CWA 1180 - News

AJOS: Why vote for 1180?
by Arthur Cheliotes
March 2005


	“ From the moment HRA announced the title we took on every issue, identified the problems, negotiated with HRA to resolve them and went to court if we had to. ”

There's a commitment at the core of the labor movement's history: you represent your members while fighting for all workers' rights.

That approach produced every major right and reform American workers claim today: the 40 hour week, the end of child labor, the weekend, Social Security and even the right to union representation itself. Unions fought for those things representing their members, but knowing that the outcome would benefit all workers then and in the future.

That comes to mind as we approach the upcoming representation election for AJOS workers in HRA. While we're hoping that these workers select our union as their union, we are evaluating our experience with the AJOS title over the last few years and I think that evaluation should make us all proud.

From the moment HRA announced the title, we have responded—for several very good reasons.

First of all, the AJOS title comprises work our members in HRA already do. In short, it's an 1180 title and who better to deal with it than our union?

Secondly, it was ill conceived: an attempt to solve the system's problem with a job redefinition that would create a "dead-end" (since AJOS workers can't transfer from HRA to other agencies) and lead to all sorts of pay, benefits, promotion and other work issues. Who better to identify the problems (and work on them) than a union that has been fighting around these issues for years?

Thirdly, HRA put all this together without consulting or working with the unions. The inevitable result was chaos and that is what we now have, articulately described by AJOS workers in our recent “Shame on you, HRA!” cover story. We wanted to be there to protect these workers from the fall-out of that chaos.

Finally, we realized that the city's workforce could well be facing this kind of job-title shell game over and over in the future, and we wanted to set some precedents and draw some lines right now.

While about 200 of AJOS workers are already 1180 members, the entire workforce has benefited from our aggressive representation. What we have done can't be described in one column; I urge you to look at our website's HRA Watch section to see for yourself. We took on every issue. We identified the problems, negotiated with HRA to resolve them and, failing that, went to court. And we have won many of those struggles.

We committed the resources and energy without hesitation. After all, our members are affected, the rest of the AJOS workers are affected and, because this kind of job-title shell game could become a trend in city employment, the entire city workforce could be affected. That's the commitment that has driven the labor movement and it still drives us.

We think it's the kind of commitment AJOS workers deserve and that's why we're urging them to make us their union. Vote for 1180!

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