High IQ
Union members in Arizona are working with their employers to improve public services in that state. And a new poll shows that the public supports union efforts to form partnerships with employers to find innovations and deliver the best possible services.
I was in Phoenix for an SEIU town hall meeting on a state that works – a takeoff on my book A Country That Works.
Governor Janet Napolitano opened the session and talked about the progress in Arizona under her administration – clearing the waiting list for child care, balancing the budget, and building a new medical center. It was impressive and reminded me that leadership really does matter.
But what excited me most was listening to SEIU members talk about our partnership approach in the public sector, called Innovation and Quality (IQ). Learning from the efforts of the firefighters, our new locals in Chandler, Tempe, and Pima County have reoriented themselves to work with management to improving the quality of public services. Tom, an SEIU member who drove me from Phoenix to Tucson, said he is experimenting with changing the names of Stewards, who serve as union representatives in the workplace, to “Resolutions Specialists.” The reason, he said, is that they are trying to resolve issues to improve quality services, and management looks at those efforts as a positive approach, as opposed to an approach that creates new problems.
Taxpayers benefit when SEIU members fight for efficiency and quality. And that’s what people want. According to a recent SEIU poll conducted this month:
· Arizonans are looking for innovative solutions and modern organizations to improve the lives of working families. They want Arizona to be a national leader in improving wages and benefits for all working people (78% agree, 66% strongly).
· Arizonans like new worker/management partnerships to improve the economy and help workers achieve the American Dream: 72% agree (61% strongly) that Arizona needs to create pioneering ways for workers and management to work together to achieve the American Dream.
· Seventy percent agree (56% strongly) that in today’s economy, we need an organization that unites working people and joins with businesses to create a climate in Arizona that is good for businesses and workers.
· Arizonans believe that the right kind of union can make a positive difference. When asked to choose between two opposing statements, Arizona voters reject the stereotype that unions are outdated and kill jobs. By a 15-point margin (55% to 40%), they choose the view that a 21st century union can create an atmosphere where workers and employers join together to bring ideas to the table that are good for workers, the public and the bottom line.
Team USA is the future of our country and the living proof is what is happening in Arizona. Thank you public workers! You truly are helping to create a country that works for everyone.
Notice that stories like these don't get reported in the daily press. Almost no newspapers have reporters on the labor beat anymore. I think it would be a "good thing" if the unions would set up a mechanism to get the word out. Not just about success stories, but job actions and upcoming events.
One way would be for some people in the union movement to be tasked with blogging on a regular basis. Walmart's PR firm (Edelman) has an employee dedicated to blogger relations. He funnels pro-Walmart "information" to sympathetic bloggers who then incorporate it into their own postings.
They have been faulted for obscuring the source of the material, but I don't see why the unions can't do this in a transparent fashion. Blogging is becoming a good way to bypass the media bottleneck. Several congressional candidates have taken to posting and it is apparent from the response that readers appreciate the direct contact.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
October 16, 2006 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well as a State of California worker and SEIU member, you're welcome. But our union is in an undeclared (or maybe declared) civil war.
I haven't taken sides in it, but I think it was a huge PR mistake to start asking for a hike in union dues before we even received a penny of our long delayed raise. The union lost 3/4 of my office's support just like that. And then I was listening to Air America, and the news segment was sponsored by SEIU. I am still wondering what benefits come from spending that money.
So I know that sounds like I have taken sides, but I haven't. If all the books are opened and a detailed plan for where the dues increases will go is presented, I'll be okay with it. But my non-left leaning co-workers may be a lost cause, as they now see our pay increase as a ploy to raise more union money. Help me. I would love to change their minds.
October 16, 2006 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andy - any particular pro-labor legislation you'd like to see the Dems push in 2007 if they win Congress?
Even if it's headed for a Bush veto, I think there are laws that are worth pushing simply to raise the flag and say, "we're strongly enough for this to push it through Congress, and they're against it strongly enough to veto it."
My thought is that a law saying that anyone earning less than, say, 120% of the median annual earnings for a full-time American worker should automatically be subject to the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act - the right to organize, time and a half after 40 hours - regardless of whether they can be categorized as a supervisor, a professional, or whatever.
Thoughts?
October 17, 2006 2:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
. . . an SEIU member who drove me from Phoenix to Tucson, said he is experimenting with changing the names of Stewards, who serve as union representatives in the workplace, to “Resolutions Specialists.”
My suggestion would be "Class Struggle Facilitator."
Max B. Sawicky
http://maxspeak.org/mt
max@maxspeak.org
October 17, 2006 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mister Stern,
Welcome...
Sounds like you're out and about and taking a keen interest of the workers at the field level... Good!
Janet Humphries ring a bell? Late President of Local 99? She came in during a trusteeship at Local 99 and was recently uncermoniously shown the door under a trusteeship...
Humphries was ousted from her leadership post in Local 99 when SEIU International took over the union in 2004.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2006/028.html
One major question: Does the "Innovation and Quality" plan there in Arizona, or the "Change to Win" organizational battle-plan include a plan to help the national SEIU and other union workers head-off such messes at the local levels?
I hope you don't have to deal many more times with the type of issues that Local 99, the school support workers local in Los Angeles, has gone through over the past two years of multiple agency investigations causing the local to operate under your nationally chosen trustee and the indictment of local president Janet Humphries. The federal investigation into Local 99s phone-banking trucks run by a fella Tom Newbery, which were setup by the union for specifically backing Martin Ludlow's ambitions brought about the allegations of financial impropriety for raising political slush funds by using “phantom” union workers and contributing $53,000.
That really can't be helpful whatsoever to the overall union cause.
By the way, how long was Bill Lloyd, the trustee that was placed in charge and Janet Humphries dating? And why was it that Janet was reporting only 30,000 local members on the roll instead of the 40,000 that were in good membership standing? Poor oversight from the national level?
The "group think" at the local level that drove this mess was the view of the local union as poorly funded underdogs driven by bad administration at the very top. But that is no excuse to be led to believe that it's somehow all right to go over the legal boundary with members' dues and members' rights. All causing the the local level "political power-brokers" to fall on their collective faces; caught up in their own sense of self-righteousness and their situational ethics. Poof!
I'm so happy to have been mentored back in the late 70s at UCLA to be an Independent "Labor Resolution Mediator" for 10 years through AFSCME by a very fine organizer named Cliff Freid ...
Establish the facts ... verify all!
~OGD~
October 17, 2006 7:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mister Stern:
Thanks for never returning to address the members of the cafe who have shown interest in the information you provided in your initial post...
Case in point.
An organization is only as good as it's ability to select a leader that actually speak "with", rather than speak "at" it's members.
~OGD~
October 21, 2006 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink