Union stops contracting scheme for Oklahoma City

An eight-month campaign to fend off a sweeping privatization proposal in the Oklahoma City school district ended in victory for the AFT in late March when the school board voted unanimously against contracting out hundreds of PSRP jobs.

The district administration and school board had looked at bids from Sodexho and Aramark but concluded that the controversial plan to outsource close to 1,000 support staff positions wouldn’t save money—something the Oklahoma City Federation of Classified Employees (OCFCE) and its allies had stressed repeatedly in recent months. The final vote was preceded by a lively rally outside the school administration building—featuring labor, education, religious and civic leaders—as the school board met in a closed session. Employees and their supporters then packed the meeting, and many of them provided testimony about the risks of the contracting proposal. OCFCE president David Gray, an AFT vice president, received a standing ovation after his remarks. He said it was “time to scrap risky schemes like contracting out” and trust the district employees to help improve services.

“Our campaign to protect the safety of children, the quality of education and workers’ wages succeeded,” Gray said after the meeting.

While the vote was a huge victory for the union, the school board left open the possibility that it might hire a private company to manage the food service operation, which is running a large deficit. But the board backed off after a closer examination of the budget. “We made sure that cafeteria workers did not lose their jobs and become scapegoats for management-level problems,” Gray said.

The Oklahoma City effort involved a cross-section of AFT staff. In addition, staff from the AFL-CIO’s Food and Allied Service Trades, or FAST, also provided valuable strategies and corporate research on the potential contractors.

Making Medicare stronger

Now that the Medicare prescription drug act is law, the AFT and its affiliates are educating members and the public about the new legislation and encouraging solutions to fix the problems they find in it.

The AFT is working to strengthen the law so that it allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices and administer a drug program, closes the benefit gap and provides much better coverage and stronger incentives for employers to continue providing healthcare benefits to their retirees. The union has been meeting regularly with Medicare supporters in Congress to develop a unified approach for lowering drug prices, guaranteeing coverage and strengthening traditional Medicare. In addition, AFT staffers have been addressing the issue by speaking to a variety of retiree groups nationwide.

In the meantime, state affiliates, like the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), also are reaching out to their members. In March, NYSUT offered a one-day Medicare training program to prepare member-volunteers to be part of a statewide speakers’ bureau and to conduct workshops explaining problems in the new law. The law is having a negative impact on NYSUT members, says NYSUT legislative representative Floyd Cameron.

“A large portion of our membership is taking it on the chin,” Cameron says. The union encourages members to demand accountability from public officials who voted for the law and generate support for real Medicare benefits, he explains.

AFT expands AIDS campaign in Africa

Thanks to the continued support of AFT affiliates and members nationwide, the work of the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign is expanding. From a small pilot project in Zimbabwe two years ago, the effort to assist African teacher unions now includes Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, as well as other African countries.

More than 12,000 African teachers have been trained as AIDS educators. They now have the information and resources they need to work with their colleagues to help prevent the spread of AIDS in one of the world’s most impoverished areas. In South Africa, as many as 60,000 teachers are expected to die from AIDS before the decade is out. In Kenya, officials estimate that 70 teachers die of complications from AIDS each month. Similar numbers are being seen throughout the continent.

“We are now looking at expanding our work beyond prevention and education and looking at ways that teacher unions can assist in providing the care and medicines that people require,” says AFT secretary-treasurer Edward J. McElroy, who along with AFT vice president Thomas Y. Hobart Jr. participated in a fact-finding trip to Southern Africa earlier this year.

AFT members and locals have done outstanding work in raising funds for the campaign. More than $145,000 has been collected through the distribution of commemorative pins. Three AFT locals have been recognized as Leading Locals in the fundraising campaign, raising more than $2.50 per member: the Bellmore-Merrick (N.Y.) United Secondary Teachers, the Gary (Ind.) Teachers Union, and the Providence (R.I.) Teachers Union. The AFT Black Caucus New York State Chapter helped to raise more than $11,000 for the campaign and was recognized by the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign with the 2004 National Service Award at the New York State United Teachers representative assembly in March. More than 70 locals have participated in the campaign, with 20 locals contributing more than $1 per member.

For more information on the campaign and a list of Leading Locals, visit www.aft.org/partners/africa_aids/index.htm. Contact Gregory King in the office of the AFT president at gking@aft.org for an information packet on fundraising for the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign.

AFT marks anniversary of Brown v. Board decision

May 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The court’s decision struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites and set in motion the toppling of the elaborate apartheid system known as Jim Crow that separated Southern blacks from Southern whites in schools, workplaces, buses, hotels, restaurants and movie theaters.

Brown was a proud moment in AFT history. Though virtually alone among teacher organizations in filing amicus curiae, or friend-of-the-court, briefs (three over the long course of the case), the AFT was in the company of 18 other organizations. Journalist Carl Rowan gives a partial roster in his biography of Thurgood Marshall, the lead counsel in Brown. “Taking a stand against Jim Crow were the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations), the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress ... the American Federation of Teachers, the American Veterans Committee. ... Marshall had lined up some very powerful friends,” Rowan wrote.

The AFT has produced a poster and resources to commemorate the anniversary. A letter-sized version of the poster can be downloaded for free at www.aft.org/posters/brownvboard. Resources are available at www.aft.org/edissues/brownvboard/index.htm.