Who Says No One Makes House Calls Anymore?
By Gerald W. McEntee
I recently had the opportunity to do something that has helped me sharpen my focus on our organizing program and re-dedicate myself to it. I want to share the experience with members in hopes that my enthusiasm is contagious.
While in Chicago for a couple of conferences, I made the time to join Council 31 organizer Rachel Crites for some Saturday afternoon house calls. Everything about the day reaffirmed to me that we are on the right track with our change-to-organize initiative and that we must pursue our goals even more aggressively.
Rachel is emblematic of the dynamic, young staff organizers we are hiring all across the nation to help implement our initiative. Just talking to her in the car fired me up for our first call.
We met with Louis Wooden, who works with developmentally disabled individuals at Little City, a mental health agency where Council 31 is now running a campaign.
Little City faces staffing problems and consequently has required many employees to work double shifts. This means it can be difficult to catch workers for a house call, but fortunately we found Louis at home that day.
He was happy to talk to us and hear how his co-workers are organizing with AFSCME. But more important, our conversation gave us the opportunity to learn from a longtime employee about the environment at this unorganized worksite.
Louis told us about his specific job and the overall atmosphere at the agency. He talked to us about the kind of clients he serves. It was obvious from his comments that Louis, like so many of our members, sees his work as not just a job but also a mission of providing service.
He has concerns about the wages at Little City: Under management’s system, some new employees are now making more than veteran workers. He also faces problems about respect on the job. Louis has a tough assignment, working with people that society largely ignores, and he wants his work to be recognized as having dignity.
This illustrates the tremendous value of house calls: the chance to learn and, in turn, to build a real relationship with the worker.
House calls provide the backbone of any effective organizing campaign. For one thing, they are proven winners: When 60 to 70 percent of workers are contacted at home during a campaign, the union has a 78-percent win rate. Without house calls, we only get a 41-percent win rate.
Armed with this statistic and the experience of working with Rachel, I challenge our entire membership, rank and file and leaders alike, to become more vitally invested in the organizing work of their council or local.
Although house calls are one step in the process, there are many others. We have started making strides in our ambitious organizing effort, but we need to think and act more boldly if we are to meet our goals.
We must devote more of our financial resources to organizing and operate more campaigns. We must press politicians to support our organizing campaigns and grant card-check recognition. We must also make organizing demands, such as neutrality and card check, part of our contract negotiations.
In short, it is time to make organizing central to everything we do as a union. We cannot afford to sit still. We must be in constant motion to meet the challenges of the future.
I am taking this imperative to heart, and I’ll be dropping in on organizing campaign committee meetings and first contract rallies around the country. I will also be doing more house calls.
I challenge all our members to devote one weekend a month to organizing efforts in their council or local. Chances are you will run into me somewhere along the way.
