(Left to right from back row: Jose Rios, Mack Middleton, Etric Betts, David Etheridge -- Director of City of Dallas Human Resources Department, Elaee Thompson, Joe Jimenez, Rene Alcantar, (next row) Maria Arroyo, Mireya Cossio, Steve Jackson, Leon Hobbs).

Members advocating to protect their jobs and get a 2% base pay increase pays off for Dallas SEIU members.

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, and one of the City's worst budget years ever, the City of Dallas announced that there would be sweeping layoffs of over 800 civilian employees and no civilian pay increases, even for performance. However, despite the economy, SEIU members advocated for eight months to raise the standards for four SEIU job classifications, with a 2% base pay increase and to protect their jobs.

The result: No layoffs of SEIU members! Employees within the following SEIU job classifications also received a 2% base pay increase on October 1st: Crew Leaders, Equipment Operators, Laborers, and Truck Drivers.

This victory can be traced back to March meeting with City Manager Mary Suhm, during which she met with SEIU members and leaders to discuss possible ways to raise the compensation standards for the four job classifications mentioned above. In the following months, the SEIU Team continued to advocate for the raise for several months--ultimately making the case for the base pay increase.

To date, SEIU members have been able to make positive improvements in two out of two past budgets. They're now preparing for the new budget, for which they'll begin advocating this coming January for compensating employees for their years of service.

Calling all Texans: SEIU members in Dallas are organizing for positive change every day. Now's the time for all Dallas city employees to join the winning team! Click here to download the membership card to become a member of SEIU Texas. Once you have completed the form, call 214.823.1409 to have somebody pick up your completed membership card.

To learn more about this year's 2% pay increase, plans for next year, and how to attend SEIU Texas's last general membership meeting of 2009, visit www.seiutx.org

In honor of Labor Day, a new website from the Ash Institute at Harvard's Kennedy School that highlights the best innovations from across the public sector published a column by SEIU President Andy Stern. In his piece, Stern shares his view on how those working in the public sector can make a positive difference in promoting transparency and cost-effectiveness:

Making Government Cool Again

In the final stretch of his campaign, President Obama, speaking at a forum on national service at Columbia University, said he wanted to "make government cool again."

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) appreciates that sentiment. Obama's words made a lot of us take notice because we've come to expect people, especially politicians, to rail against government.

That wasn't always the case.

Many in my parents' generation went to college on the GI Bill, purchased homes with FHA loans, viewed public service work with respect, and recognized the government's role in lifting a broad swath of society into the middle class.

But by the time I began working as a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania caseworker and then union staffer in the 1970s, an onslaught of anti-government rhetoric was already beginning to erode public confidence in and funding for public services. When I was president of the Pennsylvania Social Services Union, an affiliate of SEIU, I saw Pennsylvania's governor run radio ads against his own state workers to try to push through steep cutbacks in health care and other job-security protections.

In the decades since then, government has been continually scapegoated, ridiculed, and starved of resources, while public services in our country are in crisis.

We are facing massive budget deficits at all levels of government, while states like California are teetering on the brink of a federal bailout.

Collapsing bridges and child welfare horror stories make headlines, but people who work in government know there is disinvestment and neglect everywhere.

Public service employees at all levels of government are an essential, but often overlooked, part of the solution. The people who do the work are often the best people to ask for ideas about how to do it better, faster, or cheaper...

Read Andy's entire column at "Better, Cheaper, Faster" here.

SEIU members in Florida have helped beat an anti-union ballot initiative designed to undermine Employee Free Choice and deny workers their rights. Through a grassroots campaign, Florida members defeated the so-called "Save Our Secret Ballot" initiative, part of a national campaign led by big business and right-wing think tanks. This amendment (House Joint Resolution 1013) hides behind the false pretense of protecting democracy for workers by 'protecting the secret ballot,' while the real goal is to restrict workers' ability to have a voice in the workplace.

SEIU Florida members weren't fooled by this misleadingly-named amendment and were able to keep this initiative off the ballot--an initiative that was not only unconstitutional but would have also have had a particularly negative effect on Florida public sector workers. SEIU Florida members made over 2,600 calls and delivered more than 1,000 postcards to key legislators. Nearly 30 SEIU members lobbied in Tallahassee and 50 members held a march in front of Hasner's office in Delray Beach. Bravo!