Career development

AFSCME Career Development Program Records

jruss — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:51:45 -0400

Seeing success in a program run by AFSCME District Council 37 in New York City that upgraded Nursing Aides to Licensed Practical Nurses, the International union wished to bring career development training to its members who were hospital employees. As such, in 1967, AFSCME began investigating how to develop hospital career development training programs. In 1969, AFSCME was awarded a grant from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to work with hospitals in Boston, Cleveland, and Maryland. In 1971, AFSCME received a second grant to take the Hospital Career Development Program (HCDP) to three new cities, Memphis, Detroit, and St. Paul. At this point, language guaranteeing funding for continuing career development began to enter negotiated contracts. In 1973, AFSCME received its third grant, which brought HCDP to three more cities, Houston, Milwaukee, and the District of Columbia.

This collection documents the planning, execution, and evaluation of the AFSCME Career Development Program, 1966-1975, which primarily involved the Hospital Career Development Program (HCDP). HCDP developed and implemented career ladders and training curricula for hospital employees. The records are comprised of correspondence, reports, meeting minutes, curricula, job descriptions, organizational charts, contracts, press releases, news clippings, lesson plans, course schedules, graduation invitations and announcements, recruitment material, newsletters, and a small number of photographs.

AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records

jruss — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:17:10 -0400

Part 1 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records focuses on Deinstitutionalization, particularly at Wayne County General Hospital (WCGH). The hospital complex was located in western Wayne County, Michigan, approximately 16 miles west of downtown Detroit. Deinstitutionalization represented a major change in philosophy for mental health treatment delivery and was the term given to the process whereby mentally ill patients were moved out of large public hospitals and into smaller community-based treatment facilities. Typically, large public (state) hospitals were then closed. The process began in 1955 with the introduction of new psychiatric medications by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) into state hospitals. These new medicines offered the possibility of less-restrictive care for the mentally ill outside of the inpatient hospital setting. The deinstitutionalization trend accelerated after the passage of the Community Mental Health Centers Act in 1963 and then continued throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Part 2 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records consists of material related to AFSCME’s national effort to affect public policy in federal, state, and local governments during the 1970s. The department conducted research on issues with the potential to impact AFSCME members, especially matters of Social Security, cost of living, pensions, healthcare, deinstitutionalization, public health care, and unemployment. From this research, the Public Policy Analysis Department created reports and studies meant to influence the policy created by government agencies. The bulk of Part II of this collection represents AFSCME’s work in the debate on deinstitutionalization and health care reform efforts between 1973 and 1978.

Part 3 of the AFSCME Public Policy Analysis Department Records contains correspondence, memos, reports, data, news articles, studies, speeches, and testimonies. Large portions of the records pