Organizing, Mobilizing and Political Action over the last 30 years
This is an abbreviated history highlighting TSEU victories primarily as they relate to our pay and benefits, privatization, and on-the-job justice. TSEU has had many other victories throughout the years relating to organizing rights, equal rights/anti-discrimination, staffing/resources, representation, and more. Join today so we can keep on winning!
TSEU was born at a time of change and challenge for the union movement. From the end of World War II in 1945 to the 1970’s, the U.S. enjoyed one of the longest economic booms in history. Although the biggest part of the riches that were generated went to major corporations and their stockholders, the boom was so strong and so long that many improvements did trickle down to working Americans. There was a general, often unspoken, peace treaty between corporations and unions as the corporations agreed to share some of the wealth and the unions agreed to back off on calls for real changes in society. Many unions and union members had grown comfortable with their ability to win regular improvements in their lives and jobs and with their relationships with their employers. Very few unions placed a high priority on reaching out to unorganized workers. Although the U. S. labor movement had a proud history of being part of the fights for civil, political, and economic rights for all Americans, the vision of many unions and leaders had narrowed to a focus on pay for current members and “shop floor” issues in already-organized industries.
After peaking in the 1950s, union membership compared to the total number of workers began to drop slowly but steadily every year. Restructuring of industry in the United States, a severe economic downturn after the decades-long post-World War II boom, and a renewed assault on organized workers by major corporations after years of relative truce changed the realities that several generations had grown up with. New attacks began on the improved social safety net and on civil rights gains that had been won from the 1930s to the 1960s. Many corporations, feeling that they could no longer afford to honor the peace treaty with labor, began campaigns to drive unions out of long-organized industries. In telecommunications, hundreds of thousands faced layoffs from long-secure, good-paying jobs when AT&T was broken up in 1981-83.
What was happening nationally as we were fighting and organizing?
Assaults on unions and working people escalated throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. With President Reagan’s breaking of the air traffic controller’s strike, corporations, the wealthy, and the right-wing politicians
who did their bidding declared all-out war on working people and the unions they had built to exercise power. Through TSEU’s 35 year history, that war has only intensified, as private sector unions saw their numbers drop steadily down to historic lows after free trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA gutted heavily unionized industries and moved jobs overseas. As private sector union density shrank, corporate profits soared, the middle class shrank, and the gap between the haves and have-nots got bigger and bigger.
After the corporations had squeezed as much profit as they could out of the private sector, they began looking for new sources of profit in the public sector. In the 1990’s and 2000’s, a wave of privatization attempts swept the country. From the beginning of this assault on public services, TSEU was at the center of the storm, pushing back against the privateers who sought to profit off the backs of the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, the incarcerated, and the abused: all those who depend on the delivery of quality state services in order to live their lives. From the beginning of these struggles, TSEU stood not just to protect state worker jobs, but to defend those who depend on public services from exploitation at the hands of for-profit privatizers.
The victories that TSEU and other organized public employees scored against the privatizers put a target on the back of the last bulwark of the American labor movement: public sector unions. The Great Recession of 2008-2011 was caused by the same greedy Wall Street billionaires who were trying to take over public services for their own profits. But they used the crisis they caused to push an agenda of austerity, downsizing of public services, and further privatization in order to line their own pockets. Part of that agenda was directly attacking the rights of public sector employees to belong to a union and to organize for collective power. As this is being written, TSEU is in the midst of this struggle against the union-busters who seek to eliminate opposition to their plans. Our union has defeated these attempts before and we will again, because the spirit of TSEU has always been one of obstinate determination that no obstacle will stop working people from organizing and mobilizing for justice. The timeline that follows is evidence of that spirit.
The early days of TSEU: 1979-1980
TSEU was born when two key developments came together in 1979-80. In Texas, employees at several state agencies were growing frustrated with a falling standard of living; chronic understaffing and lack of other resources that would allow us to provide first-class services to the people of Texas; and oppressive, nonresponsive working conditions. Texas state employees began to look for ways to build organizations that would empower front-line state workers and lead to real improvements. A group of Mental Health/Mental Retardation (MHMR) workers centered in Austin began to organize independently. They quickly realized that it would be difficult to build a completely new organization with the power to take on state agencies and politicians and hoped to make organized Texas state workers a part of the overall family of organized workers in Texas and in our country. They began to contact unions that already had a presence in the state to ask how they could become part of the union movement.
At the same time, the Communications Workers of America began to reach out to public workers as long-organized telecommunications workers began to realize that their own abilities to face new challenges depended on the overall strength of the labor movement and of CWA. Many CWA members and leaders realized that our ability to take on the telecommunications employers would be strengthened if we could bring new groups of workers in their communities into our union.
In 1979, New Jersey state workers began an all-out organizing drive supported by CWA. As the New Jersey state employee and other organizing drives in the public and private sectors picked up speed, CWA created a national Public Workers Department in 1980. After a representation election in May 1981, 32,000 New Jersey state workers became CWA members.
In Texas, several CWA leaders realized the importance of building overall union power and began to reach out to groups outside of the traditional telecommunications sectors. CWA was the largest union in the state and the only one that had members in every city and town. In 1979, Texas CWA leaders, having been approached by frustrated state employees in several parts of the state, began a push to help state workers organize. Using the models of organizing and union structure that were familiar to telephone workers, CWA members across the state went out to state agency locations with leaflets and information. The MHMR workers who had already started to organize joined the CWA outreach project, and TSEU was born. From the beginning, TSEU has been built around the ideas that our union must constantly grow stronger by reaching out to unorganized workers and that we should be in the forefront of an overall movement for justice.
1980
Organizing and Organizing Rights: TSEU is born as a CWA (Communications Workers of America) organizing project. Expenses are paid by CWA. TSEU has six staff, including three organizers with one office in Austin. Dues are $6 per month, paid in cash.
Attorney General Mark White announces that state workers can pay union dues via payroll deduction. TSEU organizers begin to collect dues authorization cards and consider signers of these cards as members.
Pay: TSEU launches its first “flat amount” pay raise campaign. The campaign calls for pay raises over the next three years that would increase state worker pay by $400 per month.
1981
Organizing and Organizing Rights: TSEU opens offices in Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, Weslaco, and Mexia.
New governor, Bill Clements, issues a declaration prohibiting state workers from paying union dues by payroll deduction, and the Texas Legislature passes a bill prohibiting payroll deduction of union dues.
TSEU begins bank draft system to pay dues.
Health Care: TSEU calls for health care reform as premiums shoot up. TSEU calls for full payment of employee and dependent premiums.
Pay: TSEU wins emergency pay raise of 5.1 % with $50/month floor. The $50 floor is the first “flat amount” raise ever won by Texas state employees. Raises of 9.2% for 1981 and 8.7% for 1982 are also approved by the Legislature.
The University Employees Union at UT (which later affiliates with TSEU) files the “Joki v Flawn” lawsuit against UT when the UT administration refuses to properly implement a legislated pay raise. The university gives the raise to each employee, but does not raise the salary for positions as intended by the Legislature.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers): TSEU wins 9000 Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation (MHMR) workers a two-step pay upgrade.
Political Rights: TSEU defeats the “McFarland Amendment,” an attempt to make it illegal for state workers to testify before the Legislature.
Privatization: TSEU members organize to stop a plan to contract out clerical jobs in Department of Human Resources, which later becomes the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).
Mobilizing: TSEU holds its first TSEU State Employee Lobby Day on April 21.
1982
The first TSEU statewide officers elected: President: Dwight Lusk (MHMR/Lubbock); Vice-President: Jerry Mowery (MHMR/Rusk); Secretary: Catharine Denton (DHR/Dallas); Treasurer: Frances Morrow (DHR/Corpus Christi); Region 1: Santos Gutierrez (DHS/Mercedes); Region 2: Sharice Adams (DHR/San Antonio); Region 4: Ruby Johnson (MHMR/San Angelo); Region 5: Anna Chatman (MHMR/Lubbock); Region 7: Gary McFarland (MHMR/Lufkin); Region 8: Melvin Jones (Highway dept/Cleveland); Region 9: Eliza May (DHR/Austin); Region 11:Paula McClain (DHR/Houston).
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU sues MHMR to secure for workers the right to representation in matters concerning termination, suspension, demotion, and allegations of abuse and neglect and for the right of the union to represent workers in these matters.
The judge issues a temporary restraining order that establishes for workers the right to written notification by MHMR when it plans to terminate, suspend, demote, or take action against a worker because of allegations of abuse or neglect. This written notification will become known as a Thurston Letter. TSEU and MHMR workers eventually win the right of representation.
In 1986 these rights will be made permanent when a judge rules in favor of the union in a judgment resolving the original suit.
