A message from Brian Olsen, AFSCME Council 7 Executive Director:
AFSCME/CEC 7 is committed to increasing pay and better working conditions for all correctional employees, including UTMB and Texas Tech managed health care employees as well as Windham School District employees. Not only do we lobby and attend labor management meeting for all these groups but we also represent them on an as needed basis. We have ten locals across the State and we have been doing business with the correctional officers since 1991 with a great track record to prove it. There are many other groups, associations, and coalitions, but AFSCME has been the spear head and guiding force behind real change for the correctional employees. In 1999 we started a more radical approach to getting our point across and it has worked. Sadly, we lost a good friend and member along the way, my friend Daniel Nagle. Daniel was at the forefront of making changes for all correctional employees. He lost his life, in the line of duty, just days after our December 4th march in Austin. All of our lives have changed since that fateful day. We've continued with numerous rallies, marches, and vigils across Texas for months, pressuring the State to give the interim pay raise. I was told that AFSCME/CEC 7 had people worried. That was what we were looking for and and it worked. Although we did not get the special Legislative Session we had hoped for we did gather National attention to our plight. Our Professional Respect Now Campaign gathered more momentum as the year 2000 progressed and we were able to deliver in the 77th Legislative Session. The 8 year career ladder was our brain child and we made it happen, as was HB 3185. Now we will move forward with our 2003 agenda which is tied to what he had accomplished this session.
1.) Continue to professionalize the agency.
2.) Hazardous Duty pay increase.
3.) Additional steps in the career ladder.
4.) C.O.L.A. adjustments.
5.) Meet and confer rights.
6.) Grievance procedure arbitration.
7.) Schedule D classification for correctional officers.
As you can see we have a big job ahead of us. Change does not come without a price, change does not come without sacrifice. Join us in our endeavor to constitute real change in TDCJ. Call 1-800-374-9772 for further information.
Letter from State Representative Robert Turner Letter from House of Representatives, Alan Ritter
Texas Governor Disappoints Ellis
With
all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization
of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for
education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in
man, than any other association of men.
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), U.S. lawyer, writer. The Railroad Trainman (Nov.
1909)
AFSCME/CEC
7
3011 11th Street, Suite 304
Huntsville, TX 77340
1-800-374-9772
Fax: 1-409-295-5853
Email
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