Gaining Power Through Organizing

From state to state, workers are organizing with AFSCME for a voice at work. Here are some recent victories:

CALIFORNIA

Another 9,300 home care workers have joined AFSCME and its affiliates since our last update. That includes some 7,200 workers in Riverside County and 1,300 in Santa Barbara who voted to join the United Domestic Workers of America-NUHHCE, an AFSCME affiliate; 505 psychiatric social workers in Los Angeles County who voted overwhelmingly for a fair-share fee arrangement with Local 2712 (Council 36); and 45 city employees in Coronado who joined Local 127 (Council 36), also through fair share.

COLORADO

A unit of 148 members of the Pueblo City Employees Association ratified their affiliation with Council 76.

FLORIDA

Some 2,730 public workers — who lost their civil service protection when they were reclassified as supervisors under Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) "Service First" plan — voted to join the Federation of Physicians and Dentists, an AFSCME affiliate. Meanwhile, 15 municipal workers in the tiny town of Frostproof joined with Council 79.

ILLINOIS

Joining Council 31 in Northbrook were 185 direct care workers employed by Glenkirk, a nonprofit agency that serves the developmentally disabled.

MARYLAND

Nearly 1,000 employees from the University of Maryland/College Park voted to form the University Professionals United/ AFSCME. Their victory is the latest in a 15-month series of elections that brings the total to more than 6,000 AFSCME-represented employees at 12 campuses.

MISSOURI

The 1,100 state employees in the crafts and maintenance bargaining unit, who work in 28 mental health and veterans' facilities, won recognition from the state after submitting a petition bearing more than half of the employees' signatures.

WASHINGTON

Two groups of workers, in the Departments of Health and Licensing, made history as the first state employees to organize under new collective bargaining legislation. In each case, the ratio of votes for affiliation with the Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28 was better than three to one. With the rallying cry, "Make a Choice, Find a Voice, Vote Union," 550 King County Library system employees voted to join Council 2. Eighty-seven percent of eligible voters turned out for the election.