Public Employee Press

Members mobilize for DC 37 Strong

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

More than 120 union activists gathered at DC 37 on a recent Saturday morning to participate in a three-hour workshop that focused on reaching out to and engaging members.

The training-in partnership with DC 37's national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - marked the beginning of an unprecedented effort that includes engaging 50,000 members in one-on-one conversations by next spring, with the goal of building union power in the workplace.

"It's vital that members become more active in the union," DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido said of the initiative, which is being replicated across the country by unions, like DC 37, that are part AFSCME. The new initiative is called DC 37/AFSCME Strong.

"Public service workers and their unions are under attack all across the nation," Garrido noted. "Here in New York, we may not have a [Governor of Wisconsin] Scott Walker trying to take away our collective bargaining rights, but there are certainly elected officials and think tanks and corporate executives and other powerful forces that are looking to privatize public services, to do away with our retirement security and to cripple the unions that are the first and last lines of defense for working families."

The decades-long attack on unions by corporations and their puppet politicians has resulted in an economic gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else that is the worst since the Great Depression.

As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently explained: "The decline in union membership has been responsible for half of the rise in the share of income going to the top 10 percent of earners between 1980 and 2010. Declining union membership, by weakening the bargaining power of low- and middle-income workers at both union and nonunion businesses, has increased the share of wealth going to corporate higher-ups and shareholders."

While DC 37 members may now be feeling more secure than AFSCME members in states like Wisconsin because they have collective bargaining rights, a pending Supreme Court decision could radically change that.

This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court could decide to overturn its 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision, which ruled that public employees have a right to form a union and require non-members pay a fee because they enjoy the benefits and higher wages gained from collective bargaining.

If the current court overturns the Abood decision, it would effectively nationalize a "right-to-work-for less" law. Such a law would jeopardize the ability of public sector unions to represent members and provide services. This drive to strip unions of their power is being fueled in part by the checkbooks of the billionaire Koch brothers, who have a combined net worth of $80 billion and support elected officials like Walker.

Members are energized

Brooklyn Library Guild Local 1482 President Eileen Muller was one of several local presidents who attended the DC 37/AFSCME Strong workshop. Muller was joined by members of her local.

"They were energized," Muller said of her members' reaction. "They realize now that some the attacks that are happening against unions around the country can happen here, too."

Ralph Ramos, a shop steward at New York Zoological Society Local 1501, was energized as well. "This is the catalyst that we need now," Ramos said. "For me this is at the top of my agenda, right up there after breathing."

Manuel Melendez, AFSCME Education Coordinator for the Eastern Region, was joined by DC 37 staff for the Saturday morning session and shared with the activists strategies to deliver the union message more effectively to coworkers.

"It is important to discuss with the members the urgency of what is at stake," Melendez said.

DC 37 AFSCME Strong also aims to encourage members to become more active politically.

For more information on DC 37/AFSCME Strong, please contact DC 37 Director of Organizing Barbara Terrelonge at 212-815-1221 or by email at DC37Strong@dc37.net.