'Fair'-ness in California

By Janet Rivera

The University of California Contract Campaign has used the state's Fair Share law to triple the membership of Local 3299 and greatly strengthen its muscle.

Can a union that was marginalized by the employer for some two decades be revived and transformed in a few months into a fighting organization with the power to make a difference in the lives of its members? The answer, for 15,000 workers at the University of California, is a resounding Yes!

The UC Contract Campaign, a partnership between the International and Local 3299, has transformed the workplace for the custodians, cooks, patient billers and nurses aides at nine campuses and five medical centers from San Diego to Sacramento.

Local 3299 represents two big bargaining units, patient care technicals and service workers. Starting on Jan. 1, 2000, when a new Fair Share law took effect in California, the contract campaign has used direct action to solve long-festering problems. It has built a structure — called the Member Action Team — which has made the union a power to be reckoned with.

Before the law changed, only about 15 percent of the potential Local 3299 members were paying union dues — even though the union was required to represent 100 percent of the employees. Not surprisingly, the low membership numbers diluted negotiating strength.

In the first year under the new law, the union has seen its membership triple in size. Union members have become energized by work actions, hopeful about the future and confident they can make a difference in their own working situations.

COLLECTIVE ACTION. Dedicated people and a plan of action have been critical to changing the workplace. The contract campaign is based on both. To an unprecedented degree, the campaign reached out to workers at home and on the job.

But many of the workers put special emphasis on the impact of the new law, which requires that the workers of the UC system pay a fee for the union representation they receive. "It is the greatest thing that ever happened to us [UC] workers," declares John Martinez, a clinical engineer at UC/San Diego. "Without Fair Share and the UC Contract Campaign's ability to capitalize on it, we wouldn't have gotten our 6 percent raise. With Fair Share, and a reinvigorated membership, it seemed like we became strong overnight."

Such praise is especially impressive because it comes from a man who for nine of his 10 years at the university refused to join the union. "I didn't join because I didn't see that it was doing any good," Martinez says frankly. "Looking back now, I understand that it was a 'Catch 22' — the union wasn't as strong as it should have been because it didn't have enough members, but it didn't have members because it wasn't very strong."

It's a point with which Brenda Sweeney Tottammeier, a hospital unit service coordinator at the Thornton Clinic at UC/San Diego, agrees. "I worked for the university since 1993, but didn't think about joining the union until members of the contract campaign started their workplace visits. I liked what I heard; pretty soon I was going to union meetings and feeling really excited about what we could accomplish."

NOT SEEKING, BUT DOING. Fair Share and the contract campaign opened the eyes of many to what the union could achieve and — in the case of Local 3299 — achieve in very little time. Martinez, for one, not only has seen the results, he's also been in the center of the action. Although that's not a role he sought, he has embraced it and has emerged as an effective leader.

A shop steward, Martinez is a member of both the negotiating team and the vitally important Member Action Team. The aim of MAT is to reach out to co-workers, educate them about the union, involve them in the fight to improve their conditions and ultimately recruit them as active participants in the contract campaign and the union.

Personal contact is the central reason most people convert from fee payer to full member. That requires many hours and much energy, but without it the campaign's membership would not be the model of success it is today.

Martinez himself understands the power of the personal touch: "When campaign members talked with me about joining the union, I was impressed with their confidence and their belief that things actually could change around here. Now, when I talk to workers, I try to project that same confidence. Some workers are afraid they'll suffer repercussions from management if they become active with the union; but I explain that there really is strength in numbers and solidarity."

THE OLD ONE-TWO. Last year, less than a year after the contract campaign was launched, AFSCME members achieved what once seemed impossible — a 6.3 percent pay hike. In the past, raises in the 2 percent range were considered tops. The difference in the year 2000? The contract campaign's comprehensive approach to bargaining, which included a "one-two punch" of pressuring state legislators while simultaneously holding highly visible, member-oriented demonstrations. On the first day of bargaining, for example, close to 2,000 employees and supporters — including students, clergy and family members — took part in marches and rallies on each of the UC campuses.

It's the winning strategy that the contract campaign will rely on once again as they head back to the negotiating table. Among workers' key concerns are short-staffing, the need for improved health and safety conditions, and the practice of paying new employees higher salaries than senior workers. With its ranks three times greater now, the union's likelihood of contract negotiating success has never been greater.

TRANSFORMING LIVES. Many men and women who've become active in the contract campaign say their lives have changed dramatically for the better. In the case of Cindy Blake, a groundskeeper at the Physical Plant Department at UC/Santa Cruz, inquisitiveness and the need for contract campaign accountability led her to become an advocate for workers. Like her union brother and sister, Martinez and Tottammeier, Blake worked for the university for years before joining AFSCME. And Fair Share and the UC Contract Campaign's outreach are also what prompted her to become a full-fledged union member.

Although paying one's fair share seemed reasonable to her, Blake wanted to know first-hand what the union was doing with her "Fair Share," so she began attending meetings of the contract campaign. She liked what she heard there about employee rights. Now, a little more than a year since joining the union, Blake is the epitome of a worker advocate. She's a newly elected chapter officer, a MAT member and a shop steward.

"This is not the same union it was years ago," Blake says. "People realize what we can accomplish if we each do our part. The contract campaign opened our eyes to the value of sticking together, and the contract campaign is proving it. We've shown that the union is stronger when we make a lot of noise."

Norma Ruelas, a UC/Santa Cruz custodian who works the swing shift, was on maternity leave with her second child when the contract campaign was launched. When she returned to her job, she immediately noticed a difference. She says Fair Share has made the union stronger because it provides the resources needed to recruit and mobilize members, and to show the university that AFSCME is serious about winning a better contract.

Although she has worked for UC since 1989, Ruelas for years had little to do with the union. She had, in fact, joined years ago, but quit because she didn't think it was worth the money. Now she's a believer: "I see that working conditions have improved greatly, and I want to talk to other workers about why they need to join. It's not enough to pay your share; we also need strong, active members."

The UC Contract Campaign, together with Fair Share, has given AFSCME the chance to show UC workers what can be accomplished with the right resources. But the campaign's ripple effect goes well beyond that, as an increasing number of UC workers choose to become full, dues-paying members of Local 3299.