'Redesign' organizing to reach new workers, McElroy tells unions

AFT president stresses the need to organize professionals

If the labor movement is to grow and if workers are to get the kind of representation they deserve, unions have to retool, restructure and redirect their energies, says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. A key target: new professional workers who don’t fit the mold of traditional nine-to-fivers.

McElroy was the keynote speaker at the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) conference, “Organizing Professionals in the 21st Century.” The March conference, produced in collaboration with the Albert Shanker Institute, brought together leaders and organizers from many of the 25 international unions that belong to DPE, the professional employee division of the AFL-CIO. Together they reviewed the latest research and specially commissioned studies for the conference, then brainstormed about the future.

It is a future that must include organizing professional and technical workers as a top priority, said McElroy. This occupation group, he noted, is projected to grow faster and add more workers (6.5 million by 2012) than any other. These professionals are diverse, ranging from nurses, educators and scientists to skilled construction workers, mechanics, public employees, professional communicators and technology workers. While they are becoming a predominant part of the workforce, the way their work is structured—not constrained by one work site or a 9-to-5 schedule—calls for new approaches to our union structures and operations, said McElroy.

The need for unions to reach out to new workers couldn’t be more pressing, he said, noting the well-publicized struggles within the AFL-CIO over the future of the organization. “We need to avoid a tendency to polarize,” said McElroy. Some are arguing over whether we will be “a political movement or an organizing union movement. Both are essential. The question is, how do you get the resources to do both?”

The concerns and priorities of new workers may be very different from those of current union members, said McElroy. Unions have “to be clear and true to ourselves in deciding what fails and succeeds” in organizing. “We have to fit the organization that we redesign to those potential new members, instead of trying to stuff new members into an old design.”

AFT task force seeks solutions to deepening healthcare crisis

The prolonged rise in healthcare costs continues to hinder the ability of unions to stop cost-shifting at the bargaining table. To counter the problem, the union must focus on improving the quality of healthcare to bring down costs, as well as bargaining proactively to control the impact of cost increases, says the AFT’s healthcare task force, which met in March in Washington, D.C.

The task force, chaired by AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese, examined challenges the union faces, including proposed legislation to cut Medicaid funding and provider reimbursement in Medicare, and efforts to move workers away from employer-based insurance coverage to health savings accounts and other tax incentives that would shift the burden of healthcare costs to workers.

“Employer-based benefits are becoming increasingly vulnerable,” said AFT associate director of legislation Bill Cunningham, who gave the task force an overview of healthcare legislation before Congress.

One of the best ways to prepare local and state leaders for healthcare bargaining, says the task force, is to help them evaluate their healthcare plans for quality, access and affordability, and to share best ideas and practices. In addition, the union benefits from developing resource materials to educate members about the interrelated problems of healthcare costs, quality and access, say task force members.

During the meeting, the task force heard presentations from Tom Anapolis, director of program services at New York State United Teachers, and Tom Bilodeau, director of research and bargaining at MEA-MFT, the merged state affiliate in Montana.

In New York, the union is helping locals compare healthcare plans so they can secure the best plan for members. In Montana, the union is backing legislation to create a single statewide health insurance program specifically for school employees and retirees.

On the national front, the AFT continues to work with affiliates and state federations to help locals examine and adopt innovative strategies that can lower healthcare costs at the bargaining table. These strategies include wellness programs, which focus on health management through disease prevention; medical self-care and health promotion; disease management programs for members with chronic conditions; and case management to help members deal with high-cost healthcare.

Former AFT civil rights director Barbara Van Blake dies

The labor, civil rights and women’s rights movements lost a friend and advocate on April 1 when Barbara Van Blake died at the age of 63. She served as AFT director of human rights and community relations for more than 17 years.

Van Blake’s outstanding contributions to the AFT, as well as groups such as the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the National Council of Negro Women and the NAACP, made her an admired and beloved figure. She also chaired the National Black Caucus of State Legislators Labor Roundtable and served as the AFT liaison to a variety of other human and civil rights groups.

A former math teacher, Van Blake came to the AFT in 1975 at the behest of then-AFT president Albert Shanker. She had been a member of the Duval County Teachers Union in her hometown of Jacksonville, Fla. She was responsible for establishing many of the programs and conferences currently conducted by the national union’s human rights and community relations department.

Following her retirement from the AFT in December 2002, Van Blake was honored by more than 350 civil rights and labor movement activists, along with AFT leaders, members and staffers at a tribute gala in Washington, D.C.

The Van Blake family has requested that donations be made in memory of Barbara P. Van Blake to one of her three special charities/organizations:

• The Education Fund of Corinthian Baptist Church, 500 I St. N.W., Washington, DC 20002;
• The Building Fund of the National Council of Negro Women, 633 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20004; or
• The Education Department of the NAACP, 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore, MD 21215.