WHEREAS:

The top priority of this International Union is organizing; and

WHEREAS:

Because it has been made a priority, AFSCME has continued to grow, even while the climate for unionism has grown hostile and most other unions lost ground; and

WHEREAS:

AFSCME's recent successes have come in a wide variety of fields, ranging from state workers in Alaska, Nebraska and New Mexico, county and municipal workers in 30 states, private-sector health care workers in California, Pennsylvania, Oregon and elsewhere, to university workers at Harvard, proving that our organizing program is widely applicable.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME will organize unorganized workers in all the following arenas:

1. Unorganized public workers and non-profit workers of all kinds in states with bargaining laws.
2. In jurisdictions where we have worked to secure the adoption of new public employee bargaining laws, ordinances and executive orders and, where such legal developments are still far in the future, in our local unions to provide a means both for mutual aid in the interim and political strength for the inevitable legal victory.
3. In private hospitals and nursing homes, even in the face of NLRB roadblocks, and with the intention to redouble our efforts once the appropriate unit rules, now held up in the courts by the American Hospital Association, are cleared. In particular, we will take advantage of the launching of AFSCME's United Nurses of America to organize RNs and LPN/LVNS.
4. In universities, deriving inspiration from and adapting the lessons learned by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, AFSCME Local 3650.
5. Wherever privatization has hit, in group homes for the mentally disabled, private school bus companies, private solid waste disposal companies, or private prisons, to follow our work and those workers.

SUBMITTED BY:

International Executive Board