Building Solidarity and Women’s History: March 2024
In this issue:
- Uniting for a City That Works for All New Yorkers
- Organize, Fight, Win
- Bargaining update: Bargaining Survey
- Join Us: AFSCME International Convention
- Leaders Building Leaders: Labor Notes + Local 768
- Member Spotlight: Education + Citizenship
- Join Us: April 10 Membership Meeting
- Contribute! Share your story
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Building Solidarity and Women’s History: March 2024
In this issue:
- Uniting for a City That Works for All New Yorkers
- Organize, Fight, Win
- Bargaining update: Bargaining Survey
- Join Us: AFSCME International Convention
- Leaders Building Leaders: Labor Notes + Local 768
- Member Spotlight: Education + Citizenship
- Join Us: April 10 Membership Meeting
- Contribute! Share your story
Uniting for a City That Works for All New Yorkers
Welcome new members. Congratulations on your new job, and welcome to DC37 and Local 768, your union. Our service to New York City and the work done every day by all of you with your coworkers is invaluable. The work continues as union members for your coworkers and you, in building strength and unity in your workplace and across our union. The local leadership recognizes and appreciates all of this, as members take on all of these roles in addition to our personal lives.
Members organizing and developing strong relationships with coworkers builds strength in the workplace. Management counts on us not to know the contract. Our work to educate our coworkers makes our union run, and helps us win justice for our members. Public Health Advisors and Assistants won year round health insurance, including the summer, and, along with the local, are working for a more streamlined process. This work could not have been done without our members.
As a union, we have a long history of fighting for migrant rights in our streets and communities, like Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride, and Day Without Immigrants, Día Sin Inmigrantes, in 2006. As members of DC 37 Local 768, we work in our union and in our jobs to build a fair, just, and equitable city that works for all New Yorkers. No matter where we come from, we work towards inclusion for all. Many members have parents, and grandparents who arrived in this country, worked low wage jobs, and helped to organize unions so they and future generations would be able to afford to go to college and secure citizenship.
Today our union helps provide access to education and citizenship. We fight and advocate for funding and the rights for all New Yorkers, whether here for generations, or newly arrived to have access to high quality public healthcare, quality schools from pre-K to college, safe drinking water, quality libraries and more.
Our union is how we collaborate to strengthen our collective power at work, and protect and care for all members, and all New Yorkers. Have questions about our contract? Ideas? Concerns? Contact us. We look forward to hearing from you. Let us all continue the work as members of OUR Union.
Carmen De León, President and Local 768 Leadership Team, DC37, AFSCME
Organize, Fight, Win
Happy Women’s History Month! Want to read first hand dispatches of Black women building collective power in the fight for liberation? Check out Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women's Political Writing. Edited by Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean, Organize Fight Win includes writings from 1925 to 1986, covering labor and union organizing, fighting fascism, and winning peace. Bonus: check out her new book, too, Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States.
Happy National Social Work Month to our social work members! Tell us: what do you love about your work? What keeps you inspired? What do you want to organize with your coworkers to change? Email [email protected], and check out this toolkit from NASW for some examples.
In December 2023, Local 768’s Social Work Chapter joined a coalition of labor groups calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and now AFSCME has called for a ceasefire as well. Chapter Chair Karen Ramirez facilitated a chapter meeting of social workers where the original resolution was rescinded. The Chapter will continue to work as it considers changes to the text. We work together for change in the workplace and in our local.
Bargaining Update: Bargaining Survey
What do you want to win together with your coworkers to build our strength and unity and improve our jobs? Thank you for sharing your ideas with our Bargaining Committee. Check out our bargaining committee survey to rank everyone’s priorities for unit bargaining in the next month.
Join Us: AFSCME International Convention
We’ll elect delegates representing Local 768 at AFSCME’s International Convention, August 12-16, in Los Angeles, California. Conventions are a great opportunity to participate in making resolutions, and build a stronger, more united labor movement. Stay tuned for nominations coming this spring.
Leaders Building Leaders: Labor Notes + Local 768
A few members of Local 768 will join union activists and reformers for inspiration, education, and agitation at the 2024 Labor Notes Conference. Registration was closed early due to record interest, so many of our activists who wanted to attend won’t be able to go in person. However, many sessions throughout the weekend will be broadcast online for free through Labor Notes social media channels. We’ll also host a conversation to share what we’ve learned with everyone when we return.
Member Spotlight: Education & Citizenship
Interested in DC 37 Education Fund Classes? The DC 37 Education Fund will cover tuition for 4 courses (up to 16 credits where applicable) in certificate and degree programs at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels, excluding books and a one-time application fee required by CUNY. Learn more and apply HERE. For more information, please call: 212-815-1700. Want to become a US Citizen? DC37 MELS Citizenship Program can help. Call MELS Screening at 212-815-1111 or email [email protected].
April 10: Join Us
Join us for our April membership meeting: April 10 at 7pm, on zoom. RSVP for link: https://www.local768.net/april10
Contribute! Share your story!
Want to contribute to the next Local 768 Newsletter? Share your photos, your writing, your poetry, your drawings, your comics, cartoons, etc. Email [email protected] with your draft or idea or share at
Thank you!
Photo of Ogechi Ogwo-Ndukwe
Join us on April 10, 7 pm, https://www.local768.net/april10 for our next member meeting.
Our Local has a members-only moderated group chat to communicate announcements and updates to members using Slack. It's also a place for member discussion and to share union resources. Join here. LIKE us on Facebook (@local768) | VISIT us at Local768.net
