Tiger: Demands of union growth may have impact on convention

Union faces challenges from new federal rules

April 9, 2005

NYSUT's continuing growth in membership will inevitably force the union either to seek facilities outside the state for the annual RA or to constitutionally reduce the size of the convention delegation, Secretary-Treasurer Ivan Tiger reported Friday.

"While the officers are not yet ready to recommend such changes, it is important for you and your members back home to prepare for this eventuality," Tiger told delegates filling the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton.

"The facilities in Rochester and here at the Hilton will soon be inadequate to meet our needs," said Tiger, who was named last year to chair a task force on the future of the statewide convention.

Challenges abound

Tiger said the union is continuing to battle a declining economy and shrinking K-12 enrollments as it works to maintain the financial strength needed "to wield influence on those bodies that make decisions that impact our members in their workplaces."

He said an ongoing analysis of NYSUT's operating expenses - begun several years ago as the union anticipated the economic slowdown - has brought savings of more than $4 million in the past two years from such initiatives as a greater reliance on videoconferencing and use of NYSUT facilities for meetings, and implementing new technologies in the print shop. Nevertheless, he said, costs continue to rise, fueled in part by:

• the union's commitment to maintaining high-quality facilities, including a new building planned in the Southern Tier;
• a recent rollout of more than 500 new computers to NYSUT offices throughout the state; and
• a membership department data accuracy project, which will eventually relieve local unions of much of the workload involved with membership reporting.

New federal reporting requirements for large labor unions this year have required NYSUT's accounting and information technology departments to spend hundreds of hours to develop a new accounting system to capture the information necessary for an annual year-end filing with the U.S. Labor Department, Tiger added.

With locals and their members facing many of the same "fiscal realities" as NYSUT, Tiger said local demands on the union would inevitably increase at a time when NYSUT will need to make even greater investments in public relations and legislative initiatives to "continue to impress upon our legislators the need to fund necessary programs."