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Public Employee Press
Meet the new Organizing
Department DC 37 has set up a new Organizing Dept. with
the hope of bringing union rights, pay and benefits to thousands of new workers
every year by signing them up as members. We have put together an energetic
group who look forward to being on the frontline in the unions mission of
expanding its membership, said Edgar deJesús, interim organizing
director. Two of the three new organizers, Ramon Marrero and Nicole Laing, come
from within the DC 37 family, as does the departments secretary, Tavia Hartley.
Organizer
Cristina Aguilera, a native of Venezuela, comes to DC 37 after working on organizing
campaigns for Unite Here and the United Food and Commercial Workers. While
they come from disparate work backgrounds, the Organizing Dept. workers bring
a common passion for social and economic justice to their new roles.
People
have the right to be treated fairly on the job, said Marrero, who previously
worked as a Clerk Typist II in the unions Clerical Division. I look
forward to teaching people what we offer and what they can accomplish if they
are organized.
Laing, who earned a paralegal associatesdegree
at Berkeley College and attended the College of New Rochelle, worked as aLegal
Assistant for 13 years in the DC 37 Legal Dept. Through that work, I learned
howimportant unions are, she said. I want to give back what Ive
benefited from and I want to increase the membership of DC 37 because we have
so much to offer.
Im really interested in the public
sector, and I am fascinated by the opportunity to work with a large, powerful
union like DC 37, said Aguilera, who alternated time between the United
States and Venezuela as she earned a business administration degree at the Universidad
de Carabobo (where she participated in the student movement to protect university
autonomy), and organized union members in New York City, Detroit, Phoenix, Ariz.,
and North Carolina.
Hartley, previously a Clerk Typist in DC 37s
Municipal Employee Legal Services plan, earned a double major in communications
and journalism at St. Johns University. I want to help non-members
get the same privileges as union members by organizing, she said.
From
1998 to 2006, deJesús headed theAFSCME council in Puerto Rico, where he
worked on a historic multi-union organizing effort that won representation for
more than 100,000 public employees. DeJesús also served as the New Jersey
Area organizing director for DC 37s national union, the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Before AFSCME, deJesús
spent 13 years with the Union of Needletrades Industrial and Textile Employees.
DeJesús represents AFSCME on the Labor Cuncil for Latin American Advancements
executive board.
As a youth in El Barrio, deJesús worked with the
Puerto Rican civil rights movement. | |