Not for Women Only
2,300 clerical and technical workers at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center say, "AFSCME, Yes!"
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
Three years ago, the University of Massachusetts Medical Center increased the workweek of secretaries without increasing their pay.
"People were shocked," says Theresa Gallagher, a six-year UMass clerical worker. "We felt there was nothing we could do about it. They could do anything to us and we would have to take it."
Most of the clerical and technical workers affected by this decision, and others like it, were women. "We’re 85 percent women," says Carol Hehir, a 10-year employee of UMass Medical Center, which encompasses a hospital and a medical school. "And it’s mostly men running things."
But on Sept. 11, all that changed. UMass workers — male and female — voted to join the State Healthcare And Research Employees (SHARE)/ AFSCME Council 93 with an overwhelming yes vote of 63 percent.
"I was at the vote count," says Gallagher. "We all screamed and cried and hugged, and we thought, ‘We did it. We did it together!’"
The election was a victory for the labor movement — the largest unit won in the state of Massachusetts since the clerical and technical workers at Harvard voted to join AFSCME in 1988.
PERSON BY PERSON. These are the same workers who had voted to send packing a number of unions trying to organize them 11 years ago. So what had changed?
UMass workers may have become interested in AFSCME for all the traditional reasons — pay and working conditions, for example — but they joined for some unexpected ones.
In addition to increasing hours for clerical employees, four years before the election the medical center stopped giving step increases and cost-of-living raises. Instead, it instituted "merit" raises, which most workers agree don’t reflect the quality of their work.
But the predominantly female organizers didn’t build a union around these typical labor issues. A union, they explained, was a way of having a voice in the workplace. They built a union local based not on problems and conflict, but on values, relationships and collaboration. Workers, female and male, responded.
"These people cared about people," says Norberto Gherbesi, a lab technician and nine-year employee of UMass. "I agreed with many of their views and opinions and ways of doing things. Building a union from the bottom up, rather than the top down. Building it by going and visiting person by person."
Gallagher says she was drawn to the union almost immediately because it reflected her own deeply held values of "treating each other kindly and with respect, listening to one another."
MERGER. Four years into the campaign, in December 1996, rumors started flying that UMass, which is a public hospital, would be merging with the private nonprofit Memorial Hospital. Organizers felt that the union had started to come together and worried that fear of the merger might tear it apart.
Instead, the merger became the force that made everything gel. In the midst of uncertainty, the union became a reliable source of information.
"We got more answers from the union than from the people running this institution," says Mary-June Courtois, an 18-year employee of UMass.
Also, since the merger depended upon legislative approval, the medical center administration was under the gun to prove it was taking workers’ interests into account. The union pressed this advantage, and negotiated a deal with UMass, allowing the union access to the medical center.
UMass management and the union also formally agreed to conduct the organizing process in a civil and polite manner. It was an agreement in keeping with SHARE/AFSCME’s philosophy. Hehir explains, "You’re always going to have people opposed to the union, and we would approach them and tell them, ‘We know you’re opposed, but we just want to keep you informed.’ As a result, today we don’t have a divided workforce."
SPEAKING UP. In time, after many conversations with their co-workers about their jobs, their families and the changes at UMass, a lot of workers who had been opposed to the union changed their minds.
Audrey Resener remembers when union organizers first came to her home to visit with her and a co-worker. "We told them that neither Pauline or I were interested in the union," says Resener, a 14-year employee of UMass. But she enjoyed the visit. "We sat and talked and had a great time," she recalls. She continued talking to the organizers on and off for the next few years.
Not only did Resener and other UMass workers feel comfortable with union organizers, but they felt the union offered them something they could never get on their own: a voice in how they and their patients are treated.
"I noticed we didn’t have a lot of input," Resener recalls. "I decided it was time to sign the union card, that I did need a union and did need a voice."
TAKING A STAND. Now that she’s a member, Resener intends to stay active in the union because this experience has not only improved her workplace, it has improved her life as well.
"I’ve never taken a stand like this before and it makes me feel good," she says. "I’ve always been easy-going, but now I tend to stand up for myself."
Union activism has bettered Gallagher’s life as well: "In the past I have been a person who would stand back and let other people do things. I would never get up in front of anybody and read or speak to people. The union gave me confidence."
Today, Gallagher has the confidence to demand that UMass administrators live up to the hospital’s mission statement "to treat patients equally and with respect."
"I’d like to see that for our employees so we can give the patients all our energy," she explains. "I feel the union is making that happen."
By Alison S. Lebwohl
