By GREGORY N. HEIRES
As union membership continues its long-term decline, organizing new members has become a crucial issue for the labor movement. Indeed, within the top ranks of the AFL-CIO, an intense debate is focusing upon strategy for reversing the fall off in membership and political power. Organized labor now accounts for less than 14 percent of the U.S. labor force — and less than 9 percent in the private sector.

While few dispute the need to recruit new members, many labor leaders and activists point to the need for unions to look inward as well, so that current members will understand, support and participate in new organizing.

Social Services Employees Union Local 371 is one of a growing handful of locals within DC 37 that have embarked on “Voice@Work,”a new AFL-CIO internal education plan.

Last year, the DC 37 Executive Board formally endorsed the program, which deepens activists’ understanding of how important unions are to the livelihood of working families and equips them to spread the union gospel to their coworkers. The federation formally launched the program Dec. 10 with nationwide demonstrations to celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted in 1948 by the United Nations. The declaration recognizes the right to organize as a basic human right. Voice@Work is a long-term campaign to convince ordinary Americans that the right to join unions is as important as other civil rights.

“For us to remain a strong and vibrant union, we need our members to be very active,” said Carmen Charles, the president of Hospital Employees Local 420. The local has adopted a similar plan developed by DC 37’s parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The program teaches rank-and-file leaders how to set up “Member Action Teams.”

“Educating our members about the value of unions will be critical for our success in turning around the labor movement,” said SSEU Local 371 President Charles Ensley.

Executive Assistant Shirley Aldebol is coordinating Local 371’s new internal education program in which delegates (shop stewards) and other activists participate in an intensive, four-hour Voice@Work workshop.

Internal, external
“Besides helping people become more knowledgeable about unions, we want to use the program to strengthen our base in order to go out and organize,” Ms. Aldebol said.

The program explores the roots of the long-term decline in unionization, including employer tactics to defeat organizing drives, the export of jobs overseas, legal barriers to recruiting and even the complacency of unions themselves. An important theme is the connection between high “union density” (the percentage of the workforce represented by unions) and our standard of living.

“It’s scary because if they kill the union I don’t know what will happen,” said Local 371 member Aurea Mangual. She described the workshop she attended late last fall as a wake-up call. “Unless we organize and reach out to more workers, I see a very dark future for my son and others behind me.”

While the program raises the alarm about the decline in union membership, it also offers a hopeful message. It stresses the “union difference,” the fact that unionized workers get better pay and benefits than their non-unionized counterparts.

Richard Bond, a Child Protective Specialist Supervisor, said the workshop program would be stronger if it were tied more directly to the bread-and-butter issues facing DC 37, such as the fight for a new contract.

Child Protective Specialist Trenise Washington said she looks forward to sharing the information with her coworkers. What she learned will better equip her to carry out her duties as a union delegate, she added.