Public Employee Press

Local 1549 Conference
Education to protect our future

By JANE LaTOUR

From Sept. 12-14, over 300 Local 1549 shop stewards honed their skills, compared notes on grievance handling, participated in role playing on strategies to organize new members, and heard from a diverse group of inspirational speakers. Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549 held its conference, “Union Power: Using Education to Protect our Future,” at the Rye Town Hilton, a unionized facility in Rye Brook, New York.

“Shop stewards are the union. You are the front line — the ones who reach out to the members to get them involved,” said Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez. “As a shop steward, you are a leader, and you need to share what you learn here with others.”

According to Executive Vice President Lenora D. Gates, the weekend conference gave the stewards of the huge local an excellent opportunity to meet and work closely with their officers and executive board, as well as clerical division and DC 37 staff.

Alma Roper, a Supervising Police Communications Technician, served as a shop steward for four years. “This is the first stewards’ conference I’ve attended,” she said. “The whole conference was excellent. The role playing exercise on getting new members involved — even those who initially want nothing to do with the union — helped us work through this issue from beginning to end and develop strategies.”

Josephine Alameda, a Clerical Associate II at Queens Hospital Center, has only been a steward since November 2002. “Everything was useful to me,” she said. “The safety and health presentations were shocking because there is so much misinformation out there. The sessions on grievance handling and the PEOPLE fund were really helpful. I didn’t know about all the benefits we get through PEOPLE.”

“It’s been a great weekend,” said Chapter Chair Alvin Williams, a Job Opportunity Specialist in the Human Resources Administration. “The conference has given me more tools to help out my membership. I especially appreciated the presentation on workplace violence. It put the problems we face at HRA, such as staff shortages, into a useful perspective.”

Participants agreed that they had been treated to an exceptional group of speakers, including DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, City Councilwoman Margarita Lopez, SSEU Local 371 President Charles Ensley, who with Mr. Rodriguez represents DC 37 on AFSCME’s International Executive Board, and DC 37 Political Action Director Wanda Williams.

AFSCME Eastern Region Regional Director José LaLuz “had us all up on our feet,” said Ms. Roper. “He was a powerful speaker — a ball of fire.” Clerical Division Director Ronnie Harris put the conference into perspective: “I’ve been to many conferences over the years — but this was one of the most enlightening, educational and productive that I’ve ever attended.”

“At work, we’re still talking about the conference,” said Ms. Roper, summing up the success of the weekend: “One of the new stewards told me: ‘I am so excited about this conference that I look forward to doing my hearings.’ Everyone who attended got a lot out of it, and I’m very proud of my local,” she said.