Building Union Power 7 Conference
April 21, 2007

Prepared Remarks by
Andy Douglas,
OCSEA Executive Director

Mr. President
Mr. Vice President
Madame Secretary
Honorable Members of the OCSEA Board of Directors

Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters –

Let me also thank all of you for coming to this conference. Your dedication to our labor cause and your devotion to the greater good of our society is certainly evident. And let me add that your dedication and devotion provided a wakeup call in November to many of the political leaders who hold office across the street. It’s like an alarm clock that started ringing four months ago, is growing louder each day, and our avowed enemies still are scrambling to find the button to turn it off. Little do they know that it is a tide that is rolling and, like a tsunami, we will never never let them roll it back.

Today, in the next few minutes, I want to give you my annual “State of Our Union” message. We have been working for 3 years to be able to deliver this message of accomplishment and hope. Each of you, in your own way, have been a part of this journey and I thank one and all of you for your support and help in the effort.

First, I am pleased to report that during this period your Union has returned to a position of financial stability. We have eliminated a serious financial deficit and ended our last fiscal year – 2006 – with a nice surplus. Financially the Union is in good shape for the foreseeable future and we are stronger because of that.

Three years ago we were losing, each month, a substantial number of Members. I am pleased to report that we have stemmed that tide and reversed that trend. Just last week we finally concluded the litigation that brought 279 attorneys back into our Union and they now receive all the benefits and protections of collective bargaining. We also got $200,000 in cash for lost dues. While a few of the attorneys are unhappy because we have upset their special little deals with management, the vast majority are happy and appreciative because they now enjoy the protections of our Union umbrella and the many contractual benefits that we have negotiated.

Still on the membership front, I report more good news. Several years ago we believed that a number of employees in the School Facilities Commission should be in our Union. The Taft Administration and the General Assembly disagreed. Legislation was passed prohibiting us from organizing these folks and, in fact, the legislation said that for purposes of collective bargaining, these employees were not public employees. We sued. We won in the Trial Court, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Still management said “no.” We went back to Court. We won, again, in the Trial Court and then in the Court of Appeals.

Management then threatened to go to the Supreme Court again. Our response was that we saw you there before and we will meet you there again. I also suggested, however, that the matter should now be settled.

I am now pleased to report that just last week we concluded a settlement that brings at least 14 new Members into our Union from the School Facilities Commission. They will be accreted into our bargaining unit within the next several weeks as soon as we can get SERB to approve the agreement. Oh, one more thing, we also receive $50,000 in cash for back Union dues. One would think that at some point management would learn. If not we’ll keep teaching them.

Next, with regard to our future, I can report that your OCSEA Board of Directors is diligently working on updating and putting in place a “Strategic Plan” for our Union’s future. This is an important initiative and more will be released on this at a later date.

One of the major parts of the Strategic Plan is our “political activity.” And that leads me to the rest of what I would like to discuss with you this morning.

We did very, very well in November on the election front. But the incredible thing is that if the election were held today, we’d do even better. We’d have more friends in the Ohio House, more friends in the Ohio Senate, and we’d have a lot more friends in Congress.

But before I get too far into politics, let me test your knowledge of labor history. Labor history has always played a big part in union tradition, so I hope – and expect – that someone here will know the answers to my two questions.

My first question is this: If you go out of this hotel’s State Street entrance and go left for half a block you’ll find yourself in front of the Ohio Theatre. Does anyone know what major event in labor history occurred on this site?

The answer is that 117 years ago, the United Mine Workers of America was formed on that site. That’s the union that won black lung protections, gained economic justice, fought pitched battles in places like Matewan (MATE-WAHN), and Harlan County. The UMWA also provided leaders like John L. Lewis and Rich Trumpka.

Now my second question is this. If instead of going out the door and turning left, you turned right, crossed Third Street and went down a block to Fourth Street, you’d be just about on the site of another historical event for labor. Does anyone know what that might be?

The answer is that 121 years ago, the American Federation of Labor was founded on THAT site. That was the forerunner of our current AFL-CIO and gave us people like Samuel Gompers, A. Phillip Randolph and George Meany.

Fate, perhaps, or some other unseen force seems to have bestowed on this neighborhood a special role in regard to the labor movement. The old Congress of Industrial Organizations – the CIO – used to hold its conventions about three blocks from here. Unions for a century have held rallies and marches in and around Statehouse Square that’s just across the street. I’d like to believe that it was no accident that the body of one of the most pro-labor presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was wheeled down the street just outside this building.

Allow me to tell you one other piece of history about this location. OCSEA was founded right here on this very corner and actually had its first offices on this site.

Pretty remarkable.  These odd convergences are part of what makes history so fascinating.

But there is a reason I mentioned these historical events – a reason more than just wanting to test your trivia skills.

Author James Baldwin once observed that “People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.” His comment was both an honest assessment, and a complaint.