Organizing/Representation Rights: TSEU wins a suit against DHS over the right of the union to represent members in hearings. Over the next several years, TSEU wins similar lawsuits over representation and access against the Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation (no TxDOT), the Texas Department of Health (now DSHS), the Tx Dept of Corrections (now TDCJ), and the Texas Youth Commission (now TJJD).
TEC (now TWC): President Reagan’s federal budget cuts result in layoffs in the Texas Employment Commission (now the TWC). Working with the national CWA, TSEU members push Congress to vote in an emergency appropriation, saving 500 TEC positions.
Texas School for the Deaf: TSEU members at the TSD mobilize to convince the TSD Board to turn down a proposal to contract out the school’s laundry department.
Elections: TSEU members hold protests across the state against Governor Clements’ track record of axing 12,000 state worker positions. Union activists vow to get Clements out of the Governor’s seat and work to elect his opponent, Mark White.
1983
Organizing: An organizing drive starts at Stephen F Austin State University (SFA) in Nacogdoches and supports the NAACP fight against job segregation, particularly in the campus food services department.
TSEU opens an office in Rusk.
Pay: TSEU wins pay raises of 4% for FY 1984 and 3% for FY 1985.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU launches a campaign against MHMR policy of unannounced and unregulated polygraph testing of employees accused of abuse or neglect. The campaign includes a lawsuit that TSEU wins in 1984.
TSEU stops the fingerprinting of MHMR employees.
DHR (now HHSC): TSEU launches a campaign for full staffing at DHR and issues a Special DHR Bulletin.
1984
Organizing and Organizing Rights: TSEU begins an organizing drive in the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC, now TDCJ-ID).
Pay: TSEU calls for an emergency pay raise after two years of actual pay cuts due to skyrocketing health care premiums.
Health Care/Pension: TSEU calls for a 6% pension increase for retirees.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: CWA and TSEU fund a complete analysis of gender discrimination in Texas state agencies. The report “Job Segregation and Wage Inequalities in Texas State Employment” is published in December.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU members begin a campaign to force MHMR and the state of Texas to comply with the 5-to-1 client to worker ratios mandated by the courts in the 1974 case, RAJ vs. Miller. The legislature responds with emergency appropriations to meet the agency’s staffing needs.
1985
Pay: TSEU defeats a pay freeze attempt in the Texas Legislature and wins a 3% pay raise for each of the next two years.
Staffing/Resources: TSEU defeats HB 400, the “State Employee Reduction Act” which would have caused the layoff of 10,000 state employees.
TSEU members at Terrell State Hospital successfully mobilize to stop Hospital administrators from cutting 135 positions, held by disabled workers, due to a lack of funds.
Privatization: TSEU defeats HB 2334, an attempt to contract out the Waco Center for Youth.
A provision of SB 298 would force the state’s largest agencies to contract out any service which private contractors claim they can provide at least 10% cheaper than the state. TSEU members across the state mobilized to have the provision removed from SB 298 before it passed.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
Terrell State Hospital threatens to cut 135 jobs, held by disabled workers, because of a lack of funds. TSEU members mobilize to convince the hospital to keep the workers and accommodate disabled employees.
Union members at the Rio Grande State Center in Harlingen mobilize a pressure campaign to stop a plan to turn the facility over to private contractor Tropical Texas.
Organizing and Organizing Rights: After TSEU builds a strong organization at SFA, the university announces that it will privatize the Food Service Department, the most organized group at the university. TSEU launches a campaign against privatization and announces that if SFA goes through with its privatization plans, the union will continue the fight for union recognition by the private employer.
The Rio Grande Valley office moves to Edinburg. TSEU opens offices in Lubbock and Huntsville.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: TSEU takes on a support role in a long-running race and sex discrimination lawsuit (“Carpenter case”) at SFA.
TSEU supports and collects evidence for the plaintiffs in the Cirillo v. TDC lawsuit, which called for an end to discrimination against minorities and women in the hiring of TDC Correctional Officers.
1986
During 1986-1987, Texas is at the height of a budget crisis after the oil bust of the early 1980s. The state cannot balance its budget, and there are widespread calls for deep cuts in services and state employee compensation. Special Sessions of the Legislature are called in 1986 and late 1987 to address these and other budget issues.
Privatization: TSEU members at Rio Grande State Center in Harlingen defeat a plan to let Tropical Texas (a private agency) take over the Center.
Staffing: TSEU defeats attempts during a special session of the Texas Legislature to slash staff in state agencies.
Organizing and Organizing Rights: University Employees Union (UEU), an independent staff organization at UT, votes to affiliate with TSEU. A UEU lawsuit against UT over pay issues becomes a class action.
TSEU opens a San Antonio office.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: TSEU supports an anti-discrimination lawsuit at UT Health Center in Tyler that wins workers a $450,000 settlement.
Pay: After a bitter fight by TSEU members during the Special Session of the Legislature, the 3% pay raise for fiscal Year 1987 is rescinded.
1987
Organizing and Organizing Rights: TSEU and TPEA (Texas Public Employees Association) form a legislative coalition to fight for a pay raise and increased state funding for health care.
SFA Food Service workers, whose jobs were privatized when SFA contracted with ARA to operate the Food Service Department, vote 2-1 for union representation. The SFA/ARA group becomes the first TSEU members to work under a union contract.
TSEU opens a Sugar Land office.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: A campaign at SFA to defeat privatization and discrimination culminates in the Jobs with Justice rally in December. Three thousand trade unionists, civil rights and women’s rights activists, and others from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas march through Nacogdoches to the rally at SFA.
Privatization: TSEU defeats HB 1880, which would have created a council controlled by Governor Clements that would have searched for private companies to take over state services. TSEU also defeats attempts to authorize the privatization of state prisons and other services.
Over strong TSEU opposition, the Legislature allocates $30 million for new, privately-run prison units.
Job Classification: TSEU wins an appropriations act rider that mandates a complete audit of DHS clerical job titles and classifications.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: TSEU refuses to adopt a plan proposed by some TDC members that all HIV positive inmates be permanently marked. TSEU organizes an HIV/AIDS education workshop, bringing in unbiased experts. TSEU publishes “An AIDS Fact Sheet” and our policy in the UPDATE. A group of about 200 members at TDC splits from TSEU over TSEU’s policy of opposition to discrimination based on gender, race/ethnicity, or sexual orientation. The group that splits from TSEU becomes the Correctional Employees Council.
Health Care: TSEU wins increases in state contribution to health care from $85 to $100 in 1987 and to $115 in 1988.
Pay: TSEU calls for raises of $150/month or 10% for each of the next two years. The Legislature finally acts on pay in a Special Session, where a 2% raise for 1989 is approved.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU defeats an appropriations bill amendment that would have shut down the Austin State Hospital and sold the land.
1988
Working Conditions: TSEU wins a final Texas Supreme Court ruling that MHMR cannot force employees to take polygraph tests.
Pay: TSEU launches an all out push for a pay raise in 1989. An Update headline “Raise Taxes/ Raise Pay” challenges the argument that budget shortfalls make a raise impossible.
Organizing and Organizing Rights: The Sugar Land and Houston offices are combined at a new location on South Loop in Houston.
Former TYC worker Karim Shabazz is awarded $102,000 in the settlement of a lawsuit filed by TSEU when he was fired in 1985 from Crockett State School. Shabazz was a key union activist at Crockett when he was fired and later became a full-time TSEU organizer.
Staffing/Resources: TSEU surveys CPS/DHS workers and finds that 90% work more than 40 hours per week. As a result, the union launches a campaign for more CPS funding.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: TSEU supports and collects testimony for the “Coble v TDC” lawsuit, which seeks to end discrimination against women in hiring and promotions at TDC.
Health Care:
TSEU launches a campaign for quality, affordable health care for all state workers. The campaign includes calls for increased state contributions and a campaign to elect TSEU members to the ERS Board of Trustees.
1989
Organizing and Organizing Rights: COM/UNITY, the independent staff organization at College of the Mainland in Texas City, votes to affiliate with TSEU.
The Sam Houston State University Library Association votes to affiliate with TSEU, doubling union membership at SHSU.
The Staff Employees Association at the University of Texas at Arlington also votes to affiliate with TSEU.
Pay: TSEU launches “Wear Black on Payday” campaign to raise consciousness and increase unity around the pay raise campaign. Thousands of state workers begin to wear black in solidarity on paydays.
TSEU’s campaign wins a $60 per month/5% pay raise, the second “flat amount” pay raise in history.
Equal Rights/Discrimination: Back pay awards totaling $800,000 are finally paid to current and former workers at SFA University in a settlement of the Carpenter lawsuit.
Staffing/Resources: TSEU wins 1,820 new front-line DHS staff positions. This is the largest DHS staff increase ever.
Privatization: TSEU defeats legislative attempt in to authorize the contracting out of state prisons.
