Texas

San Antonio — Read About Our City Employees Campaign Here.

DALLAS

Public School Employees

Stewards:
Jeraldine Willoughby
214-905-1210 Kitchen worker,
Dallas Public Schools

John Verrett
214-375-3634 Janitor,
Richardson School District

Regular meetings:

Dallas Public School members:
3rd Saturdays, call for time & place
Dallas County Schools:
2nd Saturdays, call for time & place
Head Start of Greater Dallas:
every other Saturday, call for time & place.

Dallas Campaigns:

Dallas Public Schools:

People who work 9 months a year for the Dallas Public Schools, such as the kitchen workers, do not get any paid holidays or vacation days. The don’t get paid for days when school is in session, but the students aren’t there such as parent-teacher conferences, staff development days, fair days, and so forth. This is too many days to be off without pay. This is wrong.

We are doing a signature drive to present to Superintendent Rojas in April asking for 13 paid holidays during each school year.

If you want to help or join in our effort, call Local 100 in Dallas at 214-823-2001. Together we can make this happen.

Dallas Head Start:

In March of this year the Dallas office of Local 100 began following up on inquiries from employees of Head Start of Greater Dallas. People had been asking about forming a union. We began talking to Head Start workers as they were coming and going to work. We also visited those who had signed petitions to stop cuts in federal funding that we had gotten signed earlier.

Employees that Local 100 met with were angry. They felt that they were being pushed to the wall by a variety of issues including:

Low pay
Increased stress
Requirements that employees acquire more training without being paid for it
Reduced sick time
Favoritism
Bad management

Employees were sick and tired of all of these things and they wanted to do something about it.

Because workers were organizing and showing that they wanted to have a voice on the job, the director of the agency sent out a letter, which was intended to frighten the workers out of joining the union. The letter included a number of lies about high union dues, high paid organizers and Head Start workers in Houston losing their jobs. Local 100 members knew these things were a lie: they know that Local 100 dues are
voted on by the members and are currently $13-25/month, they know that organizers work for the members and aren’t paid all that well, and that in Houston the management of Head Start was doing such a bad
job that the agency had to be broken up and that Local 100 is still working with all of our members there.

Local 100 members knew the truth, but they have had to spend a lot of time working with nonmembers who thought management was telling the truth. The drive is still moving forward through the determination of the workers talking to other workers.

Head Start employees in Dallas could not be silenced by management. Employees attended the first organizing committee meeting on May 1, 1999. Within two (2) weeks they had signed up 25 coworkers and had reached into eleven (11) of the 33 centers. On July 10, a group of workers met for a potluck lunch and met with Local 100 Head Start members from Houston. There are plans underway now to sign up enough
workers during the first part of school to file for an election and get people the union protection and voice that they deserve.