Meet Four ‘Hearts of the Movement’

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/04/meet-four-hearts-of-movement/

by James Parks, May 4, 2008

The success and strength of the union movement derives from the hard work of rank-and-file members whose dedication to improving the lives of America’s workers is manifest in their daily actions and in willingness to go above the call of duty. At the AFL-CIO Heart of the Movement, we recognize some of these heroes of the union movement. Here are four union members we’ve recently profiled. You can click here to read all the stories of these and other Hearts of the Movement.

* George Calko, in his late 20s, is part of the future of the union movement. A member of the Steelworkers (USW), he is an organizer in his home state of Ohio for the Blue-Green Alliance, a partnership between the USW and the Sierra Club, which recently launched campaigns for green jobs and joined with Nobel winner Al Gore in the search for a solution to global warming. Calko says the connection between labor and environmentalists makes perfect sense. “We’re going to have green jobs, or we’ll have no jobs at all,” he says. “And we want clean cities and a healthy environment to raise our children.”


George Calko


* Todd Towns, a ramp agent at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport and a member of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), is intensely involved in political mobilization because he sees how elections affect his family, his job and his union. In the 2006 elections, working with TWU and the Nevada State AFL-CIO, he put in long hours recruiting volunteers, getting in touch with campaign workers, organizing phone banks and precinct walks, putting together leaflets and planning get-out-the-vote efforts on election days. Towns is especially concerned about overseas outsourcing, saying, “It’s like everyone’s job here is in jeopardy somehow.”

* Castulo Benavides literally risks his life every day to help workers in the global economy achieve a better life. Benavides is in charge of the Monterrey, Mexico, office of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which represents mostly Mexican migrant workers who harvest crops mainly in Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina. He fights for workers’ rights on both sides of the border at great personal risk. Benavides’ co-worker, Santiago Rafael Cruz, was tortured and murdered in FLOC’s Monterrey office last year. But Benavides, a former farm worker himself, says the risk is worth it to make a difference in these workers’ lives. “We have to be united to get fair working conditions. You have more power to make the changes you want.”


Castulo Benavides

* For Andre Wilson, reaching out to new groups to join the union movement is the key to change and growth. A union activist in Ann Arbor, Mich., for 30 years, Wilson was the first openly transgender person to head a contract negotiating team for a local union—AFT Local 3550, better known as the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) at the University of Michigan. Wilson also works inside the union movement, including in the AFL-CIO’s constituency group, Pride at Work, bringing the union message to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LBGT) community. Says Wilson: “Somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of all workers in this country are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and nearly every worker has an LGBT family member. There isn’t a single worker in this country that we can write off. If we ever do that, we lose our union movement.”