Health Care: TSEU nominates Janice Zitelman as the first union candidate for ERS Board of Trustees. Janice finally wins 16,838 to 14,594 in a runoff election marked by ERS attempts to prevent a victory by a TSEU candidate.
The Appropriations Act includes commitments that the state will pay all but $10 of health care premiums in 1990 and all but $20 in 1991. These increases mean that the state will help pay for dependent coverage for the first time.
1990
Three former criminal justice agencies, the Texas Department of Corrections, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and the Adult Probation Commission, are combined into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Former TDC management becomes the de-facto management of the new agency, and the TDC “style” takes over at Pardons and Paroles.
TSEU releases a “Fair Taxes for Texas” program and launches a campaign to get it adopted by the Texas Legislature. The program calls for a fair share personal income tax beginning at incomes of $50,000 per year, a fair share corporate income tax, cuts in sales taxes, and investment of the proceeds in programs and services that benefit Texans.
Health Care: TSEU establishes a Health Care Task Force and publishes the TSEU plan for improved state employee health care. TSEU members continue to organize around health care issues as costs continue to increase and family coverage becomes unaffordable for more state employees.
TSEU wins election of Dave Kinnamin and Wanda Garcia to ERS GIAC (Group Insurance Advisory Committee)
University of Texas at Austin: TSEU wins and hands out $400,000 in back pay to UT-Austin workers.
1991
Health Care and Pensions: TSEU wins $350 million in new state contributions to the state employee healthcare plan. The funding increases the state share of dependent coverage to 40% in 1992 and 50% in 1993.
TSEU defeats an attempt to raid the ERS pension fund and move funds to the “Texas Growth Fund.” Another proposal calls for part of the ERS reserve fund to be turned over to general revenue. TSEU members also defeat this attempt.
TSEU launches a campaign for reform and files a lawsuit when ERS manipulations steal a victory from TSEU-ERS Board candidate Gloria Wilson. Wilson, an African-American employee of Denton State School, would have been the first minority ever to serve on the ERS Board.
State Funding: TSEU and TPEA renew their coalition to fight early calls for a “zero growth” budget that would cut most agency budgets and freeze staffing and pay.
Organizing and Organizing Rights: After a 10-year effort, TSEU wins the right for state employees to have union dues deducted from their paychecks when HB 78 is passed.
Pay: TSEU opens pay raise campaign with the call for a $200 per month pay raise for every state employee. Pay is finally decided in a Special Session that adopts a 3% raise for each of the next two years.
TSEU organizes an August 26 rally at the State Capitol after the State Comptroller announces that the state does not have enough money for the pay raise due on September 1. After the rally, a 2% raise is announced, effective for September 1.
2200 UT-Austin employees and former employees share $400,000 in back pay in the final settlement of the Donoho case.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU prepares for an all-out fight when Governor Ann Richards appoints a task force whose assignment is to begin closing down MHMR facilities.
1992
Organizing and Organizing Rights: An intense organizing campaign results in 1057 new members joining TSEU between October 1991 and January 31, 1992 as the new payroll deduction law goes into effect. TSEU membership grows from 5,831 in December of 1991 to 8,285 in December 1992. Numerous TSEU members and members of other CWA locals volunteer in the organizing drive.
CWA/TSEU and AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) sign an organizing agreement that assigns most agencies to one union or the other as organizing targets. Some agencies where both unions have on-going campaigns are assigned as joint targets with final assignment to be decided later. The agreement prevents a contest between unions that has wasted resources, created bitterness, and weakened state worker power in other states. AFSCME puts most of its resources into prison workers at the TDCJ/Institutional Division.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
An anti-closing coalition led by TSEU defeats the Governor’s Task Force on MHMR as TSEU’s all-out campaign stops plans to close down numerous MHMR facilities. TSEU members are joined by family and advocacy groups, especially the Parents Association for the Retarded of Texas (P.A.R.T.) in the campaign, which includes rallies at the Governor’s Mansion on March 30 and September 26. TSEU announces that we will stand behind a policy of “No closings/ Resources to do the job right” and fight as long as it takes to preserve a full spectrum of MHMR services for Texans. TSEU members organize at every MHMR facility, testify at every public hearing held by the Task Force, build the coalition with client and family groups, and pressure legislators. Although the Task Force is able to shut down Fort Worth and Travis State Schools, the pressure finally forces them out of existence and no other facilities are threatened.
TYC (now TJJD): TSEU beats a plan to close TYC’s Brownwood Reception Center. An “emergency” plan is proposed to close down the reception center and transfer diagnostic, evaluation, and transportation responsibilities to counties.
Pay: TSEU begins a campaign for a $200 per month flat pay raises in 1994 and 1995. A 1% raise is approved for August 1. TSEU begins actions to make sure that the 3% raise scheduled for 1993 will be paid.
1993
The worst attacks on state employees in decades gets worse as the state budget crisis deepens. Pay raises dry up, and the Legislature hatches dozens of plans to downsize and privatize state services.
Pay: TSEU defeats a plan to cut state workers’ pay 6% and reduce the state contribution to Social Security, but is unable to win a pay raise.
TSEU defeats plans initiated by the Texas Performance Review (Comptroller’s Office) and the Legislative Budget Board to prohibit future across-the-board pay raises and pushes back plans to cut state employee pay by 6% to a plan to reduce starting salaries for new employees by 3%. Amendments won by TSEU prohibit pay cuts for state workers hired before Sept. 1, 1993. A four-year stretch without a state employee pay raise begins in 1993.
After a post-session campaign by TSEU members, Governor Ann Richards vetoes a legislative provision that prohibits across-the-board pay raises for university workers.
DHS (now HHSC): TSEU members defeat plans to replace DHS eligibility workers with talking computer stations.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU, in a coalition that includes six other unions, state worker groups, advocacy groups, and MHMR family groups, defeats a plan (SB 78) to dump 500 elderly mentally ill patients from MHMR state hospitals into private nursing homes. The plan would have also eliminated 1,146 MHMR staffing positions.
TYC (now TJJD): In the first round of a push for pay equity with TDCJ correctional officers, TSEU wins hazardous duty pay for TYC Juvenile Correctional Officers.
Health Care and Pension: TSEU defeats an attempt to stack the ERS Board of Trustees with members appointed by the Governor.
TSEU defeats an attempt to take away part of the state contribution to employees’ Social Security.
Privatization: The Council on Competitive Government, an agency set up by the Legislature and Governor Bush, begins an attempt to privatize multiple state services in many agencies, including printing services, DHS Eligibility Services, custodial services, food services, maintenance, Child Support Enforcement, computer services, and mail handling. The CCG has the power to privatize any state services with or without the approval of agency management.
The Texas Performance Review (part of the State Comptroller’s Office) issues “Against the Grain,” a report listing numerous targets for budget cuts, privatization, and “streamlining.” Reinventing Government–a book claiming that radical privatization is the answer to all public services management and budget problems— becomes the new bible for privateers and slashers in Texas government.
TSEU “draws a line in the sand” and begins a campaign to defeat privatization wherever it is attempted. TSEU Privatization Task Force is created to monitor privatization attempts and coordinate strategy. Organizing in agencies targeted by privateers goes full speed to build power.
1994
Privatization: TSEU defeats the first Council on Competitive Government privatization attempt at the State Comptroller’s Office Print Shop
1995
The state budget crisis continues as the Legislative session opens. TSEU discovers that revenue and spending predictions are being manipulated to make the crisis look worse and hold down calls for a pay raise and agency budget improvements. TSEU publishes an Update Special Edition “Billions Buried.” State officials are furious.
Pay: Despite an all out push, TSEU is unable to win a pay raise.
Privatization: TSEU defeats SCR 59, which calls for an MHMR privatization “study.”
The Legislature passes HB 1863, the “Welfare Reform Bill.” Besides many new cuts in services and hoops for clients to jump through, the bill authorizes the privatization of most human and employment services. About 20,000 state jobs in DHS, TEC (Texas Employment Commission, now the Texas Workforce Commission), and other agencies are threatened. The state names its human services privatization project T.I.E.S. (Texas Integrated Enrollment System).
TSEU mounts an all out campaign to defeat T.I.E.S. and TWC privatization. Union members build a “wall of resistance” that includes organizing, on-the-job education of co-workers, contacts with legislators, letter writing, and protest actions around the state. TSEU leads the formation of a statewide coalition that includes other unions, client groups and advocates, civil rights and women’s organizations, and others.
Organizing and Organizing Rights: TSEU launches an all-out organizing drive to build a grassroots movement to stop privatization. By the end of 1997 (May 1995- Dec. 1997), over 6,000 new members, including 1,266 DHS members, had been signed up into the union.
Health Care/Pensions: A TSEU campaign re-elects Janice Zitelman to her second term on the ERS Board.
The fight for the future of Texas and the United States: TSEU takes on welfare/employment services privatization and wins.
