By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

I am starting the New Year by reflecting on some of our accomplishments for DC 37 members over the last year. What made these success stories possible was a structure that encouraged activism and involvement by union leaders, staff and thousands of members. In each case, we combined the strengths of leadership from your officers, guidance from the Executive Board, local presidents and delegates, face-to-face communication by shop stewards and activists, strong support from the membership, and hard-working staff, dedicated to improving life for our members.

Here are a few of the examples I’m talking about.

• our best contract in decades — with 10 percent in raises, no givebacks and an agreement to end restrictions on where our members can live.
• the growing success of the affordable housing program
• the opening of the on-the-job child care centers, such as the one at Bellevue Hospital, which will be a model for other work sites citywide
• the end of right-wing Republican control of Congress and our own statehouse, which our contributions helped achieve
• the hundreds of grievances and legal cases we won for individual members and groups, some resulting in cash payments and others saving jobs, protecting members’ benefits and rights, and defending their dignity
• the thousands of members upgrading their general education and career advancement opportunities through our DC 37 Education Fund
• the 141 members whose jobs we saved recently after the Dept. of Education and the Dept.of Health and Mental Hygiene threatened to lay them off
• the 300 Job Training Program participants for whom we got real jobs in the Health and Hospitals Corp.

I want to draw attention to the vital role of our union staff in each of these areas, because I want you to understand that these things do not just drop from the trees. Each victory is carefully crafted. Every union accomplishment comes from hard work, long hours and often late nights on the part of skilled and dedicated staff.

Many of these achievements needed critical input from your elected leaders, but none could have become reality without your union staff.

Since I have been your Executive Director, I have visited many work locations and exchanged ideas with many members. These ideas became the basis for many of the programs that union staff have planned and implemented. Your input has been important, and I will continue to seek it in the New Year.

I have made it a point to select the best staff possible to provide the best services possible for you, the members of DC 37. (For the latest hirings and promotions, click here.) Our staff is led by department directors who are top people in their fields — negotiators, lawyers, educators, benefit experts and journalists. Our schools, clerical, hospitals, professional, blue collar and white collar divisions are headed by skilled professionals with many years of experience as field reps. But without you, the success we have achieved would not have been possible.

As we face the challenges of 2007, I remain confident that with the support of our 120,000 members and 50,000 retirees, the expertise of the staff and strong leadership from the officers, we will succeed in building a stronger DC 37.

Also, as I look ahead, I want to pause and think fondly of two members of our DC 37 family who will not be with us in 2007. Sherwyn Britton, former White Collar Division Director, and Edna Williams, former president of Custodial Assistant Employees Local 1597, passed away last year. The union will miss them greatly.

And now, as DC 37 enters its 63rd year,
speaking for your officers, Executive Board, delegates and myself,
I hope that 2007 will be a year of good health, peace and progress
for all our members and their loved ones.