centre County officials, a unit of 252 nurses, nurses' aides and laundry, clerical and dietary employees of Centre Crest Nursing Home voted by a 2-1 margin to join Council 13.
SOUTH DAKOTA
A 90-member unit of 911 dispatchers in Sioux Falls chose overwhelmingly to join Council 59.
TENNESSEE
In Shelby County, 278 Head Start employees voted to join Local 1733. Together with a 647-member Memphis clerical unit recognized in August, the local now boasts approximately 4,500 members.
WASHINGTON
Twenty-six vocational-rehabilitation supervisors, who work for the Department of Social and Health Services throughout the state, voted to join Council 28.
