By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

I felt proud and excited when the MetroPlus HMO employees at the Health and Hospitals Corp. voted in February to join DC 37. For me, their decision meant that history had traveled a full circle. When I came to DC 37 in the 1960s as a former Nurse’s Aide, I was responsible for organizing public hospital workers — aides, clericals and others — and our huge victory put DC 37 on the way to becoming the largest, strongest union of municipal employees.

Four decades later, as executive director, I am returning to my roots as an organizer. I believe the MetroPlus victory will kick off several similar achievements in the months and years ahead.

Today, we are a strong and united union, ready to negotiate a solid contract settlement before our current economic agreement expires next March. Now it is time for DC 37 to meet the organizing challenge, one of the labor movement’s most pressing priorities in the early 21st century.

The challenge is formidable. Today, as never in our lifetime, working people are under assault. Although DC 37 is ahead of the average, wages are declining and stagnating. Traditional pensions are disappearing. And employers are shifting the cost of health care onto their workers.

Nationwide, the situation is especially bleak in the private sector, where a dismaying 92 of every 100 employees have no union representation. Thankfully, we are in better shape in the public sector, where over one-third of the workers are unionized. New York is the second most unionized state in the country, yet only 24.4 percent of working people here are in unions.

Our challenge at DC 37 is to expand on our strength as part of building a labor movement large enough and strong enough to retake the White House and rebuild a decent standard of living for working families.

As a beacon of hope within the labor movement, we need to spread the word about the union advantage. Union members earn 30 percent more than non-union workers. Eighty percent of union workers have employer-paid health insurance, compared to less than half of non-union workers. And union workers have a powerful voice to speak up for them and demand justice on the job.

We want all workers to enjoy the advantages that we have. As we focus on organizing at DC 37, we will be joining with our national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Hundreds of DC 37 members participated in AFSCME’s 2006 convention in Chicago, where the union approved its 21st Century Initiative. That agenda includes building a 40,000-strong nationwide army of union activists and calls for councils like ours to expand their membership by 3 percent each year.

New Organizing Department
We’ve budgeted funds to set up an organizing department, and AFSCME is helping with seed money and by assigning Edgar DeJesus, AFSCME East Region area organizing and field service director, to work with us as our interim organizing director. Edgar served as executive director and organizing director of Council 95 in Puerto Rico, where AFSCME signed up 20,000 workers.

Today, DC 37 is analyzing organizing opportunities within city government and at institutions that perform public services. We have a number of targets in mind, but we don’t want to show our hand yet. What we are prepared to do immediately is to build up a network of activists who would like to participate in the union’s organizing mission.

AFSCME’s 21st Century Initiative calls on affiliates to establish “volunteer member organizers” to help in organizing drives. I am asking all members who would like to help our union grow to return the coupon below and become a part of this exciting new network of activists.

By participating, you can be on the cutting edge of a nationwide effort to revitalize the country’s labor movement, which will play a key role in putting an end to the conservative era that we’ve lived through in the last quarter century. Join us!

Volunteer Member Organizer

Sign me up! Print and mail coupon to: DC 37 Organizing Department, District Council 37, 125 Barclay St., New York, NY 10007 Last Name ___________________First Name_________________ Address ____________________________________ Apt. # ______ City __________________ State ______ Zip Code _____________ E-mail address __________________________________________ Work Phone ( ___ ) __________ Home Phone ( ___ ) __________ Cell Phone ( ___ ) ___________ Job Title ________________________________________________ Agency ____________________ Local _______________________