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Transcript of the AFSCME UNA Town Hall MeetingMay 7, 2005
What I'd like to do is to ask a couple questions by a show of hands. How many of you in the room are stewards? How many of you have been a delegate to an International union convention? How many of you have walked a strike line? How many of you have served as a volunteer member organizer? Excellent. How many have worked on an election, making house calls or telephone calls or leafleting? How many of you contribute to PEOPLE? How many of you talked to a coworker about the 2004 election? Quite frankly, you already have your green caps on in a lot of different ways, but I wanted us to get a sense about the many ways in which you engage in this union. To kick us off, I'm going to give Kathy [Sackman] the first prerogative. And what I've asked her to do is to make the case to you about why you should be involved in the 21st Century Process. If you're anything like me, you are very busy. This is one more thing to maybe think about and work on over the next year. So why should you get involved? Kathy Sackman: I think the folks here are nurses first, and I think as was mentioned yesterday, our International Union President McEntee and Secretary-Treasury Lucy have always been so supportive of our nurse group. We happen to have one of the committees, which tend not to be subject to cancellations. They don't cancel the nurse committee meetings because we have such an active group and such an active advisory group. And even though we don't feel we've notified all of AFSCME nurses that there is a nurses' organization within AFSCME, I think as a group of nurses we have gotten a lot of support from our International. Again, President McEntee and Secretary-Treasurer Lucy have always come forward when Bonnie [Marpoe] and I have gone to them and said we want to do this, we need this. I think as a group of organized nurses we have been able, particularly those that have been involved for some time, to see the fruits of being part of a very progressive union. But, I think also as President McEntee and Secretary-Treasury Lucy said we haven't made many changes within our structure for many years. Some of the folks here today are veterans; some are baby boomers. We're told that we're resistant to change. But nurses see change every day of their lives on the units, and we do move with those changes. One of our biggest complaints is that we never have a voice in those changes — we're told what's going to happen and to just do it. This is an opportunity for us as nurses to really have a voice. We can speak to the positive things about our union, what has worked for us in our union and where we think we haven't kept up with the times. In the work group I was in, I said we have to look at what challenges are facing us as organized labor and as workers, and how we make the changes, what kinds of suggestions can we make to get people more politically involved? There's no question when you listen to the Resurrection folks that we have to organize. We have to grow. We have to have more power so that they don't have a 2½ year campaign, that they're not so frustrated working through that. It was a really good contrast between the nurses from the medical school — which because they had a state law that allowed them to get recognition when they had 51 percent of the folks signed up — and everybody else that doesn't any rights to do that. When you look at Illinois, they have that right. But you look at Indiana — and because of the election — bargaining rights for the state of Indiana were completely wiped away by a stroke of a pen when a new governor came in. That's one reason that you have to have nurses involved. What I want to do now is to report back to you on what you said this morning. You may or may not be aware that about a week ago we had a leadership conference. I was very struck about how closely what you came up with mirrored so many of the insights that the leadership had come up with a week ago. There were also some areas of great specificity that didn't surprise me when I think about who this group is. You got down to business in a hurry and I appreciate that. So, let me just go through what it is that we found, and bear in mind these are just snapshots of your discussions. These are issues that came up on multiple occasions. They really don't represent the fullness and the sharpness of your discussions or your thinking. There were six areas that you recognized as common challenges to the union. The first two shouldn't surprise you: political action, union growth. But you also followed it up with member education, member apathy, youth involvement and member communication. These are the six main areas. And here are some of your specific recommendations: On political action, you recommended that we bridge with AARP and large community groups to help us achieve strength when we fight collective bargaining battles. Two, that we bring elected officials or candidates to community meetings and openly question them about their votes, about how they're planning to vote and about their positions; that we provide support only to candidates who are on board with our issues; we ensure media coverage about political endorsements. You also recommend that we, as members and activists, run for elected office. There's a recommendation that we have partisanship within AFSCME. You recommended that we focus on issues and not the party and not the candidate; that we respect the values and the sensibilities and opinions of others. And you recommended that we let the trusting image of nurses be AFSCME's front for influencing politics and that we buy stock in media