LABOR DAY MESSAGE FROM CSEA PRESIDENT DANNY DONOHUE

CSEA President Danny Donohue is a honorary Grand Marshal for the 2010 Rochester Labor Day Parade.  CSEA is also celebrating 100 years of public service to our communities.  We are employees of New York State and its counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts, library systems, authorities and public corporations.  Together with private sector members and 50,000 retirees, we form a union more than 300,000 strong. 

Albany, N.Y.--  CSEA was the first known organization of state employees when it was founded at the state Capitol in 1910. Since then it has grown to represent every kind of worker in every part of New York, including a growing private sector division.  With that in mind, here is a message from our statewide President on this Labor Day weekend:

"A benchmark event like a centennial anniversary provides an opportunity to look back at where we've come from and how we got to where we are today," said CSEA president Danny Donohue. "More importantly, it provides a chance to look forward and try to become better."

"CSEA has never been bigger, better, stronger at any point in our history but the challenges we face today have never been greater," Donohue said. "We wouldn't be here one hundred years if not for the ability to grow, change and adapt to new circumstances and that must shape our future moving forward."

"People who bash CSEA don't know CSEA," Donohue said. " The vast majority of our members are dedicated to doing the best work possible and adding value to their communities on and off the job. The strength of CSEA is in our members and they are some of the greatest resources in all New York – no one should take that for granted."

Donohue goes on to say:

"On Oct. 24 1910, a group of New York state employees came together at the state Capitol to form the Association of State Civil Service Employees. Their purpose was simple: Advance the concept of merit and fitness in the state civil service system to improve the working lives of New York state employees.  It was a humble and idealistic beginning in a much simpler time.

The story of the association's growth and transformation into CSEA-- New York's leading union - is today more complicated and entwined in the history and transformation of New York and our nation since that founding.

In this milestone year that marks our 100th anniversary, CSEA, like other organizations is facing its share of challenges. We can take some comfort in the perspective of our own history as a guide to finding our way through the tough times.

The Association was founded at the height of the Progressive era, when optimism about transforming the corrupt political patronage mills into a rational social science based system had vigorous momentum. In 1910, the trust-busting governor, Charles Evans Hughes had recently stepped down to become a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, while New York's Theodore Roosevelt dominated the political scene as he contemplated another run for the White House.

Many of the early leaders of the Association were high ranking state officials - well-educated and accomplished as career civil servants. The association's first President, William Thomas was chief clerk to the state's attorney general. Thomas was instrumental in the establishment of the state Retirement System in 1920, giving the association a significant early achievement that endures to this day.

When Gov. Alfred E. Smith pushed through dramatic reforms that changed the size and scope of New York state government in the mid 1920s, the association was poised for growth. Membership grew significantly in the onset of the Great Depression, helped in part by Gov. Franklin Roosevelt's recognition of the association as a legitimate representative of state employees.

Throughout the 1930s, the association grew dramatically and compiled impressive achievements to improve the pay, benefits and working conditions of its members through legislation - long before public employees gained the right to collective bargaining in New York.

In the 1950s, during the terms of Republican Gov. Thomas Dewey and Democrat Gov. W. Averell Harriman, CSEA made solid gains, issue by issue, year by year while continuing to increase its membership, particularly in local government chapters. News clippings and other historic documents of the era also suggest an emerging pattern for CSEA's dealings with governors and other public officials: praise and cooperation when supporting the association's agenda mixed with testy public confrontation and opposition when at odds.

It was Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1967 who opened a whole new era for CSEA at the stroke of his pen when he signed into law the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, known as the Taylor Law. It was and still is, the most comprehensive law of its kind providing for formal collective bargaining.

In 1978, CSEA joined the mainstream labor movement by affiliating with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Today, CSEA is the flagship affiliate of AFSCME, which in turn is the largest union in the AFL-CIO.

Danny Donohue leads march in Buffalo in September 2009. 
He will be a honorary Grand Marshal in the 2010 Rochester
Labor Day Parade on September 6.
(photo by Ove Overmyer)

CSEA's history with Govs. Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo and George Pataki saw landmark advances in on-the-job safety and health protections, pay equity, management of health care and prescription drug programs, and improvements to the New York State Retirement System set against often bitter state fiscal crises and fights for the future of public services. Just as important has been CSEA's critical role in local government and school district activities where today more than half the union's members work.

The more recent years of the Eliot Spitzer/David Paterson era have seen a share of challenges that remain for history to judge.

CSEA's advocacy has always been based on the work of its members. Literally hundreds of thousands of people shaped CSEA's decades of accomplishment through their individual and collective action over the course of their careers or on a daily basis. It is their story that is still being written by the work they do every day."

photo:  Ove Overmyer