The administration of Governor Bush, working with state and national political leaders of both major political parties and several major national corporations, tries to contract out most important benefits programs. Texas is to be a model and starting place for a national revolution. The large benefit programs, Assistance for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC, renamed TANF by national welfare “reform” legislation), Food Stamps, Medicaid, Employment Services, and many others, are to be contracted out in multi-billion dollar contracts to corporations such as Lockheed-Martin, IBM, and EDS.
State legislation is passed in 1995 as amendments to a large welfare policy bill. The corporations and their supporters in government think it is a “done deal.” The affected agencies themselves, the Department of Human Services and the Texas Employment Commission (to be renamed the Texas Workforce Commission) think it is a done deal. Many high-ranking agency officials jump on the bandwagon, hoping for high-paying jobs with the contractors. Some liberal advocacy groups are initially drawn in by the corporate promises that new high-tech systems will improve access for poor Texans. Even those who are opposed initially give up. Many Texas legislators say they oppose the idea, but that it can’t be stopped.
By late 1996, Lockheed and friends think that they are firmly in control of an unstoppable movement that will move from Texas to the rest of the country. The potential profits are almost unimaginable.
At first, TSEU is by itself in declaring war on the plan. Many supporters think it is an impossible fight. TSEU recognizes that the privatization plan will be a disaster for poor Texans, taxpayers, and state employees, and throws everything into the fight. Our strategy is to oppose the plan at every opportunity, and to throw “logs into their path” while building a coalition to fight back.
1996
TSEU has pushed back the T.I.E.S. program, so that the privatization plans are behind by more than six months. T.I.E.S. rapidly loses momentum as the TSEU campaign takes hold. TSEU publishes full-page article exposing corruption and incompetence of corporations known to be planning to bid on T.I.E.S.
March 12: TSEU members pack a meeting of the Texas Workforce Commission and stage a rally and press conference afterward. The action derails a TWC Commissioners’ plan to pass a rule prohibiting local workforce boards from using state agencies as service providers. The Commissioners later adopt the plan in secret and illegally.
April 24: TSEU packs a T.I.E.S. “Vendor Forum” and holds a rally and press conference afterward.
October 9: A TSEU press conference exposes former Texas state officials who have gone to work as lobbyists for corporations seeking T.I.E.S. contracts. The press conference, which names both Democrats and Republicans, produces repercussions from Austin to Washington. The press conference is preceded by a full-page ‘Texas Revolving Door” Update (Oct/Nov 1996) article that exposes the same officials.
November 7-8: A TSEU delegation meets in Washington DC with federal officials, members of Congress, and top leaders of CWA and other national unions on Texas privatization issues. CWA President Morton Bahr commits to back TSEU’s fight with the full strength of CWA.
December 21: CWA President Morton Bahr, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney meet with Clinton Administration officials on privatization in Texas.
1997
Organizing: More than 500 TSEU members are transferred to AFSCME under the second CWA/AFSCME organizing agreement that moves all state prison workers to AFSCME.
Pay Raise: TSEU wins the first-ever complete, across-the-board, ‘flat amount’ pay raise of $1200 per year for every state worker except for university faculty.
TSEU defeats the attempt by university administrations and some legislators to deny the across-the-board pay raise to university workers.
Privatization: TSEU goes on the offensive to stop privateers in TWC and DHS.
TSEU leads the formation of an anti-privatization coalition, which will include the Texas AFL-CIO, several other unions, and numerous advocacy and civil rights groups, and other organizations.
January-May: The TSEU and an anti-privatization coalition win passage of HB 2777, which mandates legislative oversight, public hearings, and strict requirements for any privatization of human or employment services.
March 28: CWA President Morton Bahr, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney meet with President Clinton to ask that waivers requested by Gov. Bush be denied. The Clinton Administration later denies waivers that would allow privatization of DHS Eligibility and TWC Employment Services.
Parole: TSEU wins the right for parole officers to carry weapons while on duty.
1998
Privatization: TSEU files lawsuits against TWC in Travis and Cameron counties. The lawsuits charge that TWC transferred public property to private corporations and broke state laws in enacting privatization policies. TSEU will also assist numerous laid-off TWC workers in filing EEOC charges when older and minority workers get hit the hardest in layoffs.
The Department of Human Services and other agencies announce “T.I.E.S. II,” a plan to privatize and dismantle human services programs that gets around HB 2777 restrictions. The core of T.I.E.S. II is a plan to close down DHS offices, eliminate face-to-face client interviews, and replace them with regional call centers. Many members of the anti-privatization coalition become supporters of the new plan, claiming that call-in centers will increase client access to services. TSEU argues that the plan will actually slash access, which turns out to be true, and vows to defeat it.
TSEU members testify at all hearings (in El Paso, Dallas, and Austin) of the T.I.E.S. Legislative Oversight Committee. TSEU testimony shows that the plan will actually result in radically reduced access to services for clients. Also, dozens of legislators are visited and hundreds of worksite meetings held to educate co-workers about the fight.
On March 28, the TSEU DHS Caucus adopts its policy statement on T.I.E.S. and the Department of Human Services Creed that lays out TSEU’s vision of how DHS should treat clients and employees.
Organizing/Organizing Rights: TSEU renews its organizing push in DHS and other state agencies to take on the new attacks. Membership grows at the fastest rate in TSEU’s history except for 1992, the first year of payroll deduction.
1999
Organizing and Organizing Rights: Organizing+Mobilizing strategy brings an average of 291 members per month into the union during 1998-1999, hundreds of whom get active during the legislative session.
Privatization: TSEU makes privatization a major issue in the Legislature. Dozens of TSEU members travel to Austin to testify on our issues after numerous delegation visits and town meetings with legislators in their districts. Over 1,700 TSEU members march through Austin on Lobby Day, calling for a pay raise and an end to privatization. T.I.E.S. II dies when the House Appropriations Committee refuses to appropriate funds for the program.
TYC (now TJJD): After years of organizing and mobilizing, TSEU members in the TYC Caucus win pay parity with TDCJ Correctional Officers for TYC Juvenile Correctional Officers. This brings an immediate increase for all JCO positions to bring them in line with TDCJ pay and sets a precedent that any future raises for TDCJ CO’s be also given to TYC JCO’s.
Parole: An all-out push on the part of Parole members and activists results in a major win: Parole officers are included in the 20-year retirement plan, the Law Enforcement and Custodial Officer Special Retirement Fund (LECOSRF). The Parole Caucus begins push to include Parole support staff in the plan also.
Pay: TSEU wins a second $1,200 per year raise and defeats new attempts to leave out university workers.
Other Important TSEU Victories
Increased state contribution to employee health care
Special children’s health care coverage for low-income state employees
Increased university employee pension multiplier
400 new frontline positions in Child and Adult Protective Services.
Union voice in MHMR state center transition plans
2000
Healthcare: TSEU wins a partial victory when the Employee Retirement System adopts increases in healthcare co-pays that were half of the amount proposed by ERS staff. Staff proposed co-pay increases totaling $109 million. TSEU mobilized members, who gathered 8000 signatures on a petition urging the ERS board to hold the line on co-pay increases. The ERS board responded by reducing the proposed increases by $50 million.
Organizing: TSEU members working for TDCJ-Parole launch a campaign to stop the high turnover rate at the agency. The campaign seeks improved pay, reasonable caseloads, and a career ladder for parole officers. Members circulate a petition, meet with legislators, and sign up new members. Fifty-seven members pack a Senate Committee hearing to support the campaign’s agenda. The campaign eventually wins a career ladder for parole officers, which boosts pay for most parole officers and provides an incentive to reduce turnover (See 2007).
MHMR TSEU members fight back against rising healthcare cost with a “Sign 2” campaign. Members ask fellow workers to sign the petition against healthcare cost increases and to join TSEU by signing a membership application. Members gather 3000 petition signatures and enroll about 125 new members in TSEU.
Improving Services: In a meeting with Department of Human Services management, TSEU members propose actions to make enrollment in Medicaid easier, including a 12-month re-certification for children on Medicaid. TSEU’s proposal also preserves and enhances face-to-face services for clients.
About 150 TSEU members in the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (PRS) rally in San Antonio for improved services for victims of elderly and child abuse. TSEU calls for reducing the high turnover rate of front-line PRS workers by increasing their pay and increasing staff levels at PRS offices. TSEU is joined by advocates for the abused and members of other labor unions.
2001
Pay raise: TSEU and other state employee groups win a 4 percent pay raise with a $100 a month minimum raise that includes higher education workers. Longevity pay increased from $20 for every 5 years of service to $20 for every 3 years. Mileage reimbursements are also increased.
The across-the-board raise also includes another 3 percent raise with $65 a month minimum for the second year of the biennium, contingent on the State Comptroller certifying that funds are available. In 2002, the Comptroller did not certify that funds were available for a raise.
