14 Head Start Teacher Assistants in Training in San Joaquin County to Join SEIU 1021

NLRB is currently doing an investigation into whether to have an election or to accrete them. The Teachers Assistant In Training unit was the only classification not in the bargaining unit when Head Start was organized. Cheryl expects we'll hear back from the NLRB any day now. Cheryl is a pro. Even though 14 the people are located in nine different locations in a 50 mile radius, she found them, saying: "Once I found them, it was easy to get them to sign. The members totally want to be in with everyone else."

Cheryl covers Valley Mountain Regional Center, Head Start, Ashton Dental, and City of Lathrop. She has 2 years of internal organization experience and another two of external before that. When asked what the current challenge was, she replied "Keeping the workers inoculated. You never know when the management might start playing favorites, laying off activists, or just start getting crazy."

One of her favorite moments was when she went to an adult school looking for a particular worker and saw people with purple t-shirts on. There the worker was, "wearing purple even before joining the union!"