Gaining Power Through Organizing

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

CALIFORNIA

Nearly 2,400 home care workers joined the United Domestic Workers of America-NUHHCE, an AFSCME affiliate, after two successful mail ballot elections. In El Dorado County, 88 percent of those voting said "yes"; the following day, workers in Merced County tallied 85 percent. Those elections bring to 38,000 the numbers UDWA has added in a series of county-by-county elections.

ILLINOIS

In Evanston, 304 municipal workers squared off with the city council and came out victorious with Council 31. With 570 city employees — 170 of them AFSCME members — already part of a union, the city took a tough stance against the new bargaining unit by hiring a union-busting attorney. Workers mounted a public-outreach campaign, and dozens showed up at city council meetings to demand employer neutrality.

MISSOURI

More than 550 crafts and maintenance workers formed a union with Council 72. The employees — from nine state agencies — will sit down at the bargaining table with another 1,100 similar workers from 28 mental health and veterans' facilities who won a card-check campaign in January. The combined bargaining unit includes maintenance, skilled trades, custodial, groundskeeping, motor vehicle and food service workers.

OHIO

Employees from Summit Academy in Canton made history when they formed a union with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE)/AFSCME Local 4: They are the first workers in the state's charter school system to organize. The 22 full- and part-time teachers and receptionists prevailed despite a fierce anti-union campaign; 42 teachers and staff from Community Action Head Start in Fayette County and 22 bus drivers from Scioto County Mental Retardation/ Developmental Disability Inc. also joined OAPSE. In addition, 35 social workers with the Richland County Child Services Enforcement Agency and 46 educational aides from the Norwood board of education joined Council 8.

WISCONSIN

AFSCME's city-wide organizing campaign with Milwaukee school bus drivers notched another win when 125 Laidlaw Transit Inc. drivers joined Council 48. Three of the four largest school bus contractors now have their drivers organized. Next day, a major rally increased the pressure on the school board and contracting companies over the drivers' poverty-level wages and lack of affordable health insurance. The drivers took advantage of their organizing momentum to elect a school-board candidate. That victory could change the course of the board, whose decisions affect city bus drivers employed by contractors.