Public Employee Press

Activists gear up for workplace organizing
Local 1549 shop stewards prep for outreach

DC 37/AFSCME Strong is training shop stewards to engage their coworkers and urge them to become more active in the union. In October, Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549, Dept. of Education Employees Local 372 and Municipal Hospital Employees Union Local 420 held training sessions.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Local 1549 shop stewards are stepping up their effort to bring the union message to their workplace. The stewards have joined the DC37/AFSCME Strong project, which plans to carry out thousands of one-on-one meetings with members. The stewards are charged with meeting at least three coworkers each week. The DC37/AFSCME Strong initiative is part of a nationwide effort by the district council's national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to counter the work of wealthy and politically powerful conservative interests, which are using the courts and state governments to try to cripple the labor movement.

At an Oct. 3 training at union headquarters attended by more than 100 shop stewards, top elected union leaders and staffers briefed the activists about the depth of the assault on organized labor and urged them to report back to their coworkers.

"We are fighting for our lives," said Local 1549 2nd Vice President Ralph Palladino, who coordinated the training with the DC 37 Organizing Dept.

"We have to come together as one," said Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez, who is also president of DC 37.

As he described the work of conservative interests who are carrying out an anti-union and anti-government agenda, DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido cited the political influence of the Koch Brothers. Charles and David Koch own the second-largest privately held business in the United States, Koch Industries. They are worth $80 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.

The Koch Brothers' war on labor

In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate. The party's platform called for abolishing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; closing the Federal Aviation Administration, Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission; privatizing public roads and the national highway system; and ending anti-poverty programs.

The Koch Brothers are key backers of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who stripped the state's public employees of their collective bargaining rights. The annual wages of Wisconsin public employees are now $5,000 less than when Walker took office. The number of members of DC 37's national union in Wisconsin has plummeted from 63,000 to 20,000.

Until his campaign for president imploded, Walker was the favored Republican candidate of the Koch Brothers, who have pledged to spend $900 million in the presidential election. Garrido described the bleak national political scene to underscore how important it is for members to be politically active. He said shop stewards should not shy away from even reaching out to anti-union coworkers as they recruit new activists.

DC 37 Organizing Director Barbara Terrelonge gave an overview of the DC 37/AFSCME Strong initiative.

The program's goals include conducting 50,000 interviews; signing up half of the union's agency fee payers (workers who pay dues but haven't signed up as members); increasing participation in the national union's political action committee (PEOPLE) by 10 percent; establishing activist committees at the largest worksites; and engaging members about the union's work to protect jobs and benefits.

"We have been asleep at the wheel," Local 1549 Recording Secretary Carmen Flores said. "People think their benefits are given to them. It was the union that won those benefits."

"You are the connection between the union and the members," Local 1549 Executive Vice President Alma G. Roper said. "The information you heard today is very powerful. You must take what you learned back to the workplace."

"They want to see us lose our collective bargaining rights, and they want private companies to take our jobs," said Chief Stop Steward Albert Ortiz, commenting during the training. "We have to fight back, because if they succeed, it will be a lot harder for the average Joe to get ahead."