By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

In Africa and Asia and almost every culture I have come to know, people respect the wisdom and strength of their elders. The young are encouraged to sit at their feet and absorb the invaluable lessons the elders have gained through vast experience.

In our mass culture, not many will get a chance to learn directly from Local 372 member Adele U. Trapp, who at 94 is the oldest working employee of the Department of Education. So I want to use my column in this issue of PEP to tell our 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees about this extraordinary woman.

Our union lawyers brought Ms. Trapp to my attention, because when they needed a witness to testify in an arbitration hearing about the impact of Brooklyn-Queens Day on workers in the schools, she stood up and spoke out for the membership. As a School Aide at Junior High School 258 in Brooklyn, the union had meant so much to her that she wanted to help DC 37 and Local 372 win the case for other employees.

“Without the union, you have a little voice. With the union, your voice is much bigger,” she said.

This was wisdom speaking, a moving voice from a worker imbued with the true spirit of the union.

Ms. Trapp put her decades of experience in the city schools to use for the union as she informed the arbitrator that the school holiday has been a day off for students and employees alike for as long as anyone can remember. She helped our lawyers make it clear that another union’s agreement to come to work on that day did not give the DOE the right to unilaterally order Local 372 members to work the day.

Thanks to Adele U. Trapp and our skilled union attorneys, we won the case. The arbitrator ruled that the Department of Education has to keep its commitments to the members we represent.

The school system now has to give the members who were illegally ordered to work on Brooklyn-Queens Day in 2006 and 2007 compensatory time off for the day plus a 50 percent premium payment. I have already begun pressing the DOE to pay our members quickly. And those who took the time from their own leave balances will have the leave days restored.

While it is not yet clear exactly how many members will benefit from this victory, some estimates range up to 15,000. When she was informed that the arbitration award might cost the city more than $1 million, Ms. Trapp said politely, “I’m sorry if I got in management’s way, but if I can ever help my co-workers, I am going to.”

We know that management makes mistakes and acts arbitrarily. It’s our job as the union to point out what they do wrong and to make things right. Adele Trapp became a tremendous symbol of the courage of DC 37 members as she spoke out for justice, dignity and respect.

Ms. Trapp is a living lesson for our younger members, who often forget the value and power that comes with union membership and how important it is to stick with the union, protect it and help it grow. They don’t know that the contracts and benefits and rights we have today were won through great sacrifice by people who organized, demonstrated, went on strike and sometimes to jail.

A Boy Scout leader since 1957 and a shop steward who comes to every union meeting, Adele Trapp was disappointed when a recent illness forced her to cancel her bowling night. But she knows what it is to get the union’s help in filling her prescriptions and she wears eyeglasses she purchased with a union voucher.

I’m very proud to work with members like Adele U. Trapp. She offers a lesson that every member should understand: “With a union, people are treated much better on the job. Nobody wants to make union members unhappy,’ she said, “because they have the union.”

And she says the union makes a difference in members’ lives: “People feel stronger and act stronger when they have a strong union behind them.”

Amen, sister.