TSEU wins pay raises for employees at Parole, TYC, MHMR, and PRS that for the most part exceed the across-the-board raises for other state employees. The raises are needed to stem high turnover rates at these agencies.
TSEU helps win a pension increase for both ERS and TRS retirees. The multiplier, which determines monthly pension payments, increases from 2.25 percent to 2.3 percent for both ERS and TRS pension funds.
Healthcare: On the opening day of the Legislature, TSEU members rally at the State Capitol and visit their lawmaker to present them with a petition signed by 14,000 state employees opposing healthcare cost increases. Later in the session, lawmakers vote to continue the state’s 100 percent premium payment for employees and 50 percent for dependents, to maintain current co-pays, and to reduce premiums for SKIP, children’s health insurance for low-income state workers.
Organizing: ERS retirees win the right to pay TSEU dues through deductions from their pension payments. TRS retirees still have to continue paying dues through bank draft.
Super Shuttle bus drivers in Austin organize and vote to have CWA Local 6186 as their union. The group of 67 workers soon negotiated their first contract to address seniority issues, pay, and unsafe working conditions.
Parole: TSEU defeats legislation to reduce the bachelor’s degree qualification for parole officers. Parole officers called the proposed legislation “a slap in the face.” TSEU files a complaint with the Department of Labor contending that the Parole Division violates federal overtime laws.
Disaster Relief: Twenty-five Houston area TSEU members victimized by Tropical Storm Allison receive disaster relief grants from the Communications Workers of America Disaster Relief Fund.
2002
Pay: TSEU members carry out massive mobilization campaign in 2002 to hold state leaders to the contingent raise of $65/month or 3% that was passed in the last legislative session, but are ultimately unsuccessful as state leaders claim there isn’t enough money in the budget to pay for second raise.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State
Supported Living Centers):
Working with a coalition that includes community activists and family members of state school residents, TSEU defeats an MHMR board proposal to cut $44 million in state funding from the MHMR budget. The cuts would have also resulted in the loss of an additional $23 million in federal funds and would have caused deep reductions in services to residents at the state hospitals and state schools.
Organizing: 146 new members join in two week period at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The new members are galvanized around fight for direct election of TRS Board members, protecting the pension fund, and keeping their health care affordable.
Organizing Weeks of Action grow membership rapidly over the summer: 243 new members in MHMR, 122 new members in DHS, 54 new members in Parole, 107 new members in state universities.
Parole: In order to address the high turnover rates in their agency, TSEU’s Parole Caucus designs new Parole Officer career ladder and decides to begin all out push in the legislature for it to be adopted.
Privatization: TWC launches plans to privatize Project RIO (ReIntegration of Offenders), which helps parolees find jobs, and the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps Texans who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing. TSEU members immediately go into action and launch campaign to stop the effort.
TSEU defeats a proposal to allow ACS, a private outsourcing company, to privatize eligibility determination for TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid in the Dallas area.
TSEU members mobilize to stop privatization of maintenance operations in the Austin Capitol Complex buildings.
2003
Privatization: TSEU members mobilize to stop the privatization of Employment Services and Unemployment Insurance eligibility determination. Members contact their federal lawmakers urging them to oppose the repeal of the Wagner Peyser Act and changes to the method that the federal government uses to fund employment services. Both measures would have led to the privatization of much more of the work performed by TWC. Both proposals are defeated. The Wagner Peyser Act ensures that people looking for work will receive high quality help in finding jobs from highly qualified state employees. The federal funding formulas ensure that state services to the unemployed are adequately funded.
Despite an intense mobilization effort by TSEU members, the Legislature enacts and the governor signs into law HB 2292, a sweeping restructuring of the way that Texas provides health and human services. Among other provisions, HB 2292 mandates the state Health and Human Services Commission to replace the state’s 380 local benefits eligibility offices staffed by state employees with privately operated, remote call centers. HB 2292 also calls for the privatization of a state hospital and a state school by 2005. TSEU launches a four-year mobilizing campaign that succeeds in keeping local offices open, saves thousands of state jobs, and keeps badly needed services available to those who need them (See 2006 and 2007).
Health care: TSEU stops attempts to increase dependent healthcare premiums paid by employees and eliminate SKIP, the children’s health insurance program for low-income state employees. But the union is unable to stop increases to our co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Union members successfully defeat HB 3287, HB 3359, and HB 3360 which would have partially converted state employee health care benefits to health reimbursement accounts and medical savings accounts.
Pensions: TSEU members defeat an attempt to switch our retirement plan from a defined benefit to an unstable defined contribution plan.
ERS Board Election: TSEU’s mobilization of ERS voters leads to the election of TSEU member Yoly Griego to the ERS Board of Trustees. Yoly becomes the second TSEU member to serve on the ERS board and the first person of color since the Board was created in 1947. Janice Zitelman, the first TSEU member on the ERS board, retired from the board in 2001.
Parole: TSEU members prevent the adoption of a proposal before the Legislature to cut the Parole budget by 25 percent and eliminate 482 parole officer positions and 500 other positions within the agency.
In addition, the overtime lawsuit against TDCJ-Parole initiated by a complaint from TSEU in 2000 is settled. The Parole Division agrees to pay parole officers $2 million for overtime worked but not paid.
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
TSEU members unite with parents and guardians of state school and state hospital residents and community leaders to stop closures of state schools and hospitals proposed by state leaders. TSEU members also help prevent the closure of professional training programs in Austin, San Antonio, and Terrell, the closure of a research unit in San Antonio, and reduction of funding for psychiatric hospitals in Houston, Galveston, and Lubbock.
PRS (now DFPS): TSEU members mobilize and stop the proposed elimination of 400 Day Care Licensing positions.
Higher Education: TSEU TA and RA members at UT Austin successfully mobilize to stop HB 1370 which would have reduced the state’s contribution to their health care benefits by 50%, effectively making the health insurance too expensive for many instructional workers. They also successfully defeated HB 3441 which would have eliminated the state’s contribution entirely for the health care benefits of all TA’s, RA’s, and AI’s in public universities outside the UT and A&M Systems. Despite these efforts, UT-Austin uses a loop hole in the legislation to eliminate healthcare coverage for a number of lecturers.
SB 1652, which passes with little public scrutiny or discussion, mandates that university workers no longer be included in across-the-board state employee pay raises. Instead, their universities will receive lump sums of money to be doled out to workers as “merit” raises.
As a result of TSEU organizing, graduate assistants at UT-Austin and UT-Dallas win tuition relief increases. At UT-Austin, tuition relief increases by 6 percent over the previous year.
2004
Privatization: TSEU members continue fight against HB 2292 privatization plans by mobilizing members to testify at agency-sponsored public hearings around the state, holding rallies and press conferences, meeting with elected officials, and circulating resolutions opposing the privatization of human services in local government bodies. TSEU members convince 93 county commissioners’ courts, ten cities, and two regional planning commissions to adopt resolutions against the closure of local health and human services eligibility offices and their replacement with privately operated, remote call centers. HHSC announces global outsourcing company Accenture will be awarded the contract.
HHSC announces plans to contract with Convergys to privatize HR functions in all five Human Services agencies. The contract eliminates 350 HR positions throughout the state and launches Access HR (now CAPPS).
MHMR (now DSHS State Hospitals and DADS State Supported Living Centers):
At hearings held around the state, TSEU members mobilize to protest proposed closures of state schools and hospitals. The state subsequently issues a report (the Rider 55 report) in 2005 recommending against closure of any of these facilities.
Health Care: TSEU member and ERS Board member Yoly Griego casts the sole “no” vote on a plan to increase health care premiums for state employees due to the Legislature’s refusal to fully fund the state’s health care plans by $100 million.
2005
Pay Raise: TSEU and other state employee groups win a 4 percent pay raise with a $100 a month minimum for the first year of the 2006-2007 biennium. We also win a 3 percent raise with a $50 a month minimum for the second year of the biennium and increased longevity and hazardous duty pay. Higher education workers receive the longevity increase but are left out of the across-the-board raise that other state employees receive.
Pension: TSEU and other groups representing retirees win an increase of the state’s contribution to the ERS pension fund. The state contribution increases to 6.45 percent of payroll up from 6 percent.
Retirement benefits for new state employees in TRS and ERS are cut.
TSEU member Philip Mullins wins the Teacher Retirement System election to determine the higher education member on the TRS Board of Trustees. The board sets policies that guide TRS investment strategies and other decisions that affect the pensions of thousands of higher education workers and public school teachers in Texas. The governor, who makes the higher education appointments to the board, subsequently recognizes Mullins’ victory and appoints him to the board.
Health care: TSEU succeeds in maintaining the current level of healthcare coverage for both active employees and retirees. Several proposals that would have reduced healthcare coverage for retirees, such as making retirees pay the full cost of dependent healthcare coverage, are defeated.
