Members learn ways to grow the union

After driving a school bus for five years, Kathy Chavez took an assignment as an aide in a rural facility with only a teacher and herself on site. In her first year—with no experience and no training—she cared for seven profoundly ill children. Paychecks came via the bus driver, who brought one other precious thing: a union flier. “Wow,” thought Chavez, now head of the Albuquerque (N.M.) Education Assistants Association. “They actually know we’re alive.”

For her next assignment, Chavez learned the ropes from a co-worker who “stayed by my side for the first two weeks of school,” she told AFT members at a plenary session of the annual PSRP conference, held April 19-22 in Las Vegas. “I could not have survived at the school site without my union.”

Similarly, Ruby Newbold, now president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees and an AFT vice president, started out as a substitute for an employee who called from her sickbed to help the newcomer process the payroll. “Don’t worry,” said the ill worker. “I’m going to walk you through it. And by the way, the union meeting is Thursday. Put it on your calendar.” Thanks to a dedicated union member, recalled Newbold, “120 people got their paychecks with no problem. The union has been my life and my lifeline.”

These were just two testimonials from AFT veterans during the session about how a union member came to be their first friend and best friend on the job. Even national PSRP chair and AFT vice president Lorretta Johnson described how, on her first day of work, a custodian helped her find the “vanilla paper” and “story paper” a teacher asked for.

“When I die,” said Chavez, who also is an AFT vice president, “put me in a union coffin with a union button and a union T-shirt on.” Added Johnson: “I not only want a union coffin, I want a union cemetery.”

During the session, participants also received a list of tips from AFT members and staffers on how to be that “first friend, best friend” to new co-workers. For instance, introduce yourself, explain your role in the union and tell how you’d like to help them succeed. Help them figure out how to read their pay stub, guide them through health plan procedures, and show them such everyday but important things as restrooms, the union bulletin board and emergency exits. Check up on them regularly.

UFT president urges vigilance

Noting that she’s been a “troublemaker” her whole life, United Federation of Teachers president and AFT vice president Randi Weingarten told AFT PSRPs that sometimes you just have to speak out.

That’s what happened when a paraprofessional in New York City contracted hepatitis C a few years ago from two students who bit and scratched. Even then, the district dragged its feet in providing the basic training, protective gear and treatment required by law to protect staff from blood-borne diseases. The UFT and the paraprofessional filed a Public Employee Safety and Health complaint, and the school district was cited. The district did not comply, and continues to incur a heavy fine every day, but with the law and a new governor on the union’s side, that neglect will soon stop.

“You have to stay vigilant,” Weingarten said in her keynote address, listing other problems. For instance, in “the great bus schedule fiasco we had this winter,” New York changed its school bus schedule six months into the school year, on the coldest day of the year, without asking anybody beforehand. “This happens over and over,” she said, adding that luckily, “nobody in our union is shy. If they have something to say, they say it loudly.”

In fact, whether a union has a contract or not, it can still engage in solving problems. The key is strong member involvement, Weingarten observed, urging members to write letters, become e-Activists, attend meetings and come out for rallies.

In a tussle this spring over New York’s school budget, she said, members sent 30,000 e-mails to the state legislature—9,000 in the final days before lawmakers provided new money targeted at lowering class sizes. “It works,” Weingarten said.

The UFT president’s speech energized the crowd, including Johnson, who said, “She’s got me thinking I’m 17 again.”

Remembering fallen workers

In conjunction with health and safety training during the conference, the union held a luncheon to mark Workers Memorial Day. Speakers included Vi Parramore, president of the Jefferson County (Ala.) Federation of Teachers, who honored a crossing guard and member of her union killed on the job; and Wendy Hord, a health and safety specialist with New York State United Teachers, who advocates for safe and healthy school facilities as a way to boost student achievement.

The health and safety trainees handed out stickers with the AFT’s motto for this year’s Workers Memorial Day: “A moment of silence is not enough.”

As part of the conference theme, “PSRPs Say … Count Me In,” attendees also heard from AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka, who gave the Bush administration failing grades for allowing family incomes to stagnate. Trumka outlined the labor federation’s selection process for the 2008 presidential election, inviting all AFL-CIO affiliated members to participate.

“We need to stick together in this process,” he said. “We cannot and must not give comfort to those who will not stand with us. We will take back our destiny … our future … our country.”

To find out about the AFT’s presidential endorsement process, go to www.aft.org/youdecide.