organizations. You recommended that members know their legislators and their supporters. You want to hold a state Day of Action. You'd like to invite politicians to shadow you and walk a day in your shoes to expose them to patient care issues that you confront on a daily basis. You recommend that we encourage voter registration; that we have greater access to RN attorneys with experience on medical issues; and that on political action your final recommendation is more nurse negotiators for collective bargaining. You had four suggestions when it comes to the growth of our union. Go to nursing schools to recruit new members; Bridge cultures, make sure the face of AFSCME is diverse; conduct a cultural diversity day. Cast a wider net. Organizing should be nonpartisan — welcome Democrats, Republicans and Independents into the union. Inoculate workers and the public against misconceptions about unions. Improve the education of members on the history of labor. More outreach in schools for labor representatives to educate about labor unions and collective bargaining. Continue the Nurse Congress — that came up in every single breakout. Conduct labor classes sponsored by labor unions in colleges. Survey our members' concerns regarding education and awareness. And members need more access to educational programs that are current and ongoing. On union apathy, you recommend that we make the union personal. Officers and leadership should connect with members through new hire orientations. Secondly, union leadership must be more visible. Thirdly, communicate to members when changes in general attitudes about unions occur. For example, the American Journal of Nursing used to be anti-union, now it's not. We have to share that kind of information. And the union must be seen as a force to be reckoned with, not as weak and out of tune. On youth involvement, do outreach programs for youth and middle and high schools. Have each seasoned employee bring a young person to a union event. Talk to children about the union. Use apprenticeship programs to involve youth. And, finally, when it comes to member communication, you recommend that we create a labor management partnership within the community; that we increase community involvement such as at health fairs, street fairs, colleges, churches, et cetera; that we develop more relevant newsletters, email notifications, website programs and use the latest technology for member mobilization. We need to do billboard advertising. We need to get more positive articles out there about labor unions. And finally, we might create magnet stickers that say "AFSCME Nurses" for every nurse on every car across the country. That's my summary. Now, let's hear from you. We'll ask you to give your name, your union and your geographical location. We're also going to be posting that report and what follows on our website, as well as the Town Hall Meeting from the Leadership Conference, so that the larger union can hear what you have to say. Female Participant: I thought it was interesting that in none of the workgroups, nothing came up about dues. Jean Nolan: We have five subcommittees that will be working over the coming months to develop solutions. The subcommittees are focused on growth, politics, the capacity of our affiliates, the capacity of the International Union and none of it happens if we don't address dues. And so they really do have a tough job because on top of everything else, they need to wait until all these great ideas get developed so they can come back and say, "that's going to cost a lot of money." I don't want to soft-soap the fact that this 21st Century process is going to take on some very uncomfortable and difficult issues for the union. Do we have the resources to get the job done? What will it take to really have organizing embraced by this union at all levels? What will it take to have grassroots political activity built into the model of every affiliate? Do we have too many affiliates? Does the notion of multiple councils in some states make sense? This is an uncomfortable discussion for the union, but it's very exciting. Kathy Sackman: I think it's interesting you have something like 2,000 different dues rates in this union. It's just amazing. We, at the subcommittee level, are not out to raise the dues. We're just trying to get a handle on all the dues structures. And if you have a council that's not organizing at all, what is the dues rate there as opposed to another council that's very busy organizing political action? The positive thing about this union and one of the reasons that we (1199) affiliated with AFSCME is because it is a true federation; there's so much autonomy in the council and local and chapter levels, but then when we had this election in 2004, you just can't believe what happened. I mean how did that happen? Obviously, we had a large percentage of our members that didn't vote at all. Thomas Connelly, Ohio Council 8: I'll share this with everybody — it came up in the group that I was facilitating for the 21st Century Committee. At the local level, my members feel that the union has forsaken a lot of the issues that are really important to them in order to get their agenda passed. I don't think we really have a problem with that, except that when the election comes around, the candidates that we oppose take those and then mix those. I'm talking about family values. I'm talking about getting married. I'm talking pro-choice, pro-life. They jumble that up with the candidate and then all of a sudden they take precedence over the issues that we're trying to fight and what we're trying to address, and the union ends up standing on the outside. I had 48 members ask to become objector