21,000 Oregon School Workers Join AFT

by James Parks, Feb 8, 2008

Oregon School Employees Association President Merlene Martin, center, surrounded by staff from OSEA and AFT, gets word on the final vote count.

In a huge win for workers, more than 21,000 paraprofessionals and school-related workers, represented by the independent Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA), voted by a huge margin to join AFT. This is the largest affiliation of an independent union in AFT history.

In a joint statement, AFT President Edward J. McElroy and OSEA President Merlene Martin say:

The affiliation between OSEA and the AFT will magnify the strengths of each organization. OSEA is a powerful, effective organization whose 20,000 members will make the AFT an even stronger union. Likewise, OSEA will benefit from the expertise, resources and political influence of its new national union. This partnership will enhance the ability of our two unions and the Oregon AFL-CIO to fight for our members’ rights in the workplace, and to improve the quality of services to their students and their communities.

OSEA represents classified school personnel such as bus drivers, support staff and teachers. Over the past decades, the two groups have worked together on several joint issues. AFT has supported OSEA locals during contract negotiations and the two have conducted a joint health and safety training and launched a statewide campaign that gained better health insurance coverage for school workers.

Phil Kugler, AFT’s organizing director, says the affiliation:

is very, very big. This is a strong outfit. They are going to be contributors. We’ve got things to learn from them.

Tom Moran, deputy director of AFT’s paraprofessional and school-related personnel department, who helped the OSEA members affiliate with the union, says the process was long, but it was worth it. He says OSEA officers presented the idea of affiliation to all the members through a very democratic process of education and involvement that took about three years. Every OSEA member was eligible to vote on the affiliation, which was approved by a whopping 85 percent. 

 The Oregon AFL-CIO also provided substantial help by showing OSEA members the benefits of affiliation. Before the affiliation vote, OSEA members were invited to attend the state AFL-CIO convention and the delegates also passed a resolution of support for the affiliation. State federation President Tom Chamberlain says:

 The affiliation of OSEA with AFT increases our state federation by about 25 percent. It strengthens our political program. It’ll strengthen their political program, our joint organizing program and bring more power to working families in Oregon in our legislative endeavors. It makes us stronger politically when we have a bigger family within the state federation. 

OSEA members say they voted to join the AFT to gain more political influence, increase strength at the bargaining table and expand training and professional development opportunities.

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