MAKING HEADWAY AGAINST THE CRUSH OF UNREALISTIC WORKLOADS

Excessive workload continues to be a serious problem for school personnel who work in administrative positions, but our union is fighting back against the conditions and practices that contribute to employee workloads.

According to this year’s AFT survey of more than 600 office employees, workloads have eased up a bit among all respondents since 2001, when the survey was last released.

The trends weren’t all good, though. College and university employees report significantly increased workloads. And overall, there were big jumps in a few of the factors that lead to unfair workloads—continuous restructuring of work, lack of training on new equipment, and increases in student enrollment. This year, 17 percent of about 600 office employees who responded to the survey said their employers’ response to work overload was developing new systems or reorganizing work, compared with
8 percent of respondents in 2001.

The biggest factors leading to unfair workloads are the same culprits as in 2001: more paperwork and improper or reduced staffing levels.

“We have ridiculous amounts of work and responsibility,” says an office worker in Alaska, where another staffer writes: “Our boss keeps piling work onto the remaining employees as others leave or retire.”

The result of these stressful conditions? The quality of work suffers, and it’s getting worse. In 2001, just over half of office employees surveyed (51 percent) said their ability to control the quality of their work had been greatly or substantially reduced. That number grew to 63 percent this year.

College personnel saw the most severe loss of control over their work quality, with 80 percent of them reporting significant loss of control today, up from 50 percent in 2001.

Other troubling factors:

• Almost one in five office employees never takes a break.
• About 80 percent work past regular office hours at least once a week.
• More than three-quarters of elementary, middle and high school office employees never receive overtime pay for this work.

“We work harder and faster and longer hours,” says a support staffer in Illinois.

This overwork disrupts members’ health and personal lives, and increases friction with their bosses and co-workers. Members from Florida to Texas, Wisconsin to Oregon report skipped meals, insomnia and family troubles.

One bright light in these results is that the union is responding to work overload. This year, 30 percent of office staff reported negotiating contract language to deal with overwork, up from 26 percent in 2001. Also, 11 percent said they’d formed a union committee, up from 8 percent in 2001.

IF YOU'RE ASKED TO SEARCH FOR BOMBS, JUST SAY NO

In some schools across america, administrators have ordered school staff, especially custodians, to conduct searches for explosive devices.

Our members who have responded to an AFT online survey say they’ve been asked to escort state police and dogs around the school with a master key, or to look for suspicious packages or “something out of the ordinary” in classrooms and offices after a bomb threat.

In one case, a school district left it up to building administrators to handle bomb scares, and they did a poor job of it. After an unspecific, citywide bomb threat, some principals ignored the threat while others extended recess without telling the staff why. At least one principal ordered PSRPs to search the school, including backpacks.

In another example, members of the Anchorage Council of Education, the AFT affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska, have been asked to conduct a search. So have our members in Shreveport, La.

In these and all cases, the right answer is “no.”

“Employees shouldn’t be searching for bombs,” says AFT health and safety director Darryl Alexander. School support personnel almost never receive the training to recognize and disarm explosive devices.

“I work for security at the high school, and we still don’t have bomb search training, nor is anyone paid enough to search for bombs,” observes Karen Lee Arthmann, president of the paraprofessional chapter of the Rush-Henrietta Employees Association, an AFT local in Henrietta, N.Y.

That’s why most communities have bomb squads to respond to such threats. In Chicago, for instance, only police and security officers conduct searches. Otherwise, the results could be tragic.

You can contribute to our union’s survey on how prevalent this dangerous practice is. Go to www.aft.org/psrp/forms/surveys.htm.

TOUR AFRICA WITH JACOB GirAFT

What is the world’s largest living land animal? How long can hippos hold their breath under water? What’s the largest country in Africa? Can an elephant pick up a grain of rice with its trunk?

This summer, students can learn the answers to these and other questions by taking a “virtual safari” with the AFT Summer Field Trip 2007.

The field trip features a board game in which players “travel” throughout Africa by answering trivia questions about the geography, cultures and animals of this spectacular continent.

The game “board,” which includes four African-mask game pieces and dozens of game cards, is available on a full-color, two-sided poster in Spanish and English.

The Summer Field Trip also is available online at www.aft.org/fieldtrip and features beginner, advanced and Spanish versions, downloadable wallpapers, and various games to spark children’s imaginations.

For the second year in a row, the National Geographic Society is working with the AFT to promote fun learning and help close the achievement gap through its My Wonderful World campaign.

For free copies of the AFT Summer Field Trip, contact the AFT public affairs department at 202/879-4458.