challengers. I can't withstand that kind of thing in my local — people dropping out even monetarily, let alone trying to urge them to become more active in a system that they don't really believe in, or that they have problems with. The union has been very good to us. We've been in the union for six years now, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Ninety percent of my members wouldn't either, except though on the local level when candidates who have really not done us any good and done us some harm, in fact, are endorsed simply because they're running against a Republican. And we have a problem with that. Susi Uwekoolani: I'm from Maui, Hawaii, Local 152, HGEA. As far as the media part, we began an aggressive media campaign to promote our union and give it a positive spin. We're state employees, and we were seen in a very negative light by the public. So we've begun a very aggressive media campaign to change that — television, banners in mall kiosks and other things to show what we do, how we're important to the community, how we are part of our community, coupling that with an aggressive community action program where we show off our volunteers and try to highlight our members who are really active community volunteers. We're trying to show that we are part of the community and show that we're not so far to the left. We go to churches; we can be involved in the center. We're not off to the left. So that's my spin on the media part of it. Jean Nolan: Great. I don't know if Secretary-Treasurer Lucy spoke about it this morning, but I know at the leadership conference he expressed his view that the greatest challenge in many ways facing our union is making the case for public services. We can make our union more efficient, more effective, but if there isn't a shared commitment in this country that there ought to be public services that are paid for out of tax funding or other kinds of funding, we're going to be on a tough road. I wanted to mention that, but also say that the 21st Century Committee is working off of 17 consensus items that were developed by the International Executive Board. One item is to regain our edge as the cutting edge union with the message and a brand that reflects that. And it goes to that issue about identifying who we are as a union. What do we stand for? Are we the public sector union, or the public service union? What does that mean, and how can we bring it to life in a way that goes to that issue that I think is on Secretary/Treasurer Lucy's mind and so many others? It's reflected in the kind of work that you've talked about. Sue Conard: I'm from Council 40, Wisconsin. I was the enforcer in our discussion group this morning. I'm going to challenge everybody that was in discussion Group 11 to get up to this mike. What I heard this morning in our discussion group was absolutely awesome. This is one of the best things that we have done at a Nurses Congress, and this is the third Congress that I've been to. The ability, as Kathy said, to voice our concerns to be a part of the changes that are being made is something that nurses rarely get. What I heard this morning was excitement, enthusiasm and a great deal of hope in the ability to be able to do that. I don't know if it's generational, but all of a sudden we're sitting quiet. So I would challenge anybody in Discussion Group 11 to get up to the mike and discuss the issues. Female Participant: I'm from southern California, and I'm proud to say I came from Orange County, a Republican county. Bottom line, I have to disclose, I've been voting Democrat. Again, representing members from that county, members and my co-workers who are mostly registered Republican. It takes a lot of time and effort to explain the issues that are close to them. But we need to connect the dots. We need to put two and two together to let them understand that yes, you are a Republican, but you can vote Democrat candidates as well as involve your congressman to understand your issues. I was basically drawing straws on how to communicate to them because my knowledge with politics is very limited. Yes, we've been a union for 30 years, but we just are in our infancy, because we've been in the union only for five years. Thank you, Kathy, and thank you AFSCME for supporting us all along. My message, bottom line, is they were ticked off when they received flyers from AFSCME endorsing Democrats instead of saying, "let's vote for the issue." Let's go to the bottom line instead of partisan groups. Michelle Currivan: I'm with Connecticut, CHCA 1199. In our group, we did have a little bit of discussion over dues. Part of it is when we have the younger generation, the newly grads coming out of school. They come into the hospital and we approach them with dues and they say, "I have four years of college I'm still paying for." So for these younger people coming into the union, it's a little bit more difficult for them to realize the benefits when they have this big bill hanging behind them that they're still paying off. And they can't seem to figure out that even though $11 a week or whatever they're paying is worth paying, they hesitate. One of the suggestions was that they give them one, two, or three months free membership if they sign their card and then the dues would be deducted after that, just as an incentive type of thing. With regards to the magnets on the cars; that was me. Take that one circle right there that says, "United Nurses of America AFSCME UNA" on a 6" round magnet and slap it on the back of everybody's car and you're going to be noticed. Pam Pressney: I'm the hospital president for Kaiser UNAC in San Diego, and I am a registered Republican. I'm coming out of the closet