AFGE 12 Celebrates 75th Anniversary

"Three cheers for Local 12, happy anniversary!" exclaimed a beaming Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, MD) as she greeted the cheering crowd in the Department of Labor's Great Hall Wednesday. Mikulski was the featured speaker at AFGE Local 12's luncheon celebrating its 75th anniversary. Recognized by the American Federation of Government Employees on August 29, 1932, Local 12 was one of the original "lodges" established when AFGE was founded, and is considered "the flagship local of the Federation." Mikulski hailed the local's members for "fighting every day for American workers." She and the local paid tribute to Mine Safety Inspector Gary Jensen, an AFGE member who died in August trying to save the miners trapped in the Crandall canyon mine in Utah. Surviving the Hatch Act, the Taft-Hartley Act in the 1940s and McCarthyism in the 1950s, the local's membership and power grew during the Kennedy Administration under Executive Order 10988 -- Lodge 12 was the first union group in the nation to be recognized under the order -- which codified the right of federal unions to bargain with federal agencies. Local 12 created model agreements establishing the right of federal workers to grievance procedures, union participation in departmental committees, official government time for representation, and a commitment to equal employment opportunity. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, signed by President Carter, established the framework for the 1980 collective bargaining agreement which became the model for the entire federal sector, instituting flexible work schedules, credit time, Local 12's role in the child care center, and the upward mobility program. "You're needed now more than ever," Mikulski told the assembled union members, "because while you were protecting workers, your own jobs were threatened with outsourcing," an effort she noted was defeated last year (which, among other things, would have outsourced mine safety inspectors) and for which AFGE 12 leadership thanked her. While celebrating three quarters of a century of activism, Local 12 pledged to "continue to lead the way for AFGE in its effort to fight privatization through litigation, lobbying, demonstrations, and publicity."
- Report/photos by Chris Garlock