Pride at Work to battle workplace discrimination

Pride at Work to battle workplace discrimination
By SHERRY HALBROOK
This fall, Tom Privitere, PEF’s director of field services in western New York, and other local activists in the Rochester area formed the Rochester-Finger Lakes Chapter of Pride at Work.

Pride at Work (PAW) is a constituency group of the AFL-CIO that mobilizes mutual support in the organized labor movement and the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community to achieve social and economic justice for all workers.

In 1993, Privitere and PEF member Vivienne Freund of New York City helped convince AFL-CIO leaders of the need to recognize such constituency groups to fight workplace discrimination.

Currently, PAW is working to get gender-identity language restored to the national Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which was passed by the House of Representatives in early November. The bill was meant to end workplace discrimination for lesbians, gays and bi-sexuals but falls far short in its present form.

“Through our new Rochester-Fingerlakes Chapter, we will work to create a strong, unified labor movement that cherishes diversity, encourages openness, and ensures safety and dignity,” Privitere said.

“Our goal is to educate people in the LGBT community about the benefits of union membership for them and other working people, and to build support and solidarity in the union movement.

“Efforts like these go well beyond our issues. If it weren’t for the efforts then of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of PEF, we wouldn’t have received domestic partner benefits in 1995 in the PS&T contract,” Privitere said.

Those benefits, he said, are used by more unmarried heterosexual couples, than by LGBT members. For instance, in March 2007, 3,494 state employees were using domestic-partner benefits – less than 1 percent of the 373,158 enrollees in the state health plan. Just 863 of those using the domestic partner benefits were covering same-sex partners.

Privitere said anyone, including people who don’t belong to a union, can join PAW.

For more information about joining or forming a PAW chapter in your area, contact Privitere at tprivitere@pef.org or go online to www.prideatwork.org.