PEP, December 2007: Organize

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

The union kicked off its new organizing program over the Veterans Day weekend. So far, more than 150 DC 37 activists have signed up to be “volunteer member organizers.”

The VMOs will be on the frontline of the new DC 37 Organizing Dept.’s mandate to add thousands of workers to the union’s membership each year.

“These activists will be the backbone of our futureorganizing drives,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. The volunteers answered an appeal from Roberts to sign up as VMOs in her editorial on the organizing challenge in the October Public Employee Press.

The union launched the initiative with a training program on Friday, Nov. 9. Over the following two days, the volunteers participated in additional training sessions at union headquarters in the morning. In the afternoons and evenings, they teamed up with staffers to conduct home visits throughout the city to drum up support for organizing among current and possible future members.

“The work that you are doing is holy work,” DC 37Associate Director Oliver Gray told the volunteer organizers. “What you are doing will help people and their children make their lives better.” Interim Organizing Director Edgar deJesús gave an overview of the organizing model of DC 37’s national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The AFSCME program relies heavily on volunteer member organizers for home visits, because studies show that the most effective way to sign up recruits is to meet with them outside the workplace. Furthermore, potential members react most favorably to contact with co-workers or people in their line of work. In the later stages of organizing drives, the union reaches out to politicians and the community for support and engages in media campaigns.

DeJesús, who from 1998 to 2001 led AFSCME’s council in Puerto Rico, where a multi-union organizing drive signed up tens of thousands of public employeees, said that since he came to DC 37 in the summer, he had worked closely with local presidents and the staff to identify potential targets for organizing. Currently, the union is exploring organizing hundreds of non-union employees in the New York City parks system at such places as Central Park and Prospect Park.

DeJesús combined an optimistic call to arms with a sober message about the challenge facing unions. In 1960, 38 percent of the labor force was organized while in 2007, only seven of every 100 workers have union protection. Representation dropped as business shipped jobs overseas, the political climate shifted to the right, employers used more aggressive anti-union tactics and unions failed to devote resources to organizing.

Recognizing the crisis faced by organized labor,AFSCME approved the Power to Win Campaign at its 2006 convention. By dedicating more funding to organizing and recruiting volunteer member organizers, the campaign aims to help councils like DC 37 increase their membership by 3 percent a year. DeJesús noted that a recent report identified AFSCME as one of the fastest growing unions in the country. From 2001 to 2007, AFSCME has signed up nearly 278,000 members.

DC 37 Assistant Associate Director Henry Garrido discussed the organizing challenge in the city parks. Garrido pointed out that in the 1970s, DC 37 members were a majority of the employees in Central Park.

Since the ’90s, the union’s membership in the parks has fallen because of the policy of privatization, attrition and replacing employees with workfare workers that was pressed by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now the leading Republican candidate for president. Today, more than 300 workers, ranging from Gardeners to Architects, at the Central Park Conservancy, a quasi-public employer, do jobs that should be done by DC 37 members, Garrido said.

“We are faced with a major erosion of civil servants and jobs we represent,” said Garrido.

DeJesús called the privatization of the parks part of a broader campaign by monied interests to take over public services. Handing education, health care and other services to the private sector will undermine democracy, erode the power of unions and severely damage the living standards of working people, leading to a city of only the rich and the poor, he said.

During the weekend, the volunteer member organizers continued to learn about AFSCME organizing tactics. They viewed an instructional video about home visits. The video offered suggestions for learning about the concerns of potential members and advice about how to encourage them to participate in organizing efforts.

The home visits are a key component of the union’s exploration of organizing opportunities. Ultimately, the visits help the union gauge whether to move forward with campaigns.

AFSCME trainer Yolanda Medina and Larry Kelly of the DC 37 Education Dept. joined deJesús as the volunteer member organizers broke up into groups for more individualized training.

The two groups that participated in the organizing blitz around the city were assigned to visit the homes of DC 37 members and non-union Parks workers. A third group remained at DC 37 headquarters and made calls from a phone bank.