Joins Community Effort
Local 237 Gains Family Ties

By ARI PAUL

Teamsters Local 237 announced a partnership April 16 with the National Union of American Families, which aims to create community unions across the country that address social problems on a local level.

The Chief-Leader/Eirini Vourloumis 'MAKE NEW YORK A WORKING MODEL': Jesse Epps explains his vision for having unions join with community organizations to address social problems on a local level.

During a presentation at the union's West 14th St. headquarters, NUAF Founder Jesse Epps, who organized sanitation workers with Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights leader's final days 40 years ago, outlined his vision for community unions.

'Hope It's Contagious'

"We're taking every community, structuring, organizing it, creating a commune of a community," Mr. Epps said. "For every 20 families there's going to be a steward. That steward is going to connect those families in his or her section to resources that meet their needs." Mr. Epps added that "the first connection is information."

The NUAF seeks to provide access to this kind of information, Mr. Epps said, through partnerships with other organizations. Local 237 President Gregory Floyd said he will be asking his 25,000 members to form local unions under Mr. Epps's plan. Mr. Floyd said he will encourage other Teamster locals to become involved with the NUAF as well.

"We hope it catches like an epidemic," Mr. Floyd said.

Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, who was present, said that she would determine how many people in her district are participating in the program and address their concerns in the City Council. She said one of the biggest issues among her constituents was access to adequate health care.

While all of Mr. Floyd's members are civil servants, he said that many union workers fear that their jobs will be moved overseas, especially to China, and that this was an issue he hoped many of his members would address through Mr. Epps' association.

"With having a union behind the people, it is a lot more power," Councilwoman Mealy said of NUAF's vision.

Mr. Epps added, "We shall take New York and make it a working model for the rest of the nation."

Mr. Floyd first spoke to Mr. Epps about partnering with his organization after an event honoring the life of Dr. King in January set up by the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, another Teamster local. He recalled being floored by NUAF's vision of community unions.

"It's so far-fetched," Mr. Floyd said, "it just may work."