Every year at this time, leaders and activists from throughout the state come to Albany for a weekend of events focusing on black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers’ social and legislative issues.
PEF is always in the thick of it, and that was never more true than at this year’s 37th Annual Conference of the Association of NYS Black and Puerto Rican Legislators in Albany.
“The event this February was a little bit different than in previous years,” said PEF Vice President Pat Baker, “the legislators involved labor in planning the conference around the issues of workers.”
Baker participated in a labor round-table discussion at the conference where she submitted a position paper listing some of PEF’s most serious concerns, such as the issue of mandatory overtime and short staffing, especially for nurses.
The Black Caucus of PEF held a two-hour workshop, Diversity in the NYS Workforce, attended by nearly 100 people from throughout the state.
PEF member Denise Clement moderated the workshop, which included four presenters: PEF member Karen Spotford, a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Diversity; PEF member Emmy Murphy, president of the NYS Affirmative Action Council; Hayward Horton, associate dean of graduate studies at the state University of NY, Albany; and Merton Simpson, president of the Albany Chapter of Blacks in Government.
The discussion ranged from statistics and patterns revealing the gaps between blacks and whites, to human rights and professional issues that arise in the workplace, according to Clement and Maddie Shannon-Roberts, executive membership secretary of the PEF Black Caucus.
More than 70 of the people at the workshop returned questionnaires detailing their own experiences and perceptions regarding diversity issues in the workplace.
The data from that survey is being tabulated and analyzed at SUNY Albany, and the results will be reported back to the PEF Black Caucus which hopes to work with SUNY to expand the survey. E-mail applejack@yahoo.com to participate.
The PEF Black Caucus also hopes to create a legislative report card so its members can see how state legislators have voted on diversity-related bills.
Both PEF and the PEF Black Caucus held receptions at the conference that were well attended and gave members the opportunity to speak to lawmakers about the issues.
