Score one for unions in Washington

From The Seattle Times Oct. 2:

School-union leaders approve alliance
The board of the Public School Employees union voted yesterday to affiliate with the Services Employees International Union, forming the largest union in Washington.

If, as expected, delegates at a PSE convention in December approve the deal, the new union will include about 86,000 members.

PSE represents bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries and other nonteachers at public schools in Washington. SEIU already represents about 4,000 classified school employees, as well as home health-care workers and custodians, and it is now working to organize day-care workers.

"I think our members will be big winners in this," said PSE President George Dockins.

The vote yesterday was 15-0.

PSE has lost about 1,100 members over the past year, the bulk of those being recruited away by the Teamsters.

PSE communications director Rick Chisa said PSE will become a local union of SEIU "while preserving our current structure and governance."

I was a four-year member of the Public School Employees of Washington, when I was a printer's assistant at the school district print shop in Ellensburg. It is the second banana of education unions in the state, far behind the Washington Education Association in influence, prominence and membership. One of its problems is the varied interests of its members -- grouped together because of their non-teaching roles. However, the bus drivers sometimes have conflicting interests with the secretaries or paraeducators or custodians. At least they have more in common with fellow classified employees in their own union. The WEA also represents some classified employees -- "education support personnel" in union parlance.

Now, the PSE folks will be part of the larger SEIU, itself working to make an identity since breaking away from the AFL-CIO. I wish the classified employees well in their new alliance. We're all stronger with healthy unions, and the SEIU is a longtime friend to education and to the WEA. I hope that relationship blossoms even more.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.