Public Employee Press

Members speak at Pride conference

Dynamic leadership, inspiring stories and a social justice agenda made for the success of the Nov. 13 Pride and Solidarity in Action conference, which brought together more than 60 unionists, students and members of community groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organizations.

Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 Labor and Political Action Chair Jeff Oshins and Shop Steward Kelly Canzoneri of Metropolitan Museum of Art Local 1503 participated in a panel discussion on the path to leadership for LGBT unionists. PEP Associate Editor Jane LaTour - the author of "Sisters in the Brotherhoods" - addressed the closing session about the prejudice that has hit gay women in non-traditional jobs.

Empire State Pride Agenda, a statewide group that works for equality and justice for LGBT people, organized the conference.

As she described her painful journey to the steward position, Canzoneri told of being outed as a transgender person by her shop steward. "The union was not supportive," she said. As a supervisor, Canzoneri had negotiated her own grievance, to the benefit of all of the night supervisors.

Co-workers asked her to fight for them as she did for herself when she was overlooked for overtime. She finally decided to accept an appointment as shop steward. Writing grievances for fellow union members led to a breach in the formerly cordial relations she had with her manager. "I hope to win these grievances and I plan to take them all the way," she said.

Oshins, an 18-year employee at the Health Dept., has been a member of Health Services Employees Local 768, Teamsters Local 237, and now DC 37's Local 375. He described running for office, using his annual leave to campaign at different agencies and working together with others on a slate that he said "won by a landslide."

The Local 375 LGBT community and others in the union all help each other out, he added, and Local President Behrouz Fathi has been a consistent supporter. "We have lots of work ahead of us and two years left in the term. Right now, I plan to run for office again."

Both Oshins and Canzoneri offered encouraging words for LGBT workers who want to serve union members. "It's not easy, but I don't regret doing it," Oshins said.