Organizing For POWER

From state to state, workers are organizing with AFSCME for a voice on the job. Here are some recent victories:

FLORIDA

Workers from three units recently formed unions with Council 79. In separate elections that brought huge victories, nearly 1,500 operational services employees from the University of Florida (406 to 78) and the University of Central Florida (115 to 10) joined AFSCME. In Washington County, 50 bus drivers won union representation after the school board voted unanimously to accept their card-check campaign.

MASSACHUSETTS

The 20-member Foxboro Highway Association — which represents the town's highway and water employees — voted 14 to 4 to affiliate with Council 93.

MICHIGAN

Workers in Detroit have stoked their organizing engines for union representation with Council 25. Eleven caregivers from the Azalea Epps Adult Foster Care Home joined via a10 to 0 vote, and eight others from the Hamilton Nursing Home came aboard, too. Also choosing AFSCME: 38 employees from the Highland Park School District.

MISSOURI

In North Kansas City, 148 school-district bus drivers and aides voted to form a union with Council 72.Two small groups of mechanics from the district elected to join as well.

NEW MEXICO

State employees continue to benefit from new collective bargaining rights signed into law by Gov. Bill Richardson (D). At Fort Bayard Medical Center, a 247-person nursing home staff elected to become members of Council 18 via card check.

OREGON

After enduring a long and contentious anti-union campaign waged by their employer, 82 employees at Portland's Early Head Start Family Center prevailed and formed a union with Council 75. The final tally: 50 to 24.

WISCONSIN

In a mail-ballot campaign in Whitewater, 22 clerical employees in city hall, and the town library,voted 16 to 1 to join Council 40.