Sign 'Em Up!

In Arkansas, a gutsy custodian tells what it takes to bargain a solid  agreement for support professionals—against the odds.

Photos by David Stout

You'll always encounter a warm welcome behind the double doors of the head custodian's office at Camden-Fairview (Arkansas) Intermediate School. There, Charles Moore will invite you to help yourself to free Association materials. And if you're not a member, he'll sign you up on the spot.

In fact, Moore is so passionate about unity, employee rights, and workplace respect that he often drives from his home base in south-central Arkansas to recruit non-members elsewhere—secretaries, nurses, and yes, even the cream of the teaching profession.

Recently Moore signed up a regional Teacher of the Year, and after he outlined the benefits of membership, the accomplished educator conceded, "I didn't know that!"

It's a refrain he's heard many times before. "That's the first thing non-members say," says Moore, who chairs the Arkansas Education Association's (AEA) ESP Advisory Committee. In that activist role, Moore has figured out that member recruitment involves one-on-one contact—not to mention lots of testifying about the "power of numbers." And in  a "right-to-work" state like Arkansas, where bargaining is not top on the list of favorite things to do, testifying and inspiring people to organize can be a challenge.

But Moore and other leaders of the high-membership Camden-Fairview Education Association (CFEA) are writing the book on how to do it well. Here are a few of their secrets.     

On bargaining without a law: Politically active CFEA members say they focus always on re-electing an enlightened school board that doesn't equate collective bargaining with domestic terrorism. Last summer, the district negotiated a first-time ESP agreement with CFEA's Classified Personnel Policy Committee, chaired by full-time mentor Irene Galbert.

The pact provided a $1,000 increase for paraeducators who pass the ParaPro written test for No Child Left Behind certification. It also included a job re-evaluation study that moved all workers up by 3 percent, a new salary scale giving some ESPs as much as a 15 percent raise, and financial assistance for paras seeking college degrees.

"You can do this when you're unified and have big numbers, go as an 'informed group' to your district, and let them know you know what you're talking about," says Moore, a classified policy committee member. AEA headquarters, he notes, armed CFEA with  good data on state resources on its way to the district, heading off a school board poverty plea.

On teacher-ESP unity: CFEA's fast-growing teacher unit, led by local President Ida Tramble, helped make the ESP deal happen. In fact, Tramble "not only listened to the 'classified' people, she really reached out to us," Moore stresses. "A lot of this [organizing] energy comes from her."

Indeed, Camden-Fairview's a place where teachers and ESPs recognize each others' educational roles and needs. Moore, who signs up new teachers as he helps them set up their classrooms, stresses that novice educators "need comforting and peer mentoring" to succeed in the "very hard work" of teaching.

And this head custodian—who greets arriving students each morning, invites them to his lunch table, and runs a Pizza Club for kids with great attitudes—says that if an ESP can "give a kid a great attitude, his grades will go up, because he feels good about himself."

On developing leaders: CFEA members say they put a lot of energy into grooming emerging leaders—such as paraeducators-turned-recruiters Taurus Fletcher and Cynthia Patton—and Moore knows their value better than most.

He served three years in the Vietnam War, labored 20 years in a unionized Milwaukee manufacturing plant, and finally returned home to Arkansas to start life over as a manager in Wal-Mart. What he's learned since leaving that anti-union company, he says, is that "workers will work harder and feel better about themselves if they have a voice and feel they're part of decision-making."

At  CFEA, leaders say they try to empower members. It's a noble goal for any NEA affiliate, says Jon White, AEA's associate executive director.

"All it takes," White notes, "is people doing for themselves, being bold, and saying, 'This is what we need to do a better job for kids.'"

—Dave Winans

More ESP stories in this issue:

• Montana affiliate has course to "qualify" paras for law
• ESPs share advice on tackling tasks at home
• Writing better job descriptions for paras