Can’t we say the same thing about unions? History is certainly trapped within us. We can never ignore – nor can we ever forget – the blood, sweat and tears that have given us the rights and powers we have today. Labor’s past victories – and its defeats – still shape much of how we think and operate. I don’t think having history trapped within us is a bad thing at all. It is an illuminating and stimulating force.

But, what about the other half of Baldwin’s comment? If history is trapped within labor, is labor trapped in history?

For many of us that is a real concern. Why? Because when you are not moving forward you are going backwards.

While I am not able to speak with authority about other Unions, I can speak about the union I know – OCSEA and AFSCME – and one thing I can say for sure is that THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHERS’ UNION!

And thank goodness it isn’t.

Our fathers never faced a situation where their jobs could be seamlessly and instantaneously outsourced to someone halfway around the world. The words “Made In Japan” were a mark of shoddy work, not excellence like today.

They never faced customers who wanted to perform all of their government transactions online and at any hour of the day.  If taxpayers didn’t want to wait in line between 8 and 5, they were out of luck.

They never faced jobs and trades that were going to be quickly outmoded and eliminated. They had jobs for life, and so could their sons and daughters if they wanted them.

They never faced such a high level of competition. Businesses stuck to working in certain predictable sectors, and few entrepreneurs were thinking much about doing government work for profit. And, certainly no one would have thought of non-profit groups as being anything other than a “charity,” let alone a competitor.

Likewise, our fathers never were uncertain about who their membership should be. Steelworkers represented those in the steel mills. Autoworkers represented those on the assembly lines. And, AFSCME just represented government workers.

Your father never had to give much thought to health care or pensions. Of course employers provided these benefits. How could it be otherwise?

In your father’s union, union democracy meant that attendance at monthly union meetings was expected and practiced. And members got all the information they wanted either at these meetings or through an occasional mimeographed newsletter.

One hundred and fifty hears ago, Abe Lincoln looked out at the growing, evolving nation and ruefully noted that, “the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the story present.” Faced with this situation, Lincoln’s prescription was this: He said, “We must rise with the occasion. Our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

Thinking anew? Acting anew? I think that pretty well describes what we in OCSEA and AFSCME have been trying to do – and will continue to try to do.

Consider some of the major changes we’ve been working on. We have one of the leading education and workforce development programs in America. OCSEA learned several years ago that the future held little in the way of job security. Employment security – yes, that was doable – but not in a set, permanent job.

We learned not only that jobs could disappear because of political and technology changes, but whole divisions and departments, too. A decade or two ago we had thousands of members doing data entry. Now they are gone. Now they are begging for employees with PeopleSoft experience. And before long, sadly, those jobs will be gone, too.

We also learned that administrations can be both fickle and irresponsible about whether they take responsibility for or even care about retraining their workers. One day, a governor or a director can be all gung-ho about the idea, and the next day they want to pull the plug.

The lesson and the plan is that we must continue to build our own internal capabilities to provide much of the training, re-training, and crystal-balling for the skills that will be needed in the future.

Recently, we took over the Workforce Development program. Like it or not, we have proudly taken over full-custody and I think we are doing pretty well. We certainly have more risks by going it alone, but we also have new freedoms to adapt the program to the changing needs of our members and their workplaces.

We’ve also continued to be on the cutting edge of Quality, Continuous Improvement or whatever you want to call it. OCSEA pioneered at the national level much of labor’s work in this field in the 1990s. OCSEA succeed because it pushed itself to know more than management about how Quality, High Performance and Re-engineering can and can’t work.

Then when Taft tried to starve the quality movement to death, we had to shift gears. It was OCSEA who provided the life support to workers and enlightened managers. Quality didn’t flourish – but neither did it fail. We continued to fan the embers until we found an administration who would take it seriously again.

And now the Quality frontier has changed: Governor Strickland is clearly attracted to the Iowa system of so-called Charter Agencies. The Charter Agency method doesn’t necessarily conflict with Quality. In fact, the Iowa system may provide better measurement methods and accountabilities than ever before. In that sense, the Charter Agencies may be a logical evolutionary step in Quality.

We have no other unions to look to for guidance in this area. Like Quality, it is up to us to know more than management about how these Charter Agencies work, and it is up to us to stay one step ahead of them and bulldoze labor’s path down this road.

A third area is leadership and activist development. Both OCSEA and AFSCME are rolling out unprecedented efforts to recruit, train and mentor a new wave of leaders. We are testing and implementing a new steward’s recognition and incentive program. But one note of caution. Lack of stewards in every place they are needed and some stewards not doing their jobs is causing us to spend money we shouldn’t have to spend.

At the same time, AFSCME International, as we speak, is rolling out the first phase of a new Leadership Academy. The purpose is to inspire more of our brothers and sisters to participate in organizing drives, contract campaigns, political action and other union activities.

