Detroit might be known to the outside world as Motor City and Motown, but for the hundreds of AFT PSRP leaders, activists and guests who gathered there in April, it was clearly Union City. Even more specifically, Detroit was AFT City when it hosted the national union's annual PSRP conference for the first time.

Starting with the opening remarks by Donald Boggs, president of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, and continuing throughout the gathering, the conference-goers heard from an impressive range of speakers with AFT connections. Boggs, a former member of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), talked about the strength of the labor movement in his city and statewide, and highlighted the various AFT leaders on his executive board, including Ruby Newbold of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees and Lenora Stark of the Detroit Paraprofessional Federation. The conference theme, "Get Active: Mobilizing Members, Building Support," was designed to get the PSRP activists thinking not only about how they can work with other unions but also how important it is to reach out to a range of organizations across the community and build long-term relationships. A general session as well as a number of hands-on workshops addressed the theme. (See the feature story for more on the issue of building coalitions.)

In his greetings, Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, another former DFT member, expressed a common sentiment among the speakers about the vital work of PSRPs: "You all have an indelible impact on kids. Please continue what you do every day." The mayor also urged the listeners to take on the critics of public education who spout a constant stream of bad news. "This so-called failing school district [in Detroit] produced the youngest mayor in this land," said Kilpatrick, who is only 32. Later in the conference, Maryann Mahaffey, president pro tem of the Detroit City Council--and yet another AFT member--presented a City Council resolution to the conference declaring April 25-27 "AFT PSRP Days" in Detroit. "Don't let anyone kid you," Mahaffey said, "teachers can't teach without you."

The need to reach out and build broad coalitions is even more vital today, given the growing challenges that AFT members and particularly PSRPs face, ranging from severe budget strains in states and localities to tough new requirements for Title I paraprofessionals to rapidly rising healthcare costs. Lorretta Johnson, who heads the AFT's PSRP division, told the audience about the union's continuing success in organizing school support staff--35 of the 76 collective bargaining elections the AFT won in the past year were for PSRP units, and 11 of the 29 newly chartered locals are PSRPs. But she also warned that trouble is brewing on many fronts, and PSRP leaders need to recommit themselves to fighting back. The huge state budget cuts alone, she said, should be reason enough to "wake up and carry our voice and our message" to politicians and others in our communities. After listing the challenges different job groups face, from overworked office employees to undertrained security officers, Johnson asked, "What is wrong with this system that these things are not being taken care of?"

Keynote speaker Nat LaCour, AFT executive vice president, said that increasing the union's membership is the best way to meet some of the challenges, which he compared to sharks that are out there and circling. He talked about three areas in particular that demand immediate attention: helping paraprofessionals meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and Title I, fending off proposals to contract out school services in the name of cost savings, and pushing to expand healthcare coverage to the millions of citizens without insurance. In addition to doing good work, LaCour added, union leaders have to let their members and the outside world know about it.

Although an alarming number of elected officials are taking every chance they get these days to beat up on public schools, PSRP conference luncheon speaker Tom Watkins is a solid friend of public schools and their employees. Watkins, who is Michigan's superintendent of public instruction, said education officials in his state "stand for lifting up, not beating down" public schools. These schools "are truly the nursery of our great democracy," he said. "Name another institution that truly takes" the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free--words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty--and gives them "hope and opportunity."

Watkins concluded by citing the theme of last year's conference. "It truly takes the team concept. Each and every one of you truly needs to be part of that team."