If they did it, you can do it. Fully mobilized and loving it
“Before we became fully mobilized, we were less structured and everything was more casual... Now, we reach everyone. No one is left out.”
— Donna Rodriguez
Council Leader PEF Division 186
Dept. of Tax & Finance, Long Island

By SHERRY HALBROOK
No two PEF divisions are the same.

Whether your division is fully mobilized, still working on it or wondering where to begin, you can learn from others who are already doing it.

Here’s a look at what the leaders of several fully mobilized divisions say about how they did it, what they hope to achieve, and how it’s working out so far.

Division 186
“We were the fourth PEF division to become fully mobilized,” says Donna Rodriguez, council leader of PEF Division 186 at the state Department of Taxation and Finance on Long Island.

“I decided to get us fully mobilized after I received member mobilization training from PEF field representative Michelle Routi.

“About half of our 120 members work in Nassau County and the rest in Suffolk County.

“I started with our division stewards and then I went to members who I knew had always wanted to get more involved in the union,” she said. “It’s really important to know your members and be in touch with them.

“I emphasized that if they became member mobilizers, that information would flow through them. By getting involved, they would own the process.”

When a member agreed to become a mobilizer, Rodriguez says she asked them, “Which members are you already in touch with?”

The answer helped her know which nine members to assign to that mobilizer. Of course, some members might already be assigned to a mobilizer.

“We have to make sure our lists of contacts don’t overlap and no one is left out. We update our lists of mobilizers and their contacts as our membership changes,” Rodriguez says. “The mean age of our workforce is 50 years old, so people keep leaving and some new ones are hired.”

Rodriguez says she finds the member mobilizer network is a great way to involve newer and younger members in the union’s activities and build a pool of potential division stewards and leaders for the future.

Although Rodriguez is a member of PEF’s contract team for the next round of PS&T negotiations that will begin in late 2002, she isn’t waiting until then to put the division’s Member Mobilizer network to use.

“The network allows us to talk to our members so quickly, we use it for lots of things,” she says. “We even used it to get the word out when the father of one of our members died just before a three-day weekend.”

It will be great to have that ability to reach members quickly once the contract talks get going, Rodriguez says.

“When PEF was negotiating the current contract, members of our division wore black every pay day to show solidarity,” she says. “It made an impression that people still remember. The last time I wore black on a pay day, members kept asking me, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’

“So, I know they will be ready to respond when their mobilizers alert them to new issues or strategies. We’ll be even more effective now.

“Before we became fully mobilized, we were less structured and everything was more casual,” she says. “Now, we reach everyone. No one is left out.”

Division 342
Jim Gonyo, council leader of PEF Division 342 at Altona Correctional Facility in PEF Region 7, says they achieved full mobilization last fall.

The division’s 40 members are scattered throughout the prison, and some — mainly nurses — work nights, according to Gonyo.

“We tried to group people by where they work,” he says.

Using the steward network and recruiting a few more mobilizers to fill in the gaps was all it took, he says, to get going.

“Only one person refused to do it,” Gonyo says.

The division receives and distributes information from PEF and it also uses the network to keep members informed about what’s going on in the division.

“I put my name last on the material that’s going to people on my list. They read it, initial it and pass it along. When I get it back, I can tell if everyone has seen it,” Gonyo says.

“We print notices and minutes from our meetings and the mobilizers post them on the bulletin boards throughout the facility,” he says. “And we used the network to circulate information about PEF’s nurses’ lobby day coming up in Albany.”

The key to getting people involved in the union, he’s found, is direct contact and communication.

“You’ve got to be out there talking to people,” Gonyo says.

“I saw that by linking individual members to a co-worker who was their member mobilizer, that would put a real ‘face’ on PEF, in a good way.”
— Pat Lavin
Council Leader PEF Div. 265
Office of Alcohol & Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), Albany

Division 265
PEF Division 265 at the state Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) includes members at the agency’s main offices in Albany. Shouldn’t be too hard to organize a nice, compact group like that. Right?

It’s not quite that simple, says Council Leader Pat Lavin. “We have about 150 members, but they aren’t all in Albany. Some work in OASAS administrative field offices in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.”

They might be spread across upstate New York, but Lavin says having such a far-flung membership was not just an obstacle, but an incentive to build the Member Mobilization structure that would pull Division 265 into a single, cohesive unit.

“I knew it was important to get information out to everyone in my division. And I saw that by linking individual members to a co-worker who was their member mobilizer, that would put a real ‘face’ on PEF, in a good way,” Lavin says.

“We already had stewards, and some people had already become member mobilizers,” she says. So, Lavin set out to fill in the gaps and build a fully mobilized structure to include everyone.

“We needed someone to be the mobilizer in each field office. And at the main offices in Albany, we went by floors,” she says.

But not everyone in the division spends their entire workday in their office, so the system had to be designed to get information out to program auditors when they work in the field.

“I try to give out the information to the mobilizers on Mondays and Fridays when the auditors are usually in their offices,” Lavin says.

The division also holds quarterly membership meetings in Albany.

“Some of the members who became mobilizers have told me they are glad they agreed to do it. It gives them a chance to meet PEF staff and see first-hand how the union works.

“People like to participate and being a mobilizer is low risk and involves relatively little work,” Lavin says.

The members like it too, Lavin says, because they appreciate being kept informed and knowing how to be involved in everything that’s going on.

“I think they like being informed and being noticed,” she says.

Lavin says the mobilizers like the buttons she gave them — “Rosie the Riveter buttons for the women, that say ‘A woman’s place is in her union!’ The men’s buttons say, ‘Unions, the people who brought you the weekend!’

“I also want to hold an annual luncheon to show our appreciation,” Lavin says.

What was the hardest thing about achieving full mobilization?

“Making myself take responsibility for completing it,” Lavin says.

Division 256
Division 256 is another one, that has more to it than meets the eye.

“We have about 350 members,” says Council Leader Don Kehoskie, a civil engineer for the state Transportation Department in Syracuse.

“Our members are all based in this area, but they aren’t all at DOT. We also have members who work for the state Division of Parks and Recreation and for the state Office of General Services. And about 200 of our members have jobs that take them into the field.

“We get a quarterly printout of our division’s membership list from PEF, and we took that and divided it up among myself and our division’s seven stewards,” Kehoskie said. “Then, we each needed to recruit about three more mobilizers.

“We let each new mobilizer claim nine other people they wanted for their contacts. We adjusted those contact lists for overlaps and to assign people not on the lists,” he says.

They often use hand delivery or phone calls to distribute information through the mobilizer structure.

“One of our members recently created a Website for our division at www.pef256@tripod.com and it’s linked to PEF’s main Website.

“We want to begin posting more information on the site. We also post information on bulletin boards at work and we use sign-and-pass to send materials around,” Kehoskie says.

The division has structured its mobilizer system to get the best results for information coming back to PEF, as well as going out to members, he says.

“I like to assign mobilizers to stewards,” so that information a member gives to their mobilizer about an idea or a problem will go up the tree directly to a division steward who can handle it or pass it on up to me,” he says.

As with other fully mobilized divisions, Kehoskie has found the mobilizers like their new responsibilities.

“They were only marginally involved before,” he says. “When we asked them to do this, I told them, ‘You’ll get most of what I get from PEF. You’ll know as much about what’s going on as any of us.

“They tell me they are glad they became mobilizers. They feel they are much more informed and more included.”

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