Organize
with CSEA
CSEA is 250,000 workers across New York standing together for fair pay, vital benefits, safer workplaces, and respect on the job. Whether your workplace is already represented or you’re looking to organize, you’re in the right place.
All information submitted to Organizing is confidential! We need some basic information to assist us in having an organizer reach out to you as soon as possible. If you’d prefer, you can call the CSEA Organizing Department at (800) 342- 4146 ext. 140 or text us at (716) 249-0806.
Don’t Agonize – Organize!
Win fair pay and benefits
Stand together to secure stronger wages and better benefits.
Improve safety and working conditions
Hold employers accountable for safer, fairer workplaces.
Gain Job Protection & Security
Contracts protect against unfair treatment and sudden rule changes.
Have a Real Voice on the Job
CSEA gives you power in the decisions that affect your work and life.
Building worker power
The time to act is now. More than ever, working families are under intense pressure just to get by. Wages are shrinking, and benefits are being stripped away. Without a union, management sets the rules—and can change them at any time without your input. Non-union workers have no real voice when it comes to their pay, benefits, or working conditions. Being union changes that. We stand together with a united voice on the job. One voice for many. By organizing a union, we gain the collective power and the support of CSEA needed to negotiate for real improvements, raising standards not only in our workplaces but throughout our communities. We know, despite what your employer says, the right to form a union is yours. It’s not management’s decision. When we come together and organize, we build strength and the influence to win.
Benefits of building a union
Unions are the only means for workers to deal with management on an equal basis. For more than a century, unions like CSEA have led the fight to win and protect the rights, benefits, and respect working people deserve. Union members earn 34 percent more than nonunion workers. More than 75 percent have employer-provided health coverage compared to less than half of nonunion workers, while 94 percent have a workplace retirement plan versus just 67 percent of nonunion workers having retirement. In the 10 states where unions are strongest, union members enjoy higher wages, better health care, safer communities, stronger schools, and less poverty than in states with the weakest union presence.
Organize a union with CSEA.
Become a Volunteer Member Organizer (VMO)
Volunteer Member Organizers (VMOs) make some of CSEA’s best organizers and are a critical part of helping our union grow. CSEA members can speak from personal experience about the strength, power and protection of their union. In these tough economic times, organizing the unorganized not only benefits new members with better working conditions, but it also raises standards for everyone, securing jobs and adding strength to CSEA during negotiations.
- For better contracts
- For our protection
- Because I believe in the labor movement
- For a better life
- Protect CSEA standards
- Make our union stronger
- Add to our political clout
How do we form a union?
Once you or a few of your coworkers have begun discussing the need for a voice on the job, contact CSEA Organizing. A staff organizer will meet with you to answer initial questions and begin developing an organizing plan as each workplace is different and strategy can differ greatly.
You and your coworkers are the union- therefore it’s critical to begin identifying leaders within your group who will work with the staff organizer to educate themselves and their co-workers about unionizing! The Organizing Committee is a representative group that will work together to talk to their co-workers, map networks of connection in the workplace, and identify supporters.
Once you have an Organizing Committee, you can begin talking to the rest of your co-workers to assess workplace issues and current levels of support for unionizing. The Organizing Committee will work with the staff organizer to strengthen the level of support at your workplace for the unionization drive.
We can’t win by organizing in secret. Once we have assessed that we have majority support in your workplace, we go public with our campaign and begin signing union cards. If you’re in the public sector, New York State will certify your union based only on majority support on union cards. If you work for a private organization, showing majority support on cards will trigger a union election. Sometimes, employers will launch an anti-union campaign. They may use tactics to try to discourage or prevent you from organizing a union or try to divide you and your co-workers to create conflict. In your public union campaign, the best defense to employer union-busting is strong and unified majority support coupled with a trusted, representative Organizing Committee.
It is your legally protected right to join CSEA, no matter how your employer feels about it. The Federal Government protects that right!
The National Labor Relations Act, Section 7:
“…employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection…”
Your employer legally, can’t interfere, intimidate or coerce workers. It is against the law!
The National Labor Relations Act, Section 8(a):
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer ‘to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7.’”
Workers joining together for a voice on the job, to build power in the workplace, to make change, ensure fairness and hold employers accountable.
As workers we organize unions to:
- Advocate for our rights:
Join together for a collective voice for you and your coworkers. Every worker has the right to respect and fairness on the job. - Build worker strength:
There is strength in numbers. You can enhance your strength and build real power by organizing with your coworkers and standing together to demand improvements in the workplace. - Maintain dignity on the job:
Standing TOGETHER you can use your power and influence to ensure that there is dignity and justice in the workplace for all workers. - Make improvements in pay and benefits:
It is a documented FACT that:
• Union members earn 34 percent more than non-union workers.