here. I found out there are a lot of people who also have been in the closet. For years I have been complaining that whenever I come to any convention, I feel like I am being bashed. However, people don't understand the reasoning why I am a Republican, some basic feelings that I have. It has nothing to do with my issues about nursing. I had one girl who's a Republican in San Diego who is very upset with the union and some of the literature. She said, "How can you be so involved with the union and be a Republican?" And I told her, "I am not a Republican first, I am a nurse first." We had some really good discussions, and I want to let you know that in the last two years, the last group of our officers, four out of seven of us are Republicans and we have conservative views. I would like to be able to get together with folks in AFSCME who hold similar beliefs to talk to our congressmen to say, "Hey, these are things that are important to us," and for them to not think it's just coming from liberal folks. I found when I was talking this morning that there were folks who didn't know what I believed — they thought that I didn't believe in the poor; I'm not charitable. And that's not true. I think we all need to have some conversations around that. Minerva Dela Fuente: I'm a UNAC staffer out of southern California. I'm from Group 11. We had really exciting discussions this morning. And we boiled it down to three main points, and number one was membership. And that meant that we really needed to connect with each other. And the union is about nurse-to-nurse connecting with each other, that we need to make the union personal. Nurses are generally relational people. And unless we tap into that, we will never be able to connect with nurses. We recognize that there was so much apathy at the workplace. People were thinking of the union as just taking our dues. It's not strong. We're not able to move anything in the community. It's just about them collecting dues and negotiations. That's about all they know of the union and that's about all the involvement hey think is required. We also suggested that the new hire orientation reach the younger nurses who may feel that the union is really something there in outer space. It's not something that we could do in our level. We also recognized that we needed to be able to organize. We cannot be strong unless we grow. With the current environment that we are in right now politically, it's really getting harder and harder for unions to thrive. So we were thinking that if the members are strong, we could go out like Resurrection — we could volunteer and organize other nurses. The more we grow nationally, the better off we are to talk to politicians because politicians look at numbers. They don't hear us unless we have numbers behind us. And whenever we talk to them and try to effect a change, we need to talk to them with our co-nurses behind us in support. So unless we have the numbers, politicians are not going to listen to us. Republicans, Democrats, whatever, they will not listen. It's really up to us to gather around and be united. Male Participant: I'm from New Jersey. I work in the Philadelphia prison system. I'm from Local 1199. In our discussion, one of the things that we talked about was the political issue that deals with nursing. We decided that we need to learn about everybody who's running for office, so that we know who's on our side and who is against us. Democrat, Republican, it really doesn't make a matter, as long as they're for nurses, then those are the ones we should support. The second thing we talked about is uniting nurses across the country. We need to have a really strong union. We need to grow. We need to get all the nurses together, working together to better this union, to better our salaries and to get the things we want, because by strength we can do these things. Deborah Kennard: I'm from San Diego, California and I'm in Local 1199 UNAC. And we did talk about how we let our members know who we are. When I go out, I take a pen — at Kaiser in San Diego we've had pens made. I put my card with it, and I walk through the unit and I'll say, "Hey, I'm here. I'll be in your lounge. Here's my card. Here's a pen and I'll be there if you need to talk with me." Seven years ago when I came aboard being a union leader, I got a pager. Just now, I picked up seven messages from people letting me know what's going on in the facilities, so when I get back next week I'll know what I need to address. I try to let people know that I am available and the times that they can get a hold of me. And when I make rounds, I let them know I've been there. We either use candy; we use magnets; we use any type of thing to let them know that here we are and every item has our voicemail number on it, so they know they can get a hold of us. So that's one thing that we're doing, and I think that people need to make sure that they're out there carrying business cards that say here I am. Patricia Klein: I'm from Norwalk, Connecticut, and I'm a registered nurse and one of the participants in Group 11. I was very proud to be part of that group. We were very concise on our issues and our concerns, and they were: membership, political, activism, and attitudes within and perceived of the union itself. There were a lot of really good responses and a lot of good suggestions for overcoming the issues. One of the things mentioned was about the trust factor of nurses — that nurses are perceived as the number one profession in America that the people trust. We want AFSCME to capitalize on that and make that a part of your new campaign. That if nurses trust the union to present their issues to support their issues, to provide