AFSCME 'Stars' Shine Brightly

By Clyde Weiss

Gala dinner, first-ever awards honor outstanding achievements

Rising above adversities and showing exceptional ability to advance AFSCME's fundamental objectives in organizing, political power and workplace justice, 23 councils, locals or individuals distinguished themselves as winners of AFSCME's first-ever "Star of Excellence" awards.

They were among those nominated by our members and leaders from throughout the country and selected by a panel of judges convened by the International. All 23 were honored at a gala dinner on the last night of our Convention.

• University of California Local 3299, representing 17,000 patient care and service workers employed by the UC system, have added more than 4,000 UC employees since January 2000. 
  
  
• California's United Domestic Workers of America (UDWA)-NUHHCE. Last year, in the nation's largest representation election, they stood beside 12,000 home care workers in the fight for dignity and justice. They expect to organize 50,000 workers across the state by year's end (see cover story, Page 6). 
  
  
• Florida Council 79 ignored pundits who wrote the state into the Republican column for the 2000 elections. They registered voters, distributed literature, staffed phone banks, organized pro-Gore rallies and helped produce the closest Presidential election in U.S. history. 
  
  
• Iowa Council 61 faced a huge round of budget cuts last November that threatened public service jobs. Using radio commercials, letters to the editor, pickets, phone calls and direct political lobbying, they persuaded lawmakers to find alternatives, including an early-retirement program to forestall layoffs. 
  
  
• Illinois Council 31, which is often touted as the best team of organizers in the labor movement, has strategically targeted private, low-paid mental health workers and has won more than 90 percent of its elections since 1999 — despite the efforts of private employers. 
  
  
• University of Maryland Local 1072 (Council 92). For 20 years, this local worked to win collective bargaining rights for employees of the College Park and University College camp-uses. Since last May, when Gov. Parris Glendening signed legislation to permit bargaining, more than 4,000 university workers have voted for AFSCME representation. 
  
  
• Minnesota Council 6. In October, more than 18,000 AFSCME members — joined by 9,500 other union members — staged a two-week strike, statewide, eventually winning 3.5 percent wage increases. But the work's not done — the legislature adjourned in May without approving the contract. 
  
  
• Michigan Local 411 (Council 25) negotiated the best contract in its history by lobbying elected officials, using media to increase public support and building bargaining power by teaming up with other county workers. Their retirement package, upgrades and pay increases set a standard for the rest of the state. 
  
  
• New York: Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/AFSCME Local 1000 won for several reasons. Through its federal Political Action Liaison program, CSEA showed itself able to quickly generate thousands of phone calls, postcards and activate rank-and-file members. Through a community service drive called "Making a Difference," each of Central Region 5's locals participated in community service activities, while the union's PEOPLE Committee has recruited 16,500 new members.
  
  
• New York's DC 37 and Locals 372, 375, 2507 and 3621. Whether it's helping defeat a proposal to turn over the responsibility for teaching children to the country's largest for-profit education privateer (Local 372); or persuading Mayor Giuliani to reverse a decision to turn responsibility for World Trade Center debris removal over to Bechtel Corp. (Local 375); or blocking City Hall plans to privatize ambulance services (Locals 2507 and 3621), the members of DC 37 know how to beat privateers. 
  
  
• Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE)/AFSCME Local 4 is on the front lines in three important arenas. It has organized nearly 20 Head Start programs in three years, and welcomed 9,000 new members since 1992. OAPSE has fought privatization in court, and its PEOPLE program raised $26,000 in May. 
  
  
• Ohio: Local 2415 (Council 8). Employees of the Medical College of Ohio crafted an internal organizing campaign under a committee called AFSCME Activists in Action that more than doubled the local's membership. 
  
  
• Puerto Rico: Servidores Públicos Unidos/AFSCME, Department of Family (Locals 3227A and 3234B). Mostly women workers who earn an average $12,000 a year, these members travel long distances after work as volunteer member organizers, becoming a moving spirit for the union. 
  
  
• Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28 fought for 15 years to end "collective begging." Their newly energized mobilization efforts during the past two years earned 75,000 state workers full collective bargaining rights in 2002. 
  
  
• Wisconsin Council 24. This council has won battles usually fought by affiliates 10 times their size. Recently, they won an internal organizing drive, setting the stage for another 6,000 members. The council also has developed innovative labor/management initiatives that have led to improved working conditions for members statewide.

Individuals:

Barbara Richardson. Since her retirement from the Erie County Assistance Office in 1991, she has served as secretary of Pennsylvania Statewide Retiree Chapter 13, subchapter 8503, in Erie. Not willing to be idle, she also has volunteered for the American Red Cross and assisted New York victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Michael Connair, MD, Federation of Physicians and Dentists/NUHHCE 1199, is a leader of the doctors' unionization movement who has worked to win passage of legislation giving collective bargaining rights for private physicians. He is from Connecticut.

Ray Soucy, Local 387 (Connecticut Council 4), is a dedicated political activist and organizer in addition to his job as a supervisor and steward at the Cheshire Correctional Complex in Waterbury. When AFSCME sought help organizing members in Kentucky, Soucy voluntarily left his job and family for six weeks to join that effort.

Mary Goulding, vice president of Wisconsin Council 40 and president of Green Bay Local 3055B, received the President's Award on behalf of all AFSCME presidents, for her unstinting efforts on behalf of the union in the areas of political action, legislative advocacy, organizing and other working-family causes.