Public Employee Press

First article in a series on organizing and mobilizing.
Organize!
On International Human Rights Day, the AFL-CIO launched a long-term campaign to promote the right of workers to join unions.

DC 37 activists were among tens of thousands of workers who hit the streets Dec. 10 in a giant nationwide mobilization to support the right to organize.

The AFL-CIO carried out events in 90 communities in 38 states to draw public attention to the need for union representation, which is at its lowest point since the Great Depression.

In New York City, workers and community organizers gathered in the late afternoon at Federal Hall in the heart of the financial district and marched about a mile to rally at 26 Federal Plaza.

The symbolism of the gathering location — a stone’s throw away from the New York Stock Exchange — was important to the protesters, who knew well that the decline in unionization has come with the greatest income inequality in the United States in seven decades.

The AFL-CIO mobilization launched labor’s long-term “Voice@Work” campaign, which aims to educate the public to consider union organizing as a basic right like other human and civil rights that are taken for granted. The DC 37 executive board voted to endorse the campaign in December.

Rank-and-file outreach
Key leaders and activists in a number of DC 37 local unions including 420, 768, 372 and 1549 have supported the program. On Dec. 13, Social Service Employees Union Local 371 held an intensive four-hour Voice@Work training session for about 30 activists. The training, which is available to other locals, equipped them with communication tools to discuss the value of unionism with rank-and-file members.

The mobilization occurred on International Human Rights Day, which celebrates the United Nations’ adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration recognizes the right to peaceful assembly and association, as well as the freedom of workers to form unions and to bargain collectively.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts joined AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and Central Labor Council President Brian M. McLaughlin in leading marchers to the rally at 26 Federal Plaza. DC 37 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa and Local 372 Executive Vice President Santos Crespo also marched at the head of the procession.

“Behind the closed doors of the workplaces of America, workers face incredible — often ruthless — opposition when they try to come together in a union,” said Mr. Sweeney. He cited a poll that found 45 million workers would join a union if they had the opportunity.

Shrinking middle class
“These employers are literally robbing working people and their communities of better lives,” Mr. Sweeney said. “At a time in our nation when the middle class is shrinking, when the gap between the rich and poor is growing, workers deserve the right to form unions to win a real voice on the job through collective bargaining.”

The mobilization supported the Employee Free Choice Act sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). The proposal calls for workers to get union representation if a majority of them sign a card, rather than going through the lengthy election process overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Labor organizers charge that the NLRB is stacked in favor of corporations, which routinely fire on-the-job organizers and coerce employees into voting against representation.

Demonstrators carried a giant puppet of a man with a black top hat and dollar signs in his eyes to represent the NLRB. Marchers with signs of silhouetted workers fired during organizing drives surrounded the NLRB puppet.

At the march, many protesters carried placards with messages such as “The NLRB Doesn’t Work for Me,” “Unions are For America” and “Stop Corporate Greed.” “Workers’ right to organize is very important at this time, when unions are under attack,” said Caseworker Kathie Sabater, who marched to the Voice@Work rally with a contingent from Local 371. “Without human rights and worker rights, there would be complete exploitation.”

Ms. Sabater said she believed younger workers in particular need to be more informed about the benefits of unionization since many of them didn’t grow up in union households as representation has waned in recent decades.

“We have got to stop union busting,” said Local 375 member Rajiv Gowda as he listened to Mr. Sweeney at the rally. “That’s why what we are doing today is so important. Organizing unions is a human right.”

— Gregory N. Heires