• More than 75 percent of union workers have health benefits, while less than half of non-union
workers have good health coverage.
• 94 percent of union workers have a retirement plan, while only 67 percent of non-union workers have
one. - Provide job protection:
With collective bargaining agreements, most union employees cannot be fired without “just cause.” This is unlike many nonunion workers who are considered “at-will” employees and can be fired at any time for almost any reason.
What benefits do I get from being a CSEA member?
The range of benefits and services CSEA provides provides security and peace of mind for members. Besides a contract and representation on the job, CSEA members get to have a say at work by voting in union elections and ratifying their contracts. And as a CSEA member, you are also entitled to the most comprehensive package of benefits and programs you can find anywhere, saving you money and helping to make life better, both on and off the job. With CSEA’s member only benefits, you can save money on insurance, mortgages, credit cards, major purchases and even legal matters and more.
What is AFSCME?
AFSCME is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. With more than 1.3 million members, AFSCME is the nation’s largest and most powerful public employee union. CSEA is its largest affiliate.
What benefits do we get from AFSCME?
CSEA’s affiliation with AFSCME gives us access to the International union’s numerous resources in such fields as research, negotiations, education and training, communications and health and safety. With AFSCME, CSEA has a lobbying voice on a national level in Washington D.C. and the political power of being part of a 1.3 million-member union.
CSEA has been listening, fighting for fairness, empowering workers and making a difference for over a century.
Leading the way in NY from the beginning, members stood to end the 72 hour work week in the early part of the 20th century and later established a groundbreaking Group Health insurance program that is still used as the model for many benefits today.
Ahead of our time, members also helped pass the Worksite Security Act, securing public buildings and worksites across NY, making us safer in the post 9/11 world.
Throughout our existence, CSEA has taken the fight for working men and women from the negotiating table to the steps of city hall, the state Capitol and Washington D.C. During these most recent economically turbulent and uncertain times, we have held our leaders, elected officials and members’ employers feet to the fire; holding them accountable for bad policy, misplaced budget priorities, privatization woes and erosion standards and averting thousands of layoffs with firm action.
Here is just a sample of some of CSEA’s many accomplishments during the past 100 years.
- Abolished the 72-hour work week for institutional employees.
- Won sick leave for Public Sector employees.
- Established state salary plan.
- Brought local governments into the Civil Service merit system.
- Established the state Health Insurance Plan.
- Gained right to disciplinary hearings for competitive class employees.
- Established grievance procedures for local government workers.
- Helped bring about the Taylor Law.
- Addressed comparable worth, childcare initiatives and equality in the workplace.
- Public Employee Safety and Health Act.
- Fought for work site protections for ALL workers.
- Landmark video display terminals and ergonomics standards.
- Organizing private sector workers.
- Fought contracting out of public services.
- Stopped Internal Revenue Service tax on sick leave and vacation.
- Established Employee Benefit Fund for dental, vision and prescription drug coverage.
- Stopped raids on pension funds.
- Sweeping pension reform, including a permanent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for retirees.
- Fighting for fair and responsible budgets, affordable prescription drug coverage, preserving quality
health care and improving public education. - Helped establish the New York State Retirement System and first state employee Credit Union.
- Successfully changed laws to allow organizing of unconventional workers like Home Based
Childcare providers.
CSEA supports the principle that there is dignity in all work and that every worker has the inalienable right to join with co-workers and form a union. We advocate for workers’ rights, recognize that there is strength in numbers, hold employers accountable, will commit the necessary resources to organizing and we support all AFL-CIO affiliates’ organizing efforts.
Advocate Workers’ Rights: We are a voice for workers to affect the balance between the employers’ expectations and the worker’s right to respect and fairness. We advocate for all workers, leveling the playing field between working people and the corporate interests which control America’s wealth, often at the expense of America’s workers.
Strength in numbers: We enhance our strength by organizing the unorganized as well as affiliating independent worker organizations into the CSEA family.
Hold employers accountable: We use our power and influence to ensure that employers are held accountable for their actions. We use that same power to ensure that there is dignity and justice in the workplace for those providing services and that quality care is available for everyone, including those unable to care for themselves.
Commit necessary resources to organizing: We will commit the necessary resources at National, State, Local and Unit levels to fully implement our overall organizing agenda.