TSEU defeats legislation to require ERS to offer Health Savings Accounts as a healthcare option for state employees. Health Savings Accounts, which have high deductibles and require those who enroll in them to drop out of their comprehensive coverage plans, would increase healthcare costs for those who choose to retain their comprehensive coverage and could eventually lead to the elimination of our comprehensive health care coverage.
Privatization: TSEU defeats HB 3089 and SB 1760, which would have turned over the operation of two state hospitals to a private contractor.
TSEU continues to mobilize members and community supporters to oppose the closure of local state eligibility offices and their replacement by remote, privately operated call centers.
TSEU members, once again, successfully mobilize to defeat proposed federal law changes that would make it easier to privatize TWC Employment Services and Unemployment Insurance eligibility determination.
Union members successfully defeat SB 194 and HB 470 which would have privatized the Department of Aging and Disabilities Services (DADS) Community Care for the Aged and Disabled (CCAD) program.
TSEU members work with members of Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase scrutiny on HB 2292 privatization plans, slow it down. They continue building pressure with rallies, letters-to-the-editor in local papers, and meetings with legislators.
Department of Assistive and Disability Services (DADS) and Department of Health Services (DSHS): TSEU defeats proposed legislation to give HHSC’s executive commissioner the authority to close any state school or hospital without the consent of the Legislature. Both agencies, whose mental health/mental retardation services were formerly provided by MHMR, report to the state’s Health and Human Services Commission.
Family Protective Services (FPS): TSEU members and advocates for abused and neglected children succeed in delaying the full privatization of substitute care services and case management services for foster care and adoption services. A bill, SB 6, originally calls for the privatization of these services as quickly as possible. But TSEU members mobilize to oppose this proposal. As a result, SB 6 authors agree to amend the bill. The amendments include a six-year phase-in of privatization. This delay gives TSEU time to mobilize, which eventually leads to a significant victory against privatization efforts (See 2007).
Union members also win increased staffing levels totaling 2,500 positions in APS, CPS, and CCL.
Disaster Relief: Twenty-eight TSEU members from the Beaumont area, who were victims of Hurricane Rita, receive Disaster Relief grants from the Communications Workers of America
Civil Rights: TSEU leaders, long opposed to discrimination of any kind, meet with State Pride, an organization of LGBT state employees, to look for ways to work together to end discrimination on the job.
2006
Privatization: After years of TSEU mobilizations against HHSC’s proposed plan to replace local state eligibility offices with privatized call centers, the agency announces in April 2006 that it is putting its call center plan on hold. TSEU immediately calls on HHSC to rescind all layoff notices, stop proposed office closures, rebuild its capacity to provide services in local offices, and fire Accenture, the call center contractor. In May, HHSC announces that it is rescinding the layoff notices of 1,000 eligibility workers and postponing the layoffs of another 900. Eligibility workers who stay on the job receive an $1,800 retention bonus. HHSC also announces that there will be no local office closures and that most of the work being done in privatized call centers will be returned to local offices staffed by state employees.
In July, a bi-partisan group of 60 lawmakers in a letter to HHSC Executive Commissioner Hawkins commends him for halting further rollout of the call centers and urges him to fire Accenture and rebuild the agency’s capacity for providing services in local offices.
TSEU continues to call for Accenture’s firing and for HHSC to cancel all layoffs and rebuild its capacity to provide services in local offices. In December, HHSC cancels all pending layoffs of eligibility workers and restructures Accenture’s contract. HHSC also announces that it will convert 900 temporary positions in eligibility offices to permanent positions.
Texas moves ahead with plans to privatize IT departments in 27 different state agencies. TSEU calls for increased scrutiny and a slow-down of the process.
TYC (now TJJD): TSEU members meet with TYC management to discuss ways to re-open the Al Price TYC facility in Beaumont that was temporarily closed because of damage done by Hurricane Rita. The closure caused many employees at the facility to be laid off or to be re-assigned to other TYC facilities. Shortly after the meeting, TYC announces that Al Price will re-open and that employees will return to work.
Higher Education: TSEU custodial workers at UT-Austin lead a petition campaign for more parking spaces for custodial workers, many of whom received parking tickets because of a lack of available parking spaces. As a result, UT-Austin opens up 144 parking spaces previously unavailable for custodial staff.
Funding/State Budget: Governor Perry calls special legislative session and spends $23 billion in property tax cuts, creating a structural deficit problem for the state that will squeeze budgets for years to come. Immediately after the special session, Governor Perry calls on state agencies and universities to make plans for 10% across-the-board budget cuts.
2007
Privatization: TSEU members continue to mobilize against HHSC’s plan to replace its local eligibility offices with privately operated call centers and for the firing of Accenture, the call center contractor. In March, the Dallas Morning News reports that “Texas’ rush to privatize eligibility screening for such programs as Medicaid and food stamps was dealt a huge blow Tuesday as the state announced that it would sever its relationship with [Accenture],the lead [call center] contractor.” In essence, the announcement ends for the time being HHSC’s radical experiment to replace local eligibility offices with privately operated call centers. Thanks to the efforts of TSEU members, 2,900 state employee jobs are saved.
The privatization of foster care and adoption case management and substitute care services in FPS is trimmed to a minimum with passage of SB 758, which removes the requirement that these services be privatized by 2011. SB 758 also lowers the percentage of Child Protective Services cases that are to be privatized from 100% to 5%.
TWC asks the US Labor Department to waive federal laws that prevent the privatization of Employment Services. TSEU members mobilize to pressure the Labor Department to reject TWC’s request. After meeting with TSEU members, Congressmen Lloyd Doggett of Austin and Gene Green of Houston successfully lead the effort in Congress to prevent the Labor Department from granting the waiver.
Pay Raise: State employees win a 2% raise with a $50 a month minimum for the first year of the biennium and another 2% and $50 minimum for the second year. However, higher education employees are left out of the pay raise.
TSEU defeats proposed legislation to allow state agencies to substitute merit pay raises for across-the-board pay raises.
TSEU members at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio mobilize for an across-the-board pay raise for all classified staff at the Health Science Center. Subsequently, UTHSCSA administration announces that it will raise pay for all classified staff by 2% with a $50 a month minimum, the same raise that other state employees receive.
Health care: TSEU leads the fight to increase healthcare funding and maintain our present level of healthcare benefits. TSEU defeats another attempt to require ERS to offer Health Savings Accounts as an option to our comprehensive healthcare plan.
TSEU helps lead efforts to increase healthcare funding for higher education employees, preventing increases in healthcare co-pays and deductibles for higher education workers.
FPS: TSEU succeeds in its efforts to increase staffing at FPS when the Legislature authorizes 1700 new positions for the agency. Union members also win passage of a privatization rollback bill for FPS. The bill severely limits the scope of a privatization bill passed in 2005.
HHSC: TSEU leads the fight to increase staffing in HHSC eligibility offices. A rider to HHSC appropriations bill authorizes up to 1,000 new, permanent positions in HHSC’s eligibility offices.
Parole: TSEU Parole Department members lead the successful effort to create a career ladder for parole officers. The career ladder allows for annual pay increases for parole officers. The increases continue for ten years. The plan goes into effect August 2007 and is retroactive. The victory comes after years of organizing and mobilizing in the Parole Division, which is TSEU’s most densely organized agency at 35%.
TSEU members also win passage of a bill that creates guidelines for the agency to set goals for parole officer caseloads of 60:1 (weighted for specialized caseloads). The bill does not contain language requiring the agency to achieve the goal, though. TSEU members vow to continue the fight for full funding to make the goals real.
DADS/DSHS: TSEU mental health and mental retardation workers mobilize for more staffing at state hospitals and state schools. As a result of their efforts and a damning report released by the U.S. Department of Justice, the 2008-2009 appropriations for DADS and DSHS include extra funding to increase staffing levels by 1,690 positions, about 15 percent above current staffing levels.
TYC (now TJJD): SB 103 passes after sex abuse scandals rock TYC. The massive reform passes with TSEU support for most provisions. The bill increases training requirements for JCO’s, creates a mediation process for termination disputes, reduces the population of youth in the agency, and (over TSEU opposition) makes all employees at will.
Separately, the TYC facilities in Marlin and San Saba are turned over to TDCJ as adult prisons. The facilities in Pyote and Vernon are slated for closure in 2008. TSEU members in TJJD launch campaign to stop the closures.
Facing a budget shortfall, TYC administration in October announces that it is suspending overtime pay; however, workers will still be required to work overtime. Those working overtime will have their overtime hours banked for future payments. TSEU, in a letter to TYC management, urges the agency to rethink its overtime policy and pay overtime when it is worked. Union members also begin circulating a petition calling on the agency to pay out overtime. Subsequently, TYC rescinds its decision to force workers to bank overtime and opts to pay overtime as it’s worked.
