Swelling the Ranks
Persevering against hostile employers, activists have been relentlessly organizing to win a voice at work. The results have helped longtime members as well as new ones.
By the Public Employee Staff
You don't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union ... So goes the refrain in the venerable labor "fight" song, Union Maid. And in the last six years, AFSCME has been transforming those words into consistent, productive action. In so doing, we have helped some 250,000 workers gain union representation. They all chose AFSCME for its reputation as a union that fights — and wins — on issues that span the entire range of worker concerns.
Obviously, those victories have helped the people who've organized and won a real voice in the workplace for the first time. They have bargaining clout they never had before and protections against unfair management practices. But the increased numbers also mean more power for our existing members. Why? Because a bigger AFSCME means a more powerful political presence; and raising the wages and benefits of non-union workers helps us win better contracts for current members.
At the International's 1998 Convention, delegates resolved to strengthen the union by focusing on a bold, new vision and plan.
Help Public Employees Win New Rights, especially the legal right to organize and bargain, through gubernatorial executive orders and legislation. We've done this in Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, Puerto Rico and Washington. The key is combining political action with worker organizing.
Strategically Organize in the Private Sector: From bus drivers in Milwaukee to home care workers in California, we've organized private-sector workers who provide publicly funded services. Those workers have banded together to improve their wages, benefits and retirement security to the level of their counterparts in the public sector — the most effective way to help our current members, by reducing the cost incentives that lead to privatization.
Outreach to Emerging Workforces: As the delivery of public services changes, our union has to change with it. Work that used to be done by AFSCME members — especially caring for children, the elderly and the disabled — is now done by so-called "independent providers." They receive a minimum-wage check from a state government treasury without any health/retirement benefits. The caregivers aren't even eligible for workers' compensation or unemployment. While those providers remain unorganized, all our wages and benefits are at risk.
VMOs TO THE FORE. That growth strategy paved the way for spirited and innovative recruiting and training of volunteer member organizers (VMOs). Across the country, activists have contributed their time to help unrepresented workers gain the benefits of collective bargaining. VMOs, who now number in the hundreds, have traveled long distances to pitch in on organizing campaigns, taking up their distant brothers' and sisters' needs as their own. The volunteers do whatever the local effort needs — from worksite visits to one-on-one contacts in people's homes — and they help convince unorganized workers of the value of seeking representation through AFSCME.
Chicago's Resurrection Health Care hospital campaign provides a recent, impressive example of the vitality and value of VMOs. Dozens of VMO nurses, from a half dozen states, have joined the Resurrection struggle. Jamie Stevens, a nurse with Connecticut Health Care Associates, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees/AFSCME, typifies the group. "Whenever I went out to Chicago and spoke with Resurrection nurses," he says, "I could hear the level of frustration they've been dealing with." Their frustration became Stevens' own, and he gladly offered his free time to help in the campaign.
In Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, Puerto Rico and Washington state, AFSCME activists have pressured lawmakers into passing bills or signing executive orders that give state and university employees the right to form unions. In addition, independent providers in home health care and child care — as well as private-sector workers providing public services but employed by such companies as Aramark — have been seeking the strength of AFSCME. For example, of the 46,128 organized in 2003, 24 percent came from the private sector.
That organizing energy has given our affiliates more powerful voices in their respective jurisdictions. Says International Vice Pres. (IVP) George Boncoraglio, president of New York's Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/AFSCME Local 1000, Region II, "People like myself, who are seasoned leaders, are going out to pasture in a few years. It's important to bring in new members, new blood and get these individuals motivated."
KICK START. "Thanks to Bush, workers feel under siege and they now are more aware of what a union can do to protect their rights and benefits," Boncoraglio insists.
In Queens, N.Y., more than 400 workers from Quality Services for the Autism Community recently formed a union with CSEA. This private-sector, state-funded agency harassed and threatened workers who supported the union, leading CSEA to demand a free and fair organizing process. Culminating an impressive campaign, CSEA won recognition after a neutral third party verified its majority support among workers.
Longtime CSEA members who work in the state's developmental and psychiatric centers volunteered to organize their colleagues from QSAC, who have the same jobs as the state employees. Denise Berkley, president of Local 447 and a 31-year member of CSEA, got involved because the workers were "totally disrespected."
During the organizing campaign, Berkley, a developmental assistant II supervisor in Brooklyn, says that QSAC employees were envious of the benefits that state workers enjoyed on the job. The victory has invigor-ated activists, and more members are signing on as VMOs. In fact, Berkley and other organizers have focused on another unit in Queens. She says the organizing momentum has "absolutely" given the union "a more powerful voice, along with recog-nition," that can be leveraged to organize similar groups in the future. Because of its emerging growth, CSEA has activated organizing committees in six regions statewide to concentrate on new workers.
Colleen Wheaton, CSEA's Local 613 president, recalls the 1980s, when serious discussions about organizing were rare: "It just wasn't on the plate. The issue was: 'How do we serve the members we have now?'"
Things are much different today. Wheaton, who works at the State University of New York/Potsdam, traveled to Maryland in 2001 to help workers at the University of Maryland/Baltimore organize with AFSCME Council 92. She says the experience was a real eye-opener: "Because I had been in organized labor for 20-some years, I was baffled that people still feared for their jobs. I just assumed that you always had the right to speak your mind and, apparently, in these places you didn't."
DON'T STAND STILL? Since 1998, the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE)/AFSCME Local 4, has increased its membership by 25 percent. More than half of that growth comes from employees at Head Start and Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MRDD) facilities.
"We are far better off with the power of 37,000-plus members than we were with 28,000," explains IVP Joe Rugola, executive director of OAPSE. "When your institution is showing movement and growth, people get that. And they inevitably look at you differently than if you're standing still."
In April 2002, Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D) signed landmark legislation allowing collective bargaining for state employees on pay and benefits. Since then, several thousand of them from previously unrepresented units have voted for representation by the Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28. Along with the 19,000 existing members, these new activists will make the union even more powerful than it already was.
One who understands how such leverage pays off is Steve Chenoweth, a social worker in the city of Puyallup. For the past 11 years, he has served as president of Local 53, which represents 1,100 state workers at several departments and agencies in Pierce County. He is also a member of the team that is negotiating the union's first master contract. It covers pay, medical benefits and working conditions in agencies we've long represented, as well as new ones. At stake: benefits worth many millions of dollars over the next two years for members who haven't had a cost-of-living raise since 2001.
"We're well aware — and so is management — that we represent significantly more people than we did before," Chenoweth says. "It makes a difference on our side of the table because we know how strong we are. We made promises — not only to the new people but also to the people we represented for years — that we're not going to put up with a poor contract."
