In response to the growing reliance of employers on part-time and temporary workers, AFT president Sandra Feldman has appointed a task force of 14 AFT leaders to study the situation and make recommendations for organizing.

The Part-Time/Contingent Workers Task Force, created at the union’s executive council meeting in Washington, D.C., May 22, includes Visiting Nurse Service of New York RN and Federation of Nurses/UFT member Joanne Adams and AFT health care division leader and vice president Candice Owley.

The task force specifically will document the extent of the presence of part-time and contingent workers in the divisions of the AFT and examine why the practice of part-time work is expanding. The task force will also gather information on how other unions and organizations are approaching this group of workers; look at strategies and incentives for organizing these workers; and offer recommendations on how labor can work with employers to achieve work models that serve the needs of part-timers.

A big issue for the AFT’s health care division, as well as for all of organized labor, are the striker replacement agencies that pay exorbitant amounts of money to temporary health care workers who will staff hospitals during strikes. As of mid-May, the nurse staffing agency, U.S. Nursing Corp. in Denver, was providing health care workers to replace striking nurses at 39 nursing homes in Connecticut and for strikes in Ohio, California and Massachusetts. Unionists working undercover through the agency testified to finding inexperienced nurses providing poor care.