Justice on the Job: TSEU defeats legislation to make staff at state schools and hospitals at-will employees. Had this bill passed, state schools and hospitals would have been able to fire workers without just cause, and workers would have no recourse to appeal the firing.
2008
Privatization: A major privatization push begins at Prairie View A&M University as water treatment, Information Systems, and the campus telephone systems are contracted out. TSEU activists form an organizing committee to begin campaign against the outsourcing moves.
Organizing: With the highest union density of any agency at 35%, the TSEU Parole Caucus sets a goal to reach union majority in the agency. Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston area Parole campaigns are already at majority.
In HHSC, 153 new union members and 30 new COPE members sign up during a Human Services Week of Action organized by Human Services Caucus activists across the state.
TYC (now TJJD): TSEU members at Pyote and Vernon continue to organize against the closures. Union density in both facilities reaches majority. In Vernon, a strong organizing committee coordinates with local elected officials to reverse the closure decision.
Lawmakers discuss possibility of abolishing TYC completely or radically downsizing it and passing the responsibility for rehabilitating felony youth offenders to county governments and TDCJ adult prisons. TSEU members adamantly oppose the idea.
2009
Pay: The State Legislature adopts a 7% pay raise for TDCJ Parole Officers and all TYC field staff. All other state agency employees receive an $800 one-time bonus. University workers are again left out of any statewide pay increases.
TYC Closures: The Vernon Victory Field facility and the West Texas State School in Pyote get reprieve after very bitter fights in the House Appropriations Committees. Funding was approved to keep Vernon and West Texas open for another full year.
State Schools/State Supported Living Centers: Union members defeated new attempts to close state supported living centers.
Due to the settlement reached between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice, emergency funding was provided to hire an additional 1,160 staff in SSLC’s. TSEU members mobilize to ensure that the majority of the new positions will be in direct care, where it is most desperately needed.
Universities: TSEU members in Galveston and across Texas successfully mobilize to stop the UT System Board of Regents from shutting down UTMB Galveston after Hurricane Ike devastates the community.
Justice on the Job: TSEU members mobilize to defeat an attempt to make DADS State Supported Living Center employees “at will.”
Health Care/Pensions: TSEU member Yoly Griego is reelected to a second term on the ERS Board of Trustees.
The Legislature cuts retirement benefits for state agency employees in ERS hired after September 1st, 2009 by requiring them to meet the Rule of 80 and reach the age of 60 before they can retire with full benefits.
TSEU members, once again, defeat the introduction of Health Savings Accounts into our health care plans.
State lawmakers allocate $40 million of federal stimulus money to provide a 13th check for ERS and TRS retirees, but immediately raise the question of the move’s legality. The Texas State Constitution prohibits any “benefit enhancements” for state retirees while the fund is not 100% actuarially sound. Lawmakers leave the question to be decided by Attorney General Greg Abbott, who ultimately declares that it would be illegal to provide the 13th check.
Union members work to stop a proposal to automatically deduct 5% of state employees’ pay and contribute it to a ROTH retirement account, making the case that any such savings should be optional.
2010
Universities: Despite an increasing budget, UT Austin administrators announce plans to lay off hundreds of TA’s, lecturers, and adjunct faculty in order to have additional funds to hire trophy faculty from other institutions. TSEU members at the flagship university launch a campaign to stop the layoffs. They collect over 3,000 signatures on a petition to stop the cuts and cancel planned tuition increases.
Health Care: By a 5-1 vote, the ERS Board of Trustees voted to increase out-of-pocket costs for active employees and retirees. The only board member to vote against the cost increases was TSEU member Yoly Griego. The cost increases came on the heels of legislative budget cuts for ERS in the previous session.
Organizing: Momentum builds in HHSC and DADS-LTSS as union members grow the union every month of the year. 77 new members join the union in one week in June during TSEU’s HHSC Week of Action centered on rebuilding the agency’s staffing levels after the disastrous Accenture privatization plan was defeated by union members.
Funding/State Budget: A slumping economy and decreasing revenue for the state creates a $27 billion predicted budget gap for the state. Governor Perry calls for immediate across the board agency and university budget cuts of first 5%, then later an additional 2.5%. The Governor also mandates that state agencies and universities make plans to cut an additional 10% from their budgets in the next biennium. Experts estimate that these cuts would eliminate 9,800 positions in state agencies and 600 at UT Austin.
In response, TSEU unites with dozens of civil rights groups, labor unions, and non-profit advocacy organizations to form the Texas Forward Coalition. The coalition unites around three objectives for the 2011 legislative session: using all of the $9 billion Rainy Day Fund to maintain vital state services, using all available federal funding, and creating new sources of revenue that can grow along with growing need for public services.
2011
Funding/State Budget: First drafts of the state’s budget in the House and Senate call for cutting $30 billion, eliminating 10,000 state jobs, and leaves the $9.4 billion Rainy Day Fund untouched. Newspapers predict the total effect of this budget on Texas’ economy will be job losses in the hundreds of thousands.
TSEU members launch a massive campaign to stop the cuts. Working with the Texas Forward Coalition and other allies from across the state, union members organize the largest State Employee Lobby Day in the history of TSEU, with 5,000 in attendance. Union members also completed 273 in-person visits with lawmakers or their staff, generated at least 3,000 documented phone calls to legislators’ offices, and sent in at least 5,085 “Stop the Cuts” postcards.
Due to the grassroots pressure, the final budget approved by lawmakers cuts $12 billion less than what was originally planned. TSEU members vow to get the cuts restored in the next legislative session.
Pay: In addition to massive budget cuts, lawmakers propose eliminating accrued and future longevity pay for all state employees and allowing agency and university administrators to furlough employees up to 30 days out of the year. Both measures are defeated in both the regular and special legislative sessions by statewide mobilizations of TSEU members.
Health Care: Health Savings Accounts are defeated yet again. Union members also defeat an attempt to make state employees pay an increased share of health care premiums (10% for employee only and 60% for dependents).
Pensions: TSEU members defeat an attempt to convert state employee pensions from a defined benefit structure to a 401(k)-style defined contribution structure.
Universities: Union members successfully elect TSEU member Karen Charleston of Prairie View A&M to the TRS Board of Trustees. She takes the seat of TSEU member Philip Mullins of UT Austin who did not seek reelection.
State supported living centers: TSEU defeats another attempt by lawmakers to shutter two State Supported Living Centers.
Parole: Lawmakers attempt to eliminate funding for the Parole Officer Career Ladder which union members had won in 2007. TSEU members defeat this defunding attempt and preserve the career ladder.
State Hospitals: Initially lawmakers introduce legislation to begin privatizing two DSHS state hospitals. Union members mobilize and are able to get the number reduced to one and to require vendors to show future savings of 10% below current costs in order to be awarded the contract.
TYC/TJJD: Lawmakers pass a massive reorganization and closure bill aimed at the Texas Youth Commission. Despite organized pressure from TSEU members, lawmakers abolish TYC, merge it with the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission to create a new agency (Texas Juvenile Justice Department), set three large facilities and seven district offices to be closed, and slash the agencies budget by 25%. The moves threaten the agency’s mission of rehabilitating the state’s youth offenders and set the stage for increased numbers of juvenile delinquents to be certified as adults and sentenced to TDCJ prisons.
DADS-LTSS: Valley area union members in DADS Long Term Services and Support mobilize and organize to stop the expansion of the STAR+PLUS program in their area, which would privatize Aged and Disabled programs and eliminate 300 positions.
Organizing: Around 54 employees at the Workers Assistance Program, a non-profit EAP provider, launch a successful organizing drive to win union representation and to join CWA Local 6186.
Movement Building/Inequality: TSEU members join the growing Occupy movement spreading across the nation and Texas that began with Occupy Wall Street. In El Paso, Houston, Corpus Christi, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, members offer support for Occupy camps and participate in demonstrations and actions centered on the growing US inequality. Both TSEU and CWA pass resolutions of support for the movements.
2012
State Hospitals: Acting on a mandate from state lawmakers, officials at DSHS move to contract out the Kerrville State Hospital to Geo Care, a subsidiary of private prison corporation Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections). Geo has a troubled history of abuse, mismanagement, and waste in contracts throughout the country. Union members work closely with anti-privatization allies and mental health advocates to fight the privatization attempt. The mobilization is successful when DSHS rejects Geo Care’s bid, based on their plan to reduce staffing levels by 21%, putting patients at risk.
DADS-LTSS: TSEU members are successful in ensuring that all DADS employees displaced by the rollout of STAR+PLUS in the Rio Grande Valley are offered other positions in HHSC. Union members also pressure the agency to establish a state-run, quality control program staffed by state workers to monitor the STAR+PLUS contract.
