PEP, March 2014: Union Drive: Fee-payers joining DC 37

District Council 37 has launched a campaign to encourage employees who pay fees to the union but aren't members to sign up.

Several thousand municipal employees receive DC 37 services but are not actually members because they have not joined the union.

"We want to make sure people take full advantage of being union members," DC 37 Associate Director Henry Garrido said. "When more people take the step of signing up, that makes the union stronger and better able to improve pay and benefits."

Some people object to joining a union for political, philosophical or religious reasons, but most nonmembers have simply fallen through the cracks.

Anti-union lawsuit

How does that happen?

Perhaps they didn't get a green card to sign when they were hired. Or the union may have an incorrect address. If the city failed to inform DC 37 that they were promoted or returned from a leave, their name may have been dropped from union records.Workers who pay the equivalent of dues but aren't members are known as "agency fee payers." By law, public service workers are required to pay their "fair share" to cover the union's cost of providing them with services like workplace protections and collective bargaining representation; however, they don't have to sign up as members to receive the services.

Harris v. Quinn, a case before the U.S. Supreme Court backed by the anti-union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, aims to throw out the "fair share" rule to cripple public employee unions financially.

DC 37 locals and divisions are pushing at worksites and meetings to sign up agency fee payers as members.

Director Nola Brooker said DC 37 Professional Division reps, local leaders and activists are working with its 19 locals, distributing information packets as they reach out to sign up about 4,000 fee payers.

Local 768 President Fitz Reid met Feb. 7 with about a dozen new Health Dept. employees at 125 Worth St. in Manhattan. He explained that by becoming members they would be entitled to vote on contracts, shape the union's political agenda and vote for their leadership.

At the Dept. of Homeless Services, Local 2627 Shop Steward Brian Wonserver regularly signs up new members.

"I have learned a lot about the benefits of the union," said George Kajdi, a Software Specialist Level 2.

During a 5 a.m. meeting last month at the 911 call center in Brooklyn, Clerical-Administrative Division Grievance Rep Rhonda Spaulding met with 40 new Police Communications Technicians. She signed up virtually all of them after she described the benefits of joining the union. The division aims to sign up about 2,000 agency fee payers.

Recently, James Tucciarelli, president of Sewage Treatment Workers and Senior STWs Local 1320, noticed that longtime member David Carlin, was no longer listed as a member. He asked Local Secretary Jerry Vedovino to visit Carlin's plant. "I was on a leave of absence and didn't have an opportunity to sign a green card when I returned," said Carlin, who didn't hesitate to join.

Like Local 1320, Traffic Employees Local 1455 keeps its agency fee payer numbers very low by closely monitoring its records and meeting regularly with new members. It has only about 10 agency fee payers among the nearly 350 workers it represents, President Michael DeMarco said.