THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS TO AFFILIATE
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DENTAL HYGIENISTS
 
Unprecedented Alliance of a Union and Dental Hygienists To Be Voted on Wednesday

WASHINGTON – The executive council of the 1.2 million member American Federation of Teachers is expected to vote today to affiliate the Illinois Dental Hygienists Association (IDHA), the professional association that represents dental hygienists throughout Illinois. This marks the first time an association in the dental profession has affiliated with organized labor.

Dental hygienists, like registered nurses, are licensed by the state, hold college degrees and pass national board exams. Hygienists are different from dental assistants who are not licensed and have varying degrees of experience and training.

"Our affiliation with AFT should help provide us with more legislative clout on issues we care greatly about, such as access to the poor, the elderly and schoolchildren," said

Debra Grant, a dental hygienist from Elmhurst, and a member of the IDHA.

One key legislative battle concerns a licensing restriction, known as "direct supervision." This restrictive requirement bars hygienists from cleaning a patient’s teeth if a dentist is at lunch or on vacation. Hygienists also are banned from visiting underserved patients in nursing homes, high poverty schools and rural areas where dental care is often hard to find or patients are unable to travel to a dentist’s office. The IDHA is seeking to put into place "general supervision" rules used in the majority of states, which require dental hygienists to be under the supervision of dentists but does not mandate that the dentists be physically present.

IDHA will be an organizational affiliate of AFT’s state federation, the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT).

"We were very intrigued when the dental hygienists association approached the union regarding a possible affiliation, and we were honored when their board voted unanimously to affiliate," said James F. Dougherty who serves as an AFT vice president and also IFT president. The IDHA board approved the affiliation at a meeting Sept.14.

IFT will take on the association’s administrative functions, develop a political program, help run conferences and training programs, assist with communications, provide legislative services and assign union organizers to build the association’s membership. IDHA members will receive publications from the national union, professional liability insurance and be eligible for other services, insurance and benefit programs. IDHA raised dues by $50 per member to cover the additional services and affiliation costs.

The AFT will not represent dental hygienists through collective bargaining agreements. IDHA also will maintain its current affiliation with the Chicago-based American Dental Hygienists Association.

In many respects, the IDHA/AFT affiliation is modeled after a 1999 affiliation between the New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA) and the AFT. The 5,000-member organization that represents psychologists throughout New York needed assistance with lobbying on professional issues and turned to the union. NYSPA affiliated with AFT’s state federation, the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT).

"For 40 years, New York’s psychologists attempted to pass a bill on licensing psychologists. Only when we affiliated with AFT/NYSUT did our voice become strong enough to pass the bill in both houses," said Gail Everitt, executive director of the New York State Psychological Association. In spring 2000, the Vermont PsychAlliance, an association of psychologists and psychiatrists in that state, also affiliated with AFT.

The AFT, which was founded in Illinois in 1916, represents 85,000 pre-K through 12th grade teachers, college and university faculty and other school and state workers across Illinois.

Nationwide, the AFT includes 63,000 nurses and healthcare professionals among its membership. Last week, the union won an election to represent 1,300 nurses at Fletcher Allen Health Care, the largest hospital in Vermont.

The Illinois Dental Hygienists Association represents 1,100 of the state’s 5,200 licensed dental hygienists. The affiliation between AFT and IDHA will take effect Jan. 1, 2003.

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