Public Employee Press

2,400 HRA job workers choose SSEU Local 371

Almost 2,400 workers in the Job Opportunity Specialist and Associate JOS positions voted recently for DC 37’s Social Service Employees Union Local 371 to represent them.

The Office of Collective Bargaining, which ordered the election earlier this year, counted the mail ballots April 4. Local 371 edged out DC 37’s Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549 among the 1,484 eligible JOS voters and soundly defeated Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America among the supervisory AJOS. The election will bring to DC 37 about 1,000 new workers in both titles who were not in any union before.

“During the election campaign, we talked about their community of interest with other social service workers in the city,” said Local 371 President Charles Ensley. “Now they have the advantage of unit-wide bargaining.”

“The members made the decision,” said Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez. “They had that right. I called Charles Ensley immediately after the count to congratulate him and the members, who are still part of DC 37.”

The Human Resources Administration created the JOS and AJOS titles in 2000 as part of an overhaul that included replacing Income Support Centers with Job Centers to focus more on getting jobs for welfare recipients. Confusion reigned as the job functions of former Eligibility Specialists and Caseworkers were merged in the JOS title and members of different locals with different paychecks did the same work side-by-side.

Both Local 371 and Local 1549 petitioned the Office of Collective Bargaining for the right to represent the JOS workers, but OCB ruled for an election.

Historically, Local 1549 represented Eligibility Specialists and Local 371 represented Caseworkers, while CWA Local 1180 represented administrative workers.

Ensley said that once OCB officially certifies Local 371 as the bargaining representative, a new stage would begin. “We’re thrilled at the victory and we’re prepared to work very, very hard to address all of their issues at the bargaining table, including the pay scales,” he said.