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Mission: Union-building
AFT project spurs internal organizing
Unions have long looked at ways to bring in employees who are represented by the union but are not members. The AFT’s membership consolidation and internal organizing (MC/IO) project, a cooperative effort at the local, state and national levels, was designed to help locals enlighten workers on the benefits of union membership.
It is a four-pronged approach: (1) reaching out to new employees and helping them get acclimated and become successful on the job; (2) improving data collection and management to target potential members; (3) organizing around issues that concern potential members; and (4) improving leadership by encouraging stewards to be more active.
To find out what issues matter most to nonmembers, what arguments they find most persuasive and how they perceive the union, the AFT used polling and/or focus groups at each of the 15 participating locals. The process was eye-opening.
“A lot of people knew very little about the union,” says Jean Clements, president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) in Tampa, Fla. “They were either misinformed or completely uninformed about the things we were doing to improve education and make their lives better.”
Hillsborough County has the ninth largest school district in the country and has seen explosive growth, which has resulted in a multitude of newly hired teachers. Still, the local faced declining membership and enthusiasm, says Clements.
Using data analysis, the local shifted its focus from more traditional union offerings, such as discounts and liability insurance, to professional development. It began offering new teachers an array of services to help them succeed, including mentoring, a new teacher hotline and workshops ranging from technology to behavior management. In addition, the union’s first buddy program has established a team at each school that contacts newly hired teachers regularly to help them get acclimated.
“It’s changed our whole way of thinking,” says Clements, president of the 6,000-member local. “We are getting better at promoting what we’re doing. We know what the union has done to improve the professional aspects of teaching, but we have not always conveyed it that well to everyone else.”
In the past two years, the Hillsborough CTA has been able to get a larger percentage of teachers to join than in prior years. The effort even transformed the relationship between the union and district officials, who have acknowledged the positive changes.
“We are treated far more professionally,” says Clements. “Consequently, we don’t have to fight as much. We still have our battles, but the district takes our concerns seriously and we are more effective in getting them to listen and take our guidance.”
Linda Bridges, president of the Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers, says her local is an anomaly in the MC/IO program. It is an older local with a unique set of challenges: It is in a state that has no collective bargaining and it has a cheap dues competitor.
“The local is 30 years old and we have done things a certain way for a long time,” she says. “MC/IO forced us to re-examine the way we do things. It allowed us to stretch our thinking.”
Bridges found the results of polling “extremely frustrating” but used them to formulate a better plan to reach members and potential members. “People liked us. We had great name identity. They just didn’t want to pay for our service.”
The local resolved to look more closely at its membership, which includes 2,400 teachers and paraprofessionals, to determine where to target organizing efforts instead of using a scattershot approach.
“We have been more mindful that recruitment is not a transaction,” says Bridges. “It is a transformational process.” As a result, “we are seeing more ownership of the union in the schools.”
Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque (N.M.) Teachers Federation, says MC/IO complemented the goal of her local, which was to focus on the profession of teaching.
The AFT had been able to negotiate “progressive contract language, but membership was hovering around 50 percent,” says Bernstein. “The process affirmed that focusing on the traditional bread-and-butter issues is not enough. We have to pay attention to the work of teaching.”
The local began to use data from polling and focus groups to strengthen its professional development programs. “We learned a lot about what it takes to be a union in 2005. We’ve got to connect professionalism with unionism,” says Bernstein.
Michigan Head Start workers say 'Union Yes'
Group uses its collective voice to improve the workplace
The YWCA of Western Wayne County, Mich., declares on its Web site that it will “thrust its collective power” to eliminate racism. Ironically, the Y’s Head Start employees used their collective power to unionize—and discrimination was among the reasons.
In March, the group of 90 mostly female workers, including teachers, aides, custodians, cooks and family service workers, became the Michigan Federation of Teachers’ & School Related Personnel’s (MFT&SRP) first standalone Head Start local—the United Early Childhood Employees (UECE). Members work at eight locations in suburban Detroit, including Dearborn and Garden City, serving more than 600 kids ages 3-5.
“It’s a remarkable group of people,” says Beth Thoreson, assistant to MFT&SRP president David Hecker, who has worked closely with the Head Start employees since last November when they contacted the union about organizing. “I was awed by the energy and how much they wanted this.”
Momentum for the organizing campaign came from a number of courageous employees, including Hanadi Elder and Hiyam Makki. “There were a lot of scare tactics going on,” Thoreson notes.
Makki, a teacher’s aide in Dearborn, has seen working conditions deteriorate since she started in 1993. Using purported budget shortfalls as a weapon, management systematically cut employee benefits, pay and hours.
After the cuts, all employees had was their dignity, Makki says, but even that was difficult to keep intact as management created a free-for-all environment characterized by favoritism and double standards.
“Everybody was required to keep their mouth closed—and that is not what I believe in,” says Makki. “That is not democracy. That is not me.” Makki, an Arab-American like many of her colleagues, also says discrimination against Arabic staff has worsened since Sept. 11, 2001.
With UECE in place and the MFT&SRP behind it, Makki sees a promising future. “I am excited and can’t wait to start [contract negotiations] to see what we can do to get the respect back for the staff members,” she says.
