On September 22, the Portsmouth City Council passed a collective bargaining ordinance allowing city workers “the right to organize, form, join, assist, and pay dues or contributions to employee organizations, to bargain collectively through an exclusive bargaining representative of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.”
The language in the ordinance covers all city employees and prohibits retaliation for organizing. “The City will refrain from any intimidation, coercion, or harassment of employees in the exercise of their rights under this division.” The ordinance also allows workers to use work property for union activities off duty or during breaks and allows for the use of city communications and email to conduct union business.
UE members and other unions in the state have been organizing around collective bargaining rights for years. The success in Portsmouth, according to UE member and Mental Health Case Manager Hope Cuffee, came from consistency. She said, “Persistence, patience, and not giving up has been so important.” Cuffee said the city firefighters who are affiliated with IAFF have been key partners in the fight. “I think that we got here because of the firefighters and us. We were constantly writing letters to city council, attending meetings, and communicating with them to let them know we wanted to be heard.” Workers from Portsmouth also attended “organizing blitzes” in North Carolina — learning alongside other union members in the South.
The win in Portsmouth came only four months after Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger vetoed a state collective bargaining bill that she initially promised to pass. In a newsletter from the Virginia UE members, Tangela Randall, an Independent Living Coordinator with Portsmouth Social Services, responded to the governor’s betrayal by saying, “The truth is that public-sector workers in Virginia have been deeply underpaid and under-appreciated for generations. This was a critical opportunity to correct a historic, racist law that was established in the Jim Crow era to hold down Black workers. It now holds back all workers.”
The same newsletter said, “During her bid to win the election last fall, she looked many unionists in the eyes and committed her support for public-sector collective bargaining.” The betrayal by the governor is a reminder that UE’s policy of independent political action is the only way to advance the rights of working people. When asked about the recent actions that led up to the ordinance being passed, Randall said, “The consistency of the city workers showing up has been most important. Me and some other workers have been at city council meetings constantly to just let our presence be known. Some of the things we did were not approved but we still continued to gather.”
When asked about the recent win in Portsmouth, Randall said, “We have a renewed sense of hope.” She also said that she and the other members of UE will continue to “get things rolling because one thing we do know is that election season is here… Now is not the time to slack off. It’s time to put our best foot forward, keep up the pressure, and continue to organize.”
Cuffee added, “I would like to thank everyone involved. It started with a few of us and even though we started off small, our persistence made it happen. We still got more fights to go to be official but I want to thank everyone for not giving up. Even though I might retire in four years, it wasn’t about me, it was about people behind me. It was about the whole city.”