By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

From mobilizing 30,000 members to rally at City Hall to save 10,000 jobs to counseling one overworked member on how to balance child care, work and college courses, District Council 37 is a very special union. We care for every member and we fight for every job.

DC 37 members know they have a union that works for them — from helping members fill 21 million prescriptions a year to picketing agencies that contract out our work to retraining laid-off workers for new careers.

Every member of this union can walk with pride every day, knowing they are part of a mighty institution that represents 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees but still focuses on the needs of each individual.

We stand tall in our communities, knowing that we fight not just for ourselves, but also to defend the public services people depend on — quality education and health care, solid infrastructure — from patches for potholes to Paramedics for heart attack victims. In coalition with religious and community groups, we fight for a better future for our members, our children and all New Yorkers.

We walk with self-respect, because we have never given up on the struggles for racial equality, women’s rights, a fair chance for immigrants, economic justice, peace and social progress. In DC 37, social justice is a union issue — not just an abstract concept but something we fight for every day.

Our members and their families are covered by a range of health, legal and educational benefits that are unequaled anywhere by any union. We can be proud that our union provides “cradle-to-grave” coverage. If a union parent registers a new baby with our Health and Security Plan today, a schedule of vital vaccinations is in the mail by tomorrow to keep that union baby healthy.

A member who walks in the door of our Education Fund can take classes that go all the way from third grade level to a high school equivalency diploma and on through college. In fact, we are the only union with a college campus right in our headquarters. We helped members in other colleges with $3 million in tuition reimbursements. Test prep courses help members climb the career ladder, and we bring classes to members at 13 sites near their jobs and homes.

We pay 400,000 dental claims a year, and our legal service helped 10,000 members last year. The Personal Service Unit comes to the aid of members in job jeopardy due to substance abuse and reaches out with workshops on retirement planning and domestic violence. Access to benefit information is easy with our new evening benefit desk in the lobby at the union building and our telephone information system.

As associate director, I founded many of these programs in the 1960s and ‘70s. Now I feel personally fulfilled to see their tremendous growth and success. Our members can be proud to be part of a union that shows it cares about them in such concrete ways.

We are a union with a big heart, but we also know how to use our muscle and the power of democracy. Members and local leaders develop our legislative agenda and collective bargaining demands. Then thousands campaign to elect pro-labor politicians, lobby to pass our legislation, and rally to back union negotiators.

This year we fought the mayor and the governor as they tried to balance the budget on members’ backs. When we rallied 30,000-strong in April, our message was heard in Albany, and we stopped the 10,000 layoffs of the “doomsday budget.”

Our union has an extraordinary record of accomplishment. But all that is threatened right now at the bargaining table. The city has targeted our health care and our benefits, management negotiators are demanding increased productivity before they will discuss the wage increases we need so badly, and the mayor is adamant about his demands.

Send a message to the mayor
We have to remind City Hall that we are still a united and powerful force. We have to tell the mayor with one loud voice: Hands off our benefits! We need a raise NOW!

We are going to do that with a massive rally at City Hall Park on Wednesday, October 29, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. I am asking every single member to understand that our pay and our benefits are on the line — without membership pressure there will be no contract — and join us October 29 at our Rally for a Fair Contract NOW!

Walk with pride, every day. And rally with power on October 29.