1997's Top Events
AFSCME rings in the New Year with much cheer.
When you pop the cork on New Year’s Eve, celebrate the victories of 1997 and plan next year’s wins! The past year was highly successful for AFSCME, thanks to determined members and leaders, who organized, negotiated and fought attacks on worker protections and public jobs. Here are some of the biggest victories of AFSCME and its affiliates in 1997.
Grand Slam in Maryland
The Baltimore Orioles may not have made it to the World Series, but AFSCME went all the way in Maryland last winter, scoring the largest and most successful organizing campaign in the nation. It was a five-for-five victory as every bargaining unit chose AFSCME by a wide margin. And in October, AFSCME negotiated its first benefit and pay package with the state, a deal that includes a substantial pay raise. Who needs Cal Ripken?
UMassive Victory
It took five years of organizing to do it, but efforts at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester paid off in September with a strong vote for AFSCME representation. It was the biggest organizing victory in Massachusetts since 1988. These 2,300 UMass employees are now members of State Healthcare and Research Employees/AFSCME Council 93. That’s a better share for Worcester workers.
Now Here’s a Medical Bill!
The President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry is standing up for consumers with a Bill of Rights for health care. AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee, a member of the commission, has played an important role in producing the bill. But AFSCME activists had better take their vitamins for the fight ahead: Insurance and business groups are already arming for a major nationwide campaign to stop consumer health protections.
Open Wide and Say "AFSCME!"
Who’s "Putting Patients Over Profits"? A growing number of medical doctors, that’s who! The 5,000-member Union of American Physicians and Dentists, based in California, this year affiliated with AFSCME.
Meanwhile, at the Thomas-Davis Medical Centers in Tucson, Ariz., 120-plus medical doctors said "yes" to representation by the Federation of Physicians and Dentists, an affiliate of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE)/AFSCME Local 1199. Clearly, these doctors see unionization as a prescription for better health care.
Sharp Nurses Win Their Point
Nurses at the Sharp HealthCare Hospitals in San Diego celebrated in February when the National Labor Relations Board overturned management objections to unionization. And, at the same time, medical conglomerate Columbia/HCA backed away from a deal to take over the hospital. The 2,600 nurses had voted in 1996 to form the Sharp Professional Nurses Network, United Nurses Associations of California, an affiliate of NUHHCE/ AFSCME Local 1199. All this proves, once again, that nurses make sharp activists.
Privatize Jobs? No Way!
Thousands of AFSCME activists gave lawmakers an earful last year when Congress proposed letting defense contractors take over Medicaid and Food Stamp administration, displacing hundreds of thousands of public workers. Congress heard loud and clear, and the measures were defeated.
Another major assault on public jobs — about 10,000 — was staged in Texas, where Gov. George Bush Jr. proposed privatizing several Medicaid and Food Stamps functions. Labor leaders went into action in Washington, D.C. AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee, along with AFL-CIO Pres. John Sweeney and other union leaders, held a face-to-face meeting with Pres. Bill Clinton to argue the matter. In the end, Clinton denied Texas federal authority that would allow privatizing welfare administration.
That’s two rounds won. But odds are great for more skirmishes next year.
Busted: Public Job Cuts
Balancing budgets on whose back? Not public workers! AFSCME led a coalition fighting the Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have forced job-eliminating budget cuts and drastically limited Medicaid payments. The efforts of the coalition, made up of AFSCME and more than 200 labor, consumer and non-profit groups, were instrumental in defeating the measure, considered the "crown jewel" of the Republican agenda.
Touchdown for Workfare Participants
Workfare participants were the political football of the U.S. Congress in 1997, tossed back and forth by legislators who would have deprived them of worker protections and pitted them against unionized public employees.
Outraged AFSCME members played excellent defense, blocking those measures and running interference for a Labor Department ruling that workfare participants are covered by federal labor laws. Score another one for AFSCME.
Capitol Offensive
Workers in the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) office in Washington, D.C. — the 630 men and women who maintain the Capitol building and congressional offices — took a positive and historic step to improve their working conditions last year: They voted to join AFSCME. Women members of the new AFSCME local have also sued the AOC office for paying them less than their male co-workers. You can bet that these maintenance employees will clean up the Capitol.
What’s Round on the Ends and High in Victory?
Ohio, of course! This after tens of thousands of Ohioans hit the streets to overturn a new state workers’ compensation law that would have denied most benefits for carpal tunnel and other repetitive motion injuries — reaping $200 million in savings for business.
AFSCME, the United Auto Workers, and other AFL-CIO unions, together with other concerned groups, collected 415,000 signatures to put the issue on the statewide ballot and convinced 57 percent of the voters to overturn the law on election day.
Way to go, Ohio!
New TB Guide
Finally! After five years of pressure from AFSCME, the AFL-CIO and other groups, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a proposed tuberculosis standard to guard against on-the-job exposure to the life-threatening disease. It’s a healthy development.
Big Deal on "Wheel"
Chris Fay, a member of AFSCME Massachusetts Local 419 (Council 93), and his brother Kevin pooled their brain-power to win the $52,120 top prize and a trip to Hawaii for 10 on the "Wheel of Fortune." The special "Salute to the American Working Family" was a five-day tribute to labor, aired during Labor Day Week. Altogether, three AFSCME teams appeared on the program, along with teams from other AFL-CIO unions. In addition to the Fays, AFSCME team members were Juliette Brown-Perry of Illinois Local 2081 (Council 31) and her daughter Juliette Brown, as well as AFSCME Massachusetts Local 1067 (Council 93) member Patricia Hennessey and her sister Christine Flatley.
Life-Changing Benefits
Retirement dreams of Illinois state AFSCME members are considerably more secure today because of a 50 percent pension boost! Illinois formerly offered its state employees one of the poorest state pension plans in the country. But after four years of campaigning for pension improvements, "We’ve made a huge difference for our members and their families," says Henry Bayer, AFSCME Council 31 executive director and International vice president.
Keeping the Big Apple Healthy
AFSCME DC 37 — working closely with the International, locals and others — won an agreement with city, state and federal officials to keep all New York City residents healthy. The deal will bring $500 million in federal assistance to improve primary care in neighborhood clinics, retrain workers in the city’s public hospitals, and phase in Medicaid managed care, emphasizing prevention instead of emergency treatment.
Hawaiian Wave of Relief
It was a verdict heard ’round the nation. Gary Rodrigues, president of the United Public Workers/AFSCME Local 646, led his union all the way to the state Supreme Court to protect the jobs of seven Hawaii County landfill workers whose positions were about to be contracted out. The court sided with the union, ruling that state and county services performed by public employees cannot be provided by private companies under state civil service laws. The ruling stopped a wave of privatization from overwhelming the island state.
By Catherine Barnett Alexander
