A group of Nevada PSRPs who affiliated with the AFT in February quickly learned the value of having a national organization behind them to help with a difficult local battle. The Nevada Classified School Employees Association (NCSEA), formerly an independent organization, represents almost 3,500 PSRPs in a whole range of job categories, including more than 2,000 in the Reno area.

During budget deliberations earlier this year in Churchill County, the local NCSEA chapter faced a school board proposal to close a $2 million budget deficit in part by contracting out the district's entire custodial and maintenance operation. "We about had a heart attack when we heard that," says Michele Russell, a secretary in the district and NCSEA state board member.

In a small district with seven schools, the proposal would have affected 36 people, but that's a big group in the Churchill County chapter of fewer than 300 members. What's more, the union has negotiated very successfully for the custodians, to the point where they are the best-paid in Nevada's 17 counties.

The NCSEA members adopted a variety of strategies to counter the contracting-out plan. They distributed copies of an AFT video, designed to educate policymakers about the risks of privatization, to all seven board members. They pulled together and distributed other information from the AFT and other sources, held informational meetings, wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper and spoke at board meetings (dressed all in red, white and blue at one). An AFT research department analysis of the budget that showed the financial picture was not quite as drastic as some board members indicated also helped.

The members highlighted one custodian who saved a child from choking in a cafeteria as others watched helplessly, Russell says. She also did a little of her own research; from talking to an administrator in a nearby district that had contracted out custodial services in one school, she found that the company didn't run criminal background checks or provide basic health and safety training to their employees. Russell, of course, shared that information in Churchill County.

"When it came time for the board to decide, they backed off," Russell says. But she doesn't think the issue is dead. "I think we've just put a Band-Aid on it. It will raise its head again," she predicts. One board member who has proved to be no friend of the union--its members have boycotted his local pizza joint as a result--warned that some of them still could lose their jobs.

Russell says the AFT's assistance was indispensable to their success. "We've just gotten the best help from the AFT," she says. "It has been wonderful."

NCSEA is looking for the affiliation to help them improve conditions for their members throughout the state. "This will help us gain more respect for paraprofessionals and other school employees, whose work is generally underpaid, overlooked and taken for granted," says NCSEA president Mike Campbell. The group's executive board voted unanimously to approve the affiliation.