CWA 1180 - HRA Watch

HRA Watch

AJOS update: We are winning!
Job Center members meet and strengthen their resolve
May 2001

On May 23, over 100 Local 1180 members from the Job Centers packed into the downstairs hall at the union office to discuss the latest developments in HRA's attempt to implement the JOS title series. Union officers reported on efforts on the arbitration and legal fronts as well as the shop floor battle. After that, members from all over the city reported on what was happening at their sites—how management was stepping up the pressure but members were continuing to refuse to take the new title. The message of the evening was clear: Local 1180 members are winning, and if we keep it up, we can bury the AJOS title altogether.

JUST SAY
NO!
After the meeting, members took hundreds of the "Just say NO!" flyers to hand out to co-workers and put up in their cubicles. Send a message to management: Ask your steward or your rep for a flyer for your cubicle.

"The PAA is the backbone of the welfare center," 1180 staff rep Gwen Richardson, herself an HRA veteran, told the meeting. "There is power in your hands." The bottom line is that HRA cannot run the welfare centers without our experience and expertise. If we stand fast and refuse to participate in this latest management scheme, they will have no choice but to abandon the whole JOS idea.

Members got up and described a whole host of scare tactics and lies that HRA management has been using to try to intimidate people into signing up for the new title. HRA managers are continuing to visit centers in a desperate attempt to get enough people to take the new positions. "They told us all kinds of things this morning," reported Veronica Glasgow from the Refugee and Immigration Center. "They almost had me." Betty Black from the Fordham center related how Deputy Commissioner Seth Diamond had told members there that implementation was going forward and a date was set—one of many lies managers are spreading. Meanwhile, someone else related that managers had told them that Fordham workers were "on board" and had signed up for the title, which is also untrue. "I myself and a lot of my co-workers are refusing, absolutely refusing, to take this title. We have come too far to be afraid of this man," Black said to applause.

The lies and intimidation tactics, the demands that workers must put in transfers, the pressure to sign up by certain dates—these are all signs of how desperate HRA is. Our job is clear. "Stand pat," Richardson told the crowd. "We are winning."

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