​IT workers at USDA unionize with AFGE

More than 800 workers at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have joined AFGE after their election to form a union. The campaign was exciting and posed unique challenges as these IT workers all worked remotely and had limited engagement with each other before the organizing drive began. But through phone banking, sending texts, holding virtual meetings and, most importantly, tasking activists to contact their co-workers, they overwhelmingly voted “Union Yes.” “They became organized under the basic principle of wanting a say in their working conditions because they saw firsthand what a difference having a seat at the table could mean,” said John Dean, AFGE’s lead organizer for the campaign. “This election was the workers’ chance to stand up to the agency, and they did.” Read more here.

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