for their safety, their family's safety and the safety of their issues, which is direct patient care and the problems with that, then they [the public] should trust unions too. The union is here to protect them as well as the membership. Corinne Hockinsmith: I'm from southern California and with UNAC, and I have to continue with that same theme. It was our fault in Group 4 that we do not capitalize as nurses on the "trust factor." We need to get up and be more politically active and take that trust factor that the public has for us and run with it, because it's a very, very powerful image, and, unfortunately, we don't use to the greatest ability. I think we can even start utilizing that right at the bedside. I bring up stuff with patients. Once you've developed that relationship, it just — the dominos fall so easily that you can — when we're caring for our patients you can get views and messages across so easily. And we don't realize it. We don't realize the power that we have. Male Participant: It's me again. I don't mean to belabor this point, but the focus group that I was facilitating, they were the ones that came up with the political caucus, or the nonpartisan caucus, as it were. While I was listening to them, I can tell you that they felt that there was a lot of bashing going on for people and not necessarily in regard to our issues. When we feel that people aren't siding with us on the issues that are important to us, they certainly should be called to task and that should be pointed out. The Republicans are very adept at attaching those moral family values to the other issues and I can tell you that with a lot of the citizenry, those moral family values will always override those other issues. It's not fair to ask a nurse to choose whether she's pro-choice or pro-life in the same election where she believes with our union issues. So when we do have union issues to come up, then we certainly should address that and make very clear that they are union issues, and that these people do not agree from them. Because I think they point out that "we're good people here," and now you're attacking us because you want more money, you want more vacation time, you want more in your pension plan and everything. It portrays the union as looking very, very selfish. That's what I heard mostly when they were talking. And then they wanted some sort of input into the systems for those who were of a more conservative vein. Christina Achebe: I'm from California and UNAC, AFSCME 1199. I agree with most of all the issues discussed so far. I was with the group that talked about a lot of issues that we're addressing here at the moment, especially with reference to visibility. And I think they summed it up as "visibility" because I brought up the idea that not every affiliated unit in California, especially with Kaiser and Kaiser Woodland Hills, where I often go to work at times, know what AFSCME is all about. This is my first time coming to Washington to represent an affiliate. And when I mentioned to a few of them that I was coming for this, the first question is, "What is AFSCME?" That's a concern to me. I only looked at it as there is not enough education about what unions are all about. Some of us are know very familiar with UNAC because that's what we hear often. Though we get mail, how many of us read the mail we get? But let's remember the first means of communication before print is verbal, oral. And so I brought up the idea that why don't we at least once a year or biannually have a member of AFSCME come into these organizations where we have the employees. Talk to them maybe upon employment. We have employee orientation. They can have a member tell them about the union and the responsibilities in the union, what they have to do, and dues and what have you. We could take this home just like the mail you send us. Some of us read it; some of us don't. It would make a strong impact if you can have someone in person come out to these organizations to talk to the people that are paying the dues; to let them understand what's going on. Because I'm trying to tell them this is the grand, and they just look at me even though some of these employees have been with Kaiser for three and four years. Female Participant: I'm with Resurrection Health Care. I've been union raised and bred. My father was an international typographical union representative for years. And he taught me two things: One, the squeaky wheel always gets the oil; two, numbers equal power. And I feel that what we need to do is bridge with other nursing union organizations. We need to go out to President Bush's doorstep and have a march with all of the nurses collectively and make a public appeal as to why we are in such a positive political forum. We need to do this now when they feel we're trustworthy. We're the people that they would want to listen to and bring our points up to them. Deb Tauer: I'm from Minnesota, Council 65. I'm with Local 105, the 12,000 renegade LPNs there. In our discussion group we spoke about several things. I want to make two points. The first thing is, I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a Republican. I'm Independent and I vote my choice. Now, I also support AFSCME's issues, but I come from a conservative county in Minnesota. We voted 97 percent Republican. I have conservative Germans that are going to vote the way they want, but I went to my "Day on the Hill" as an AFSCME representative in Minnesota and I went to my Republican representative who voted against every issue for AFSCME. And I sat there and I explained to him what my issues were and why I wanted him to change his vote. He was very disappointed that the LPNs did not support