By SHERRY HALBROOK
While negotiating a contract is the first and best recognized function of a labor union, the enforcement of that contract is equally important and every bit as challenging.
The union’s stewards are the contract’s first line of defense and key to all of the union’s mobilization efforts.

That’s why stewards need the best training they can get, and why PEF Region 8 has been offering its stewards a series of advanced training courses.
Instead of holding a weekend training conference as many others do, PEF Region 8 Coordinator Jeff Satz said he has found the series of afternoon training sessions spread out over the year seem to work better in the Albany area.

“Our stewards use their own leave time to take this training,” Satz said. “It’s been very well attended and we’ve even had stewards come in from other regions to take the training with them.”
Satz and PEF Director of Labor Relations Roger Scales developed the plan for advanced training which began last September with a session on the state Taylor Law.
It was followed in October by a workshop on creative problem solving. In November, they tackled civil service issues. They skipped December and began the new year with political-action training in January.

A session on how to deal with counseling memos and prosecute out-of-title grievances was offered in March. April brought a workshop on responding to notices of discipline, while mobilization and non-legal tactics will be the topic in early May.
“We’ve been focusing on nuts-and-bolts training where we have the expertise in house teach the course,” Satz said.
“PEF’s Statewide Education and Training Committee has been reviewing the union’s steward training program,” Scales said. “Meanwhile, we are piloting this advanced training in Region 8. Judging from the response, I would say there is a real need for it.”

Scales said he sees a number of special factors which make Region 8 the ideal place to try out the training modules in the present weekday format.
“We’re lucky here in Albany to have the resources available to teach these courses; we have about 100 staff right here in this building,” Scales said.
By holding the courses at PEF headquarters during the workday, staff are easily available to teach the courses, Scales said.
But the weekday training concept would not transplant well to many other regions, Scales said.

“I think it works here,” he said, “because so many Region 8 members are in administrative positions and have more flexibility about using leave during the week. I doubt that it could work in regions where most members work in state facilities such as prisons or hospitals.”
Satz said Region 8 has approximately 350 stewards and they definitely respond better to weekday programs at headquarters than to proposals for off-site Saturday training.
But wherever it’s held, both men see the training paying big dividends.

“It empowers the stewards if they can deal with interrogations and grievances. And the confidence and respect that gives them empowers them to head off potential problems before they get to be grievable actions,” Scales said.

“We are also teaching them to lobby, which is especially valuable in Region 8 where many of them work within walking distance of the state Legislature,” he continued.
“In May, we will teach them how to mobilize and use new tactics for dealing with certain situations,” Scales added. “We will teach them why and how to develop charts to match their mobilizers with their targets and build a network that connects the mobilizers back to the stewards and the stewards to the council leader.”
Satz said he sees training as an investment. “Good training brings a good return, especially with the organizing/mobilizing model. When people know more, they can do more.”
That would be true at any time, Satz said, but PEF has an especially urgent need to make that investment now.

“We’re losing a lot of good, experienced people to retirement, promotions and the private sector,” he said. “We have to bring new people into steward and leadership roles and train them. We need a group of stewards who are educated and confident enough to write and prosecute grievances. That will free PEF staff to deal with the more complex issues.”

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