According to PEF Secretary-Treasurer Joe Donahue, membership numbers continue to decline. Donahue said PEF will continue to look at ways to increase those numbers, including hiring two new organizers.
“For the 2021-22 budget year, membership was estimated at 50,000,” he said. “These rates have continued to decline throughout the fiscal year, leading to a conservative estimate of 47,000 members for the 2022-23 fiscal year.”
PEF will hold a membership “blitz” in Albany, knocking on doors and engaging with potential members face-to-face.
“A blitz is a mobilization effort to reengage members of the union and to do it in a very personal, one-on-one, way,” said PEF Director of Organizing Dan Carpenter. “The last time we did this, in 2017, there was an 18-person team broken into six teams that went and visited 27 different worksites in a week. They knocked on 1,300 doors and had one-on-one conversations with members across Region 8.”
PEF organizers participated in other union blitzes in Alaska, Montana and Colorado, Carpenter said. Now is the time to bring the blitz back to PEF, since new hires have to opt in to union membership after the Janus decision and reaching them has been difficult.
“During COVID we lost the ability to hold in-person traditional onboarding,” Carpenter said. “A number of people fell through the cracks. We are taking the opportunity to work with AFT. They bring 18 members from across the nation and we’re going to bring 18 staff and members and we are going to do this all over again. The goal is to knock on 1,000 doors and hold 50 to 55 worksite meetings in a week.”
Carpenter said the team hopes to reach at least the 500 full-time hires who are not currently in the union. The blitz will take place April 24-29, 2022. This is just the first blitz. PEF plans to use it as a model to hold mini-blitzes around the state.
In a major victory for First Amendment rights in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that government workers cannot be required to pay union fees as a condition of working in public service.
In other words, NYS Parole Officers can stop paying PEF union dues and still enjoy many of the benefits of union representation without having to pay for them.
If you are not satisfied with PEF and agree that Parole Officers should be represented by NYSCOPBA, please opt out using the link below.
https://newchoiceny.com/opt-out-today/
In solidarity,
New York State Parole Officers