him. I had a sign in my yard the first election he ran three years ago. I encourage everybody here who is Independent or Republican to go to your legislature, email them, and contact them by phone. A lot of you know them personally. You contact them as a nurse and that's where you start. As a nurse you tell them, yes, I am a member of AFSCME and yes I am pro-life or pro-choice or whatever those things are. But then you tell them about the Safe Patient Staffing Act, you tell them about mandatory overtime. If we can't elect all the officials we want, then we're the ones who need to contact the ones we have and change their minds. Nobody else is going to change their minds except us. I can see those Republicans in Minnesota, and I bet I could have seen some of those here today if I said I was a nurse from New Ulm, Minnesota because we're Republican. But because I came with an AFSCME label, none of ours were there. Not a Republican one was willing to visit with us. So we left the information. I got their email addresses and they will hear from me. I believe too in the organizing with all the groups. We're an LPN group. There are RN groups in Minnesota that are very powerful and large. I know on the Patient Staffing Bill you have both LPN/RN groups. It would be great if all the nursing unions went together and did something. I know that their views are all very different, but encouraging them to support bills and going out there and joining ANA with their Safe Patient Lifting Act, those are things you need to do and you need to get AFSCME's name on those lists. We talked about Nurse's Week and the need to put out posters that are available. Why don't we hang up posters in our facilities that say Nurses' Week 2005? Why don't we have T-shirts available? We talked about the need to increase the visibility of the leadership. We talked about standardizing state councils. Minnesota just had three councils merged into one. We're sort of the renegade council on our own kind of thing. They don't even do things the same in Minnesota between those two councils. What are the standards for a job description for a staff representative in AFSCME? I don't see any standard. I see them all different. I see very different qualifications. If you want to increase your visibility and your credibility, you have to increase those sorts of things and make it public so that people know. We can't get access to all the information. All the websites are on a different level. Scopes of practices are changing in states for both LPNs and RNs, but you can access even the information just in AFSCME alone. So those are the things that our group was interested in. Male Participant: I'm from the Putnam County Department of Health in Brewster, New York. I was in Group 11 this morning and it was very interesting and enthusiastic. I'm here to tell you about our idea of stockholding in the media. We came up the idea after much discussion that freedom of speech is not free. It's pretty much for the ones who control the media, who are the wealthy. So if AFSCME was to purchase stock in media, say FOX, ABC, NBC, any of the local or prominent news media, we would have a say — or more of a say — as to what's being published and not being censored. So we would like to see that. The second issue is that we need to put a face on the issues. And I think all the states have "take your child to work day". Well, I would like to see "take a legislator or politician to work day." Jeanne Bryner: I'm from Council 8, Local 2026 and the daughter of a coalminer. I was in Group 7 today and we talked about the visibility of the union and we also talked about education, particularly the history of labor. And I think it would be of great service to all unions if we do a video on the history of this union and the history of UNA. We could show people what the union is about because without it we would all be working for ten cents an hour. In Europe, 92 percent of the people belong to the unions and what is the percentage in this country? I believe the last time I checked it was about 12 to 14 percent. Shame on us. We are here on the backs and shoulders of our parents and our grandparents and what they did to give us this life, so that I could even stand here and talk to this Congress. When people think union they think vacation and wages. But we do so much more, and we must be visible. We have to talk to the TV stations; we have to talk to the newspapers whenever we're doing an event, it has to be covered. AFSCME is out there. What we are trying to do is be a community, to live in the world at large with the people that are there. Sandra Roberts: I'm from UNAC, AFSCME, southern California, LA area. We were talking in Group 6 at our table about visibility and making nurses more visible to the community using the trust issue. And I would like to suggest that in California one thing that's being done right now, you see television commercials, and you'll see an extraordinarily diverse group of individuals, languages, races, ethnicities, cultures, everything. And they will stop and look at you and say, "I'm a Californian." "I'm a Californian." They may be from Pakistan originally, but now they're a Californian. And it goes on and on like that, and I see no reason why we, as nurses, can't do something very similar. I would also like to put a face on us like the video we saw this morning about the Resurrection situation when the lady stood there and said, "This used to be my home." I think we need to put a face on nursing throughout the country and I see no reason why AFSCME, the best union in the world, can't do that. Look at us, how many different people we are. The other day on my unit, I was the only