Human Services: HHSC leaders announce plans to close 56 local offices housing DADS, DARS, DFPS, DSHS, and HHSC eligibility units. The offices and their staff will be combined with other already existing offices. In all, 264 positions will be affected. The move comes as a result of the massive budget cuts to HHSC in the 2011 legislative session. TSEU members mobilize to stop the closures, particularly in rural areas where clients would be forced to drive long distances to apply for benefits. Ultimately union members are successful in stopping just a few of the closures.
Pensions: Far right-wing ideologues and public employee demagogues across the country call for doing away with public employee, defined benefit pension plans. In Texas, hedge fund billionaire John Arnold and millionaire investor Bill King finance a move to force public employees into 401(k)’s. TSEU members mobilize by building the Pension Defender Network of activists to mobilize on pension issues and educate their coworkers on the dangers of moving to defined contribution plans.
At an interim hearing of the House Pensions Committee, TSEU members and our allies from other public employee unions mobilized thousands of phone calls to legislators and dozens of members to testify against any move to force state workers into 401(k)-style DC plans. Soon after the hearing, legislators announce that there will be no attempt to convert state employee benefits in the coming session.
2013
Pay: Union members win the first across-the-board pay raise for state agency employees since 2008. It is a meager 1%/$50 per month in 2013 and 2%/$50 per month in 2014, not even keeping pace with rising inflation. Union members vow to continue the fight for a real pay raise in the next legislative session.
TSEU wins a targeted raise of 10% for all direct care staff in SSLC’s and State Hospitals, and a 5% raise for TJJD JCO’s.
Pensions: Union members win the largest increase in the state’s contribution to the ERS pension since 1985, bringing it up to 7.5%. The employees’ contribution is set to incrementally increase to 7.5% by 2017.
Despite a major push by TSEU members, CSSB 1459 implements major pension benefit cuts for new state employees in the ERS system hired after September 1st, 2013. The bill also begins a tiering of health care benefits for future ERS retirees based on years of service.
CSSB 1458 implements pension benefit cuts for new employees in the TRS pension system, and also increases both the state and employee contributions. The TRS fund becomes sound, allowing for a one-time cost-of-living increase for about 60% of current TRS retirees.
Health Care: members win full funding for state employee health care, and once again defeat attempts to introduce Health Savings Accounts.
Higher Education: A statewide organizing and mobilizing effort on the part of TSEU’s university members achieves modest success, increasing funding for state universities by $669 million (4.4%).
At UT Austin, the TSEU organizing committee launches a campaign to stop the Shared Services consolidation plan released by the University. Shared Services, a plan put together by outsourcing giant Accenture, calls for consolidating HR, payroll, IT, and finance departments across the university and eliminating 500 staff positions. Union members begin circulating a petition, writing letters-to-the-editor, meeting with legislators and Austin city council members, and work to form a coalition with other concerned student groups on campus.
FPS: TSEU wins passage of SB 771 which provides for additional training for FPS supervisors before starting the job.
State Supported Living Centers: Union members defeat another attempt to establish a “realignment commission” to shut down SSLC’s.
DADS-CCAD: Legislation passes to begin privatizing DADS Community Care for the Aged and Disabled and all other Medicaid waiver programs. The legislation calls for an expansion of the managed care model. TSEU members begin campaign to push back on the move.
2014
Human Services: TSEU members launch a summer organizing blitz in HHSC and DADS-CCAD offices across the state to grow our strength, so that we can address the skyrocketing workloads crushing eligibility workers and the looming privatization threat in DADS-CCAD. The organizing blitz brings in 247 new members around the state over a 10-week period.
The workloads in HHSC increased after agency leaders canceled a $315 million contract with Maximus to process CHIP applications. The work was then turned over to state workers, along with the additional work of processing hundreds of thousands of new Medicaid referrals created by the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Union members call on legislators and agency officials to hire additional staff to address the workload issue.
State Hospitals: In a surprise move, HHSC and DSHS officials announce plans to privatize the Terrell State Hospital by the end of the year. TSEU members at Terrell and around the state work with allies to delay the move. Despite declarations in the press that “this is a done deal,” union members keep up an intense organizing and mobilizing effort.
Higher Education: The TSEU UT Organizing Committee continues its campaign to stop the Shared Services consolidation plan at UT. After gathering over 1,300 petition signatures; winning passage of resolutions in the Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Student Councils; two large rallies on campus; and faculty letter with over 100 signatures, UT announces first that it will cut ties with Accenture, and later that it will scale back its plan to implement the Shared Services plan. TSEU declares victory over Shared Services, but continues fight to stop layoffs, consolidation, and privatization on campus.
State Supported Living Centers: Agency officials in DADS begin evicting Austin SSLC residents from their homes, forcing them into either community-based group homes or other SSLC’s around the state. TSEU members work closely with the Austin SSLC Family Association to stop the gradual closure of the facility.
2015
Pensions/Health Care: TSEU members also successfully push lawmakers to increase state funding for the ERS pension to its highest levels ever. This victory saves ERS from running out of money, as it had been projected to do. ERS is put on a path to full funding within 31 years.
In a historic win, TSEU members successfully organize to elect Ilesa Daniels to the ERS Board of Trustees. Winning by a margin of 41 votes out of the over 30,000 votes cast, she steps in to fill the seat vacated by Yoly Griego. Ms. Griego chose not to seek reelection. Ilesa Daniels becomes the first African-American to ever serve on the ERS Board.
State Hospitals: After months of coalition building, organizing, and mobilizing against the privatization of Terrell State Hospital, HHSC announces that there will be “no further action” on the plan to turn the Hospital over to private prison corporation GEO Group and its subsidiary Correct Care Solutions. TSEU also wins passage of legislation barring the privatization of any state hospitals without legislative approval.
Organizing/Organizing Rights: As a part of a nationwide attack on public employee unions and public services, several bills are filed in the Texas legislature to strip all public employees in Texas of the right to join a union through voluntary payroll deduction of dues. These bills are a direct attack on the ability of public employees and retirees to organize and have a voice. The most serious of these bills, SB 1968 by Sen. Joan Huffman, passes the Senate. SB 1968 targets teachers and state, county, and municipal employees but excludes police and firefighters from the attack. The blatant divide and conquer strategy fails when police and firefighter unions stand firmly in opposition to the bill in solidarity with other public employees. After an intense mobilization involving hundreds of TSEU members working closely with other public employee unions, the bill is defeated.
TSEU members recognize the threat posed by SB 1968 will return in the next legislative session. In response, members and activists launch the “Unbustable” campaign to prepare TSEU for the possible loss of payroll deduction. TSEU members begin joining COPE in large numbers and authorizing a switch to bank draft dues collection in the event that payroll deduction is taken away.
Health Care: TSEU members win full funding for ERS and university system health care plans. State employees and retirees, however, suffer a major defeat when HB 966 by Rep. Myra Crownover passes into a law despite a major mobilization on the part of TSEU members and other state employee groups. HB 966 mandates that ERS develop and implement a high-deductible, consumer driven health plan, or Health Savings Account, as an option for all participants. TSEU members vow to continue the fight in the next legislative session to overturn the introduction of HSA’s.
Pay: Despite an all-out push from TSEU members, lawmakers decide not to enact a real, across-the-board pay raise for state workers. As a part of the ERS pension funding deal, lawmakers provide a 2.5% across-the-board raise, but state employees don’t see any of it in their checks because of the increased employee contribution to the pension fund, which increases from 6.9% to 9.5%. TSEU members do win additional raises for TJJD JCO’s of 5% and TDCJ Parole Officers of 8%; also $6.6 million for LVN/RN nurses in SSLC’s and State Hospitals.
Human Services: Calling for a completion of the work begun by HB 2292 in 2003, HHSC Commissioner Kyle Janek and the Sunset Commission push a plan to consolidate HHSC, DADS, DARS, DSHS, and DFPS into a single, 54,000 person mega-agency under the HHSC Executive Commissioner. TSEU members push back: testifying at hearings, meeting with legislators, and making phone calls. Union members point out that consolidation will lead to a reduction in the quality of services, increased bureaucracy, increased privatization, increased lack of oversight, and doesn’t address the real concerns of high workloads and low pay that plague the five human services agencies. In the end the bill passes, despite the revelation of multiple contracting scandals under HHSC’s watch which highlighted the agency’s problems with contract oversight. TSEU members plan to keep pushing to stop any further privatization or reduction of services within the agencies.
State Supported Living Centers: TSEU members and the parents and guardians of SSLC residents win a major victory when a plan to close down the Austin State Supported Living Center and five other SSLC’s around the state is defeated in the Legislature. The year-long mobilization to save the SSLC’s involved a massive coordinated lobbying effort between guardian groups and TSEU members, rallies at the Austin SSLC, postcards and phone calls to legislators, a statewide media blitz, and dozens of meetings with legislators and their staff. The victory surprised many pundits who had predicted the closures would be enacted.