'We've Got to Organize!'
AFSCME makes its biggest commitment to organizing ever.
Delegates to AFSCME’s 33rd International Convention showed that this union is not willing to accept declining membership that will sap its strength and leave it powerless against corporate privatizers and extremist politicians. In a series of votes, delegates set in motion the largest AFSCME organizing campaign ever.
Reflecting the mood of many delegates, Nancy Willis, president of Local 542 (Council 25), Detroit, said, “The world isn’t going to stand still, and this union isn’t going to stand still. In order for us to move forward, we’ve got to be well equipped. We’ve got to have the resources. We’ve got to organize!”
Setting the direction for organizing efforts, delegates passed the Cooperative Strategic Organizing Program resolution that targets for organizing the 2 million local, state and federal government workers who are covered by collective bargaining laws, but are not represented by an AFL-CIO union. The resolution also commits AFSCME to follow its work by developing appropriate organizing programs.
While the International union will continue to take the lead in pressing for new collective bargaining laws, councils and unaffiliated locals will dedicate more resources than ever before to organize workers.
The Convention heard the tales of workers who have taken big risks to join AFSCME, from Idaho to Puerto Rico, only to face the onslaught of employer intimidation. The delegates voted to do whatever it takes to help those workers win their fights.
“We’ve got to concentrate on being even bigger than we are,” commented delegate Toby Lopez, president of Local 158 (Council 76), City and County of Denver. “I’m taking the message back to union and non-union members that the fight is for everybody.”
ORGANIZING THE UNORGANIZED. As President McEntee reported to the delegates, despite significant growth and great organizing successes within AFSCME over the past several decades, the union has stopped growing. “In the last three years, AFSCME has organized approximately 100,000 new members. In that same period, we have lost about 104,000 members, for a net loss of 4,000 members.”
It’s a trend affecting unions nationwide. Since the 1970s, the percentage of America’s workers in unions has dropped from 24 percent to about 14 percent. Not surprisingly, real income for working families has fallen in lockstep with declining union numbers during the same period.
As delegates learned from each other both on and off the Convention floor, decreasing or stagnant membership makes unions less effective at the bargaining table and more vulnerable to lost jobs, flat salaries and reduced benefits. Especially vulnerable are public employees faced with expanding privatization efforts.
Delegate Rita Sheppard, Local 997 (Council 31), is seeing it happen in Springfield, Ill. “Privatization is a big issue in Springfield,” she reported. “People are losing their jobs, and mostly in areas that are the least unionized.”
CELEBRATING VICTORIES. Convention delegates cheered the stories of AFSCME organizing victories and the benefits they won for workers.
“In Maryland, in May of 1996, our great union persuaded the governor of Maryland, Parris Glendening (D), to issue an executive order granting state workers collective bargaining rights,” Corrections Officer Bernard Ralph of Local 1678 (Council 92), told the Convention. “It was like the beginning of a new day in Maryland’s Labor movement. We talked to our co-workers and built a force that resulted in a win for AFSCME by more than a 2-to-1 vote. And now things are changing for the better. We’ve gotten a good pay raise and negotiated roll-call pay for the first time ever.”
Puerto Rico public workers got their collective bargaining rights after more than 30 years of efforts, again with the help of a friend of AFSCME, Gov. Pedro Roselló (D). “This law represents a move forward in our fight for justice and dignity,” Blanca Paniagua Andorno stated on the Convention floor. “My hope is that very soon, workers in Puerto Rico, with the assistance of AFSCME ... will be able to participate in the decision-making process in our worksites ... workers will be promoted on their merits and not on political affiliations and, finally, that fear and frustration will be a thing of the past.”
Paula Payne, an administrative assistant in the wastewater division for the city of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, knows how important the right to organize is, because she lost hers. She also knows the pride of fighting to regain that right.
Speaking to the Convention, Payne told how her 92-member employee association voted to join AFSCME Council 2. “Less than eight months later, our city council repealed the 16-year-old collective bargaining ordinance.”
Despite two separate public hearings at which more than 500 supporters turned out to oppose repeal of the ordinance, “The city council didn’t care, they just turned a deaf ear,” Payne said. So members, with the help of Council 2, began to collect signatures to put an initiative on the February 1999 ballot. In just 10 days, they had collected over 800 of the 900 signatures required to get the measure on the ballot. “We intend to win this fight!” Payne proclaimed.
ORGANIZING THE ORGANIZED. Of course, organizing new union members is just part of the challenge. As President McEntee emphasized to delegates, organizing successes must not be offset by member losses. AFSCME must retain members. And the union must be ready to mobilize by cultivating active members.
“The strength of AFSCME cannot be based solely on the hope of organizing new workers,” McEntee told the Convention. “Our strength comes from the fact that we are 1.3 million men and women strong. That we are united in purpose.”
Ben Young of Local 582 (Council 67) in Anne Arundel County, Md., noted, “We have lost approximately 800 union members in the county, some to privatization, some to attrition, a lot to downsizing. And we’re still shrinking.” Still, he says, many members have failed to become active.
“We recently raised our quorum requirement to 10 percent for meetings,” Young explained. “There are many times when we don’t have a quorum. This emphasis on organizing the organized will be very important to us.”
Convention guest Esther Holmes, of New York City’s Local 1549 (D.C. 37), said she sees the same problem in getting people to meetings. “They don’t want to take the time because the meetings are after work. They don’t realize how important it is [to attend].”
ORGANIZING WORKSHOPS. Convention delegates arrived early at the convention center each day for practical workshops on a variety of issues, including organizing.
Workshop participants agreed that the decision to organize means making a commitment to change things, to shake up the status quo. It means re-evaluating staffing priorities and the way the union operates. It means taking risks. It means devoting more resources to organizing, developing a strong organizing staff, devising and implementing a strategic plan and mobilizing members.
“It will take commitment,” McEntee concluded. “But that commitment means strength. Strength means better contracts. ... job protection ... stopping employers from engaging in unscrupulous behavior.”
By Catherine Barnett Alexander