Caucasian, American-born nurse. There were two Iranian nurses, an Afghani nurse, a nurse from El Salvador, we had one from the Philippines, we had one from India, but they're all nurses. They have family and they pay bills. Leslie Eason: I'm from Local 1000, also on the Nurse Advisory Committee. I was fortunate to be here last week for the Leadership and Legislative Conference and I went through this whole process that we did today. I was a facilitator there and I have to tell you, I gained more today because I wasn't just with leadership people. I was with rank-and-file people and some of the ideas that came forth you did not hear last week. So I'm just here to make a comment that I hope as we're going through this 21st Century Committee process that you get this back to the rank-and-file and get some more input from them. Male Participant: I was asked to relay something we had in one of our meetings in Group 1 today. The Resurrection Group — it seems as if we're going out to Chicago to try to help with organizing and we all know numbers are power as far as politics and everything else. We whittled our ideas to three main things: communication, education and organizing. We came up with AFSCME CEO, as an acronym. The communication component, one of the parts of that was being able to have the voice of every union member target a particular place. In this case, the Archdioceses of Chicago could wake up and have a million emails on their computer in the morning. They couldn't block it because it wouldn't be coming from AFSCME, it would be coming from each person. All you would need to do would be to set up a web page. A person would go to that web page, click on a button and get a little form, fill in their name and then the letter would be sent. There'd be no way for them to stop it. And subsequently you could use it to target any particular political person or idea and it would be coming from individuals of the union. It would be free. Janet Harmon: I'm from New York City, DC 37, Local 436. I was in Group 8 and I'm happy to hear a lot of people are thinking that we have a golden opportunity to make ourselves more visible, make our image more visible with this poll that shows that nurses are number one and having an honest, good image. We also discussed that. I think this is a very, very good time in our history to make ourselves a very visible force. And I think a lot of people would listen to us because nurses are respected. We did have a sort of wild idea of a Million Nurse March. Jamie Stevens: I'm a registered nurse from Newark, Connecticut with CHCA 1199 and I guess I would be considered one of the youth activists of our union. I've done some volunteer member organizing in Chicago. I've had a great experience and have taken a lot of that back home with me. There was a discussion previously about how we get the younger members involved, and the way I got involved was that I was engaged repeatedly by one of our members. The first time I was approached, I was skeptical. The second time I was approached I listened, but still didn't pay much attention. And then the third time, it was like, "it is important for me to get involved because he's taking the time to do this for me a third time." And that really is the way of doing it because I do look to the experienced nurses. I do respect them, and so when I hear a message over and over again, then that's how it happens. Al Napier: I'm from Council 25, Michigan. We're hearing a lot of discussion about some of the problems we're seeing at both the macro and the micro level. Micro meaning what's occurring at the local level; macro is what we're expecting at the council, state levels and the International level. One of the things that we heard in our group was the visibility regarding our staff reps, viewing that as a micro level. We need more personal time with those staff reps and negotiations, dealing with daily grievances and daily issues. That's the kind of assistance that maybe we could look at developing, understanding that it is very costly. The macro level was more of a communication base and seeing more visibility more from the media standpoint. So I think it's both the micro and the macro. We're requesting more exposure of AFSCME. Personally, at our local level, I put out a multitude of flyers on a monthly basis and some of the nurses complain, "Al, you send too much information out. It's too much to read." So I backed off a bit and then they started complaining we're not getting any now. So guys, make up your mind! Gloria Acevedo: I'm from Local 436, DC 37 President. I'm with Group 10. I was waiting to see if somebody would get up from Group 10 and say something, but no one did. But I just wanted to let you know that we were a great group. One of the things that I noticed is how we were all in separate rooms, but think how we all came, more or less, with the same questions, answers, and solutions. Now what we have to do is get these solutions, and let's make them work. Let's work together and let the whole country know why nurses are so important and they can't keep taking advantage of us. Joanne Campanella: I'm from 1199C. I've been hearing a lot about you wanting the leadership to come to the hospital, and that's all well and good. However, we are the union. And if your people do not know that they are members of AFSCME then shame on us and we need to get out more and let them know that. Kathy Sackman: Thank you all very much. I know this is the end of a very long day. A very good day, though, right? I thought it was a good program. We have a session in the morning, then we'll have workshops and then we'll have our closing. |
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