Page 12 - Work Force March 2021

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: CELEBRATING UNION WOMEN
Green: ‘I knew I could help people’
BROOKLYN — A fourth-grade bully prepared Althea Green for the labor movement.
After several
run-ins with the
bully, Green’s
parents were
summoned to
school for a
meeting, where
the bully accused Green of being the leader of a gang.
“Now that I’m older, I guess
[the bully] was right,” said Green, president of CSEA’s SUNY Downstate Local. “I’m the leader of a gang. A union gang.”
It’s a gang and an experience that she wouldn’t trade for anything or anyone. That became clear during some of the darkest moments of
her life, including last year at the height of the pandemic in New York City, when Green was infected by COVID-19 and hospitalized at the hospital where she’s worked for 33
years.
“Don’t underestimate your
colleagues,” said Green. “You may hear rumors, but when you are in the position I was in, these folks came and prayed for me and for my recovery. They brought me food and tried to give me all their energy so I could recover. I can’t ever say anything [negative] about my co-workers.”
Green started her career as
a nursing station clerk and rose steadily to other departments, including the Coronary Care Unit (CCU), Maternity Unit and the emergency room. All the while, she cultivated relationships with co- workers and management.
“It all begins with respecting each other,” said Green. “It takes perseverance, but if we talk to each other like human beings and not [angry] pit bulls, we can get a lot done.”
That demeanor led Green to become active with the union when she was denied a medical leave. She
not only fought back and won, she decided to become a shop steward and took classes to better represent her co-workers.
“To be honest, I wasn’t overzealous to do it (become an activist),” said Green. “But, I knew I could help people.”
She’s helped plenty of members over the years without tooting
her own horn, including several plumbers who had been suspended for nine months after being falsely accused of theft. They got their jobs back and were made whole.
“A lot of people may think that I don’t anything because I don’t make a lot of noise when I do,” said Green. “I do my best.”
As a Black woman, Green said she’s encountered men who have not taken her as seriously or respected her as a professional and leader. It’s something she would never tolerate.
“If I approach you in a professional matter, I expect the same,” said Green. “They try to minimize me and I don’t like that.”
and the district was not, that didn’t stop Condon and her co-workers from pushing for parity.
“Two contracts in a row, we negotiated [significant] raises for all three years of the contract,” said Condon.
Quickly realizing the clout that comes with unionism and the importance of union endorsements, Condon has been a member of the Southern Region Political Action Committee for 40 years.
Condon, an Ireland native, said she has also enjoyed the friendships and camaraderie that has come with her activism, both as an active member and later as a retiree.
She urged members nearing
As an immigrant from Guatemala who only spoke Spanish when she started first grade, Green said one of the women she most admired was her first-grade teacher.
“Mrs. Lucas was this woman who looked like a Barbie doll,” said Green. “She was skinny, had blue eyes and blonde hair and she persevered with me. I didn’t know English at all and
it was frustrating, but she helped
me through it to the point that I was reading above grade level.”
A mother of two sons who lives in Brooklyn, Green admitted that she was also over the moon about the election of Kamala Harris as Vice President.
“I did wear my pearls (while watching the inauguration),”
said Green, referring to Harris’ wearing pearls as a tribute to her membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. “I am proud that the U.S. is finally seeing that a woman can do the job.”
— David Galarza
retirement to join a CSEA retiree local, both as a way to stay active in the union and maintain connections with former co-workers.
For Condon, Women’s History Month is a reminder that there is an equal place for women in our union.
“I’ve always felt I had an equal voice as a woman in CSEA,”
said Condon. “I served on a lot
of committees over the years, chairing some of them, and I always remember women being active members and leaders. That isn’t the case in every organization, but a woman can have an equal voice in the union.”
— Jessica Ladlee
Green
Pay battle made Condon realize union clout
WAPPINGERS
FALLS — It
isn’t always
easy balancing
motherhood and
union activism, but Dutchess-Putnam
Retirees Local
President Norma
Condon is proof
that not only can a
woman do it, she can do it well.
Once her daughter entered kindergarten in the 1970s, Condon took a job as a clerical worker at
the Wappingers Central School District. Soon, she became CSEA unit president. Condon later served in numerous leadership roles, including
Dutchess County Education Local president, Board of Directors and most recently Dutchess-Putnam Retirees Local President.
When she began working at the school district, workers there were underpaid, something Condon was ready to address at the bargaining table.
“Somebody said to me, ‘Well, what do the clerical workers want?’ and I said, ‘Well, we would like to be paid the same as the IBM clericals,’” said Condon, referring to the nearby computer plant that was then the primary employer in Dutchess County.
While district officials pointed out that IBM was a profit-driven business
12 The Work Force
March 2021
Condon