Pioneers of the Past, A Brief History of AFSCME Council 6
By Tom O'Connell and Don J. Dinndorf
AFSCME Council 6 continued strong growth in the 1980's and
1990's, spurred by aggressive internal organizing whole new units of
public workers at the University of Minnesota. Workers at the
University were the last great frontier for Council 6, the last large
group of public employees not yet unionized as the 1980's began.
Local 1164, the employees of the University of Minnesota Hospital,
had been a part of Council 6 since 1970, but clerical, technical, and
professional workers were without union representation. Those 7,000
workers were becoming increasingly aware of the benefits the hospital
workers reaped from AFSCME representation as the 1980's began, and in
February of 1982, a group known as CUE (Concerned University Employees)
recommended AFSCME as the union to conduct an organizing campaign with
for clerical employees.
CUE's recommendation was overwhelmingly adopted by its 150 members
at the group's March 17th meeting. 82% voted for AFSCME as the union
to organize clerical workers over the Teamsters, the Minnesota School
Employees Association, and Service Employees International. A campaign
began to take shape that spring and summer for Council 6 to organize
the Clerical employees of the University of Minnesota.
The campaign took off like a shot. By December of 1982,
authorization cards were being circulated among University clerical
workers throughout the state by enthusiastic organizers. Bringing the
3,2000 member unit into the AFSCME fold seemed like only a matter of
time, and likely a short time at that. Council 6 and AFSCME
International lent resources and staff to the growing campaign. Some
thought they had enough cards for an election in two months. But
ironically, clerical workers at the University of Minnesota Hospital,
where hundreds of their fellow workers were AFSCME members, fell short
ofthe necessary 30 percent return to file.
It would be over six years before the campaign would begin again.
In the summer of 1989, growing discontent among non-unionized civil
service workers at the University reached a high point. AFSCME-
represented workers received a 5 percent pay increase while
non-represented workers got just 4 percent. Evelyn Mikes, who had been
named Area Office Director six months earlier, said, "That's when the
calls and letters really started coming in."
Gladys McKenzie, a former University employee who served as
volunteer organizer during the 1982 campaign, was hired as part of a
second effort. "People are tired of being short-changed," she said
then. "They feel nobody is listening to them and they want a voice."
In January of 1990, AFSCME opened an organizing office in Dinkytown,
near the University's main campus in Minneapolis. Authorization cards
steadily came in, and scores of workers came forward to assist the
effort as volunteers. The effort's profile became higher and higher,
as AFSCME shirts, buttons and posters with the slogan "This University
Works Because We Do" became ubiquitous across the campuses. There were
phone banks, informational meetings, an advertising campaign, and
perhaps most valuable of all, one-on-one meetings between organizers
and workers throughout the system.
On August 7, 1990, AFSCME filed for an election among the nearly
3,200 clerical workers of the University of Minnesota. The organizing
committee alone had now grown to over 300 members. After a vigorous six
months, the election took place on February 20, 1991. The University of
Minnesota clerical workers overwhelmingly voted AFSCME. The election
drew to a close one of the largest public employee organizing drives in
state history.