Page 8 - Work Force December 2020

Rising to Meet the Challenges:
Finding new ways to do union business
Adapt, Adjust and stay Active. These were the “three As” that defined CSEA during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the union moved quickly to adjust the ways to do business.
At the recent, first-ever virtual Annual Delegates Meeting, CSEA officers, activists and staff discussed their experiences and challenges with communicating and engaging with members during the pandemic through technology and creative means.
“It’s been quite an adventure since [the CSEA statewide officers] took office on March 1,” CSEA President Mary
E. Sullivan said
on the opening
session video. “No
one expected what
happened. I have to say that I’m very proud of my union. The leadership and staff stepped up and we barely missed a beat. We have been going at 110 percent since [the pandemic began].”
Valuable tool
During the pandemic’s early days, information was changing quickly and in turn, CSEA needed to get information out to members rapidly.
“One of the most important challenges we face is communicating
with the members,” Sullivan said. “We are a member-run union and if members are not aware of what’s going on, we will never reach our full potential.”
Beginning in April, Sullivan worked with CSEA’s Communications Department to send out a weekly leadership information email to officers and activists to share with members.
“Due to rapidly changing information due to the virus,
these regular updates were really important to do,” said CSEA Director of Communications Mark M. Kotzin. “We kept our focus on issues that are most important to everyone. Email blasts [from CSEA] are much more common now. We are blasting like never before.”
For CSEA Department of Motor Vehicles (New York City) Unit President Dawn Destine, the leadership email proved to be valuable for sharing important news and resources, particularly when New York was at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Destine said she shares the information in the leadership emails with members via a unit web page and email blasts almost as soon as she receives the information.
“At a time when we can’t always gather in person, the leadership email serves as a valuable tool, not only for sharing information and resources but for staying connected
to each other,”
said Destine.
“The weekly
leadership email
allows us to easily
share current
information with
members while
reminding us that
we are all in this
together. [Through
the email, Sullivan] reminds us that knowledge is power. I love hearing from [Sullivan] every week and love staying connected.”
Social media helps influence results
CSEA’s increased use of digital communications has also led the union,
working
with our International union, AFSCME, to move much of its advertising onto digital platforms, which allowed our union’s messaging to more directly target desired audiences.
CSEA
recently took
advantage of
this during
the union’s
initiative to
urge Congress
to approve
unrestricted
federal aid to states and local governments in the wake of the pandemic.
“We have effectively become our own mass media channel,” Kotzin said.
Digital platforms, including social media, are also being used to help influence decision-makers.
At the height of the pandemic earlier this year, City of Long Beach officials announced layoffs of 22 employees, all CSEA members and mostly women and non-Caucasian employees.
The City of Long Beach Unit fought back, largely through the use of social media, emails and letters to elected officials. The union also filed a class-action grievance on behalf
of the affected workers and worked with city officials to balance the budget. (See Page 13 for more.)
Safer member engagement
Due to social distancing, CSEA had canceled most of the union’s in-person meetings and events this
Sullivan
year, but the union has
still managed to complete important business this year, including drive-through contract ratifications and the first- ever virtual Annual Delegates Meeting.
CSEA Director of Member Engagement Adam Acquario credits our union’s recent member engagement
efforts for being able to adapt quickly to the pandemic.
“If we hadn’t done [member engagement efforts] over the past four years, we may not have not gotten through [the pandemic],” he said. “In the beginning [of the pandemic], we received hundreds of calls from members who were
A sample of one of the leadership emails.
8 The Work Force
December 2020
Destine
The Long Island Region combined the region information day with a Safe@School event for the Nassau Educational Local. In photo. CSEA Nassau Educational Local President Monica Berkowitz shares COVID-19 prevention information with a driver.