Everyone knows that college students have a penchant for activism, but there is another group within our De Anza community that is fighting for change. Many classified workers, in other words employees that are neither professors nor administrators, are trying to decertify from their union, the Service Employees International Union. Recently the De Anza Foothill Chapter was resized to include an area about one quarter the size of California. Since then, many of the members here at De Anza and some at Foothill feel that the union has not been working for them as it should be.
Out of every worker’s salary comes 1.4% to the union in exchange for assurance that they will be paid appropriately for overtime, receive benefits and legal counsel and representation.
But now, there is a feeling of doubt that union dues are going directly to those causes. Some think that they are going towards the union’s political agendas that aren’t directly in the best interests of the members.
Recently the employees of De Anza and Foothill sent out a petition to allow a vote on whether on not to decertify from the union. They had 30 days to get 30% of the members to sign. They accumulated 60% in 2 weeks. The outcome will be released on March 2.
A personal example of the union’s failure to function comes from John Bartch, a computer and electric repair technician at De Anza. According to Bartch, he filed a complaint with the union about a certain hiring specification. After three to four months of checking in on the status of his complaint he found to his surprise that the complaint had not been recorded. His thought was that this could have been due to the lack of continuity in the staff.
Ironically, many of the people working directly for the union are overworked. This has led to a tendency of many leaving the union before gaining enough experience to do their duties to the best of their abilities.
In the Occupational Training Institute on campus, Blanche Monary expressed her passion for this cause stating, “The work force is my life.” Her brother, brother-in-law, sister and niece have all held positions within the union staff and are well aware of its not poor functionality.
Monary recalls one instance where she had to go up against the District, or the employers, with their team of what she called “union-busting lawyers”, and was not provided legal support from the union. She feels a personal responsibility to protect workers’ rights and hopes that a vote to decertify De Anza and Foothill classified workers will pass on March 2. Another ray of hope for her and many working class citizens is the newly inaugurated president Barack Obama. His promises to re-empower the working class could start paving the way to an overhaul of how unions function. And that is just what Monary is looking forward to.
While many classified workers hope to find a way to start over by creating their own union, there are those who wish to stay with the SEIU. Javier Rueda wished not to comment on this issue.