Speaking of organizing campaigns, the fourth way we are not our father’s union is organizing. For too long, unions have been shackled by either unfair laws or by self-imposed restrictions. But, we are trying hard to be smart and at the same time break the mold. At the national level, AFSCME is conducting a full-court press to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.  This Act would go far to level the employer/union playing field and permit union recognition once over 50% of the workforce signs a recognition card.

 Locally we hope to be putting the graduates of the AFSCME Leadership Academy to work.  We still have pockets of unorganized workers at the state level that need to be brought in. We also have – or, in some cases, hope to soon have – the ability to pursue our jobs into the community. Currently for example there are discussions over at the Statehouse about developing new State-provided community based MR/DD services. We absolutely believe those are our jobs and we will do whatever it takes to bring them in.

At the same time, there are thousand of existing jobs in sectors like Community Corrections. It’s a little known fact that two years ago members of the Ohio General Assembly slipped in a provision that exempts Community Corrections facilities from collective bargaining.  That’s an outrageous, illogical and arbitrary restriction, and we have begun to work behind the scenes to get this restriction overturned.

The fifth way we are rewriting the book on unionism has to do with communications. OCSEA was one of the first unions to have its own website and we continue to innovate in our online services. We were one of the first unions to create an online member discussion forum.  And, we were one of the first unions to offer an online grievance database.

We have continued to innovate online. Starting last year, OCSEA quickly became one of the heaviest users of AFSCME’s special activist email system called GetActive. I’m sure many if not most of you in this room have seen these emails in your inbox. We now use this system on a weekly basis to motivate our members to call or write their legislators about key issues that are unfolding in the political arena. And, we are learning to make these emails more effective. By improving our writing and design, we are quickly building participation among our members with as many as 25% of recipients taking some action.

Other innovations include the new OCSEA blog that has already attracted 2,000 readers, an online volunteer recruitment system that we used extensively during the political campaign last year, and an online meeting registration system that apparently hundreds of you used to register for this conference. And, just six weeks ago, OCSEA staff used the occasion of Gov. Strickland’s speech at the Pathways conference to create the union’s first YouTube offering.

The importance of continual communication innovations cannot be underestimated. A just-completed AFSCME survey indicates that 78% of our members say that they prefer email as the main way to be contacted by the union versus just 17% for regular mail and 9% by phone. Likewise, the pattern to how the public gets its news is also changing quickly. Newspapers like the Dispatch and Plain Dealer are publicly admitting that they are facing stiff competition from sources on the Internet. These are historic sea changes that we as a Union cannot afford to ignore.

The final way we are not going to be our father’s union has to do with younger members. If you look around this room, you will see few twenty-somethings in the audience.

While I’ll be the first one to brag about the wisdom that comes from age, it’s been clear for some time that OCSEA and AFSCME need a strategy for engaging and relating to our young co-workers. They are the next generation of our labor leaders and experts. What they lack in experience and historical perspective, they make up in enthusiasm, energy and optimism.

There is a very different generational dynamic at work here. What motivates you and I is a still-fresh memory of how bad things used to be before collective bargaining. But the number of us with that memory is getter fewer and fewer. I have no special insight at this point about what will work with younger workers and what will not, but I suspect that we will find that that our young members will be motivated not by how bad things were in the past but by how good things can be in the future.

In this vein, we are anxiously awaiting reports on the so-called NextWave pilot projects being conducted in at least two AFSCME Councils, and I hope to be providing soon a proposal to our Board of Directors on developing a similar effort in Ohio.

I’ve probably gone on too long about this, but I’m very proud of how this union has been willing to change and take risks. And on that score let me say that as your Director, to bring about the changes that were necessary in order for us not to just survive – but also to thrive, I have had to take risks and even, on occasion, make decisions that have not been politically popular with some folks in our Union. Let me assure you that I have made those decisions always with the belief that our Members’ interests are to be front and center. This has developed a group of folks who perceive themselves to be my enemies. Let me hasten to assure all who are in hearing of my voice – I count no Member as my enemy. I love you all and I try to serve all of my Members and I even, when possible, try to please. Please be assured as you permit me to continue to serve, that I pledge my best efforts to you, and on your behalf with the powers that be, during all of my waking hours.

And you too have been willing to be daredevils, inventors and pioneers. Psychologists always tell us not to fear change – but to embrace it. I think you have embraced change already to an amazing extent and refused to act like passive victims to the changes of time. Winston Churchill once predicted that history would be kind to him because he intended to write that history.

Likewise, history will be kind to OCSEA and all of you because of your tremendous willingness to create your own remarkable history in this town – a town that already has long welcomed labor pioneers who wanted to reinvent their father’s union.

The fact that we have done all of this makes us, once again, a Union to be respected and, on occasion when necessary, to be feared.

As we go forth in this conference, let us always remember that UNITED WE STAND – and DIVIDED is not an option.

Thank you for your kind attention. God bless each of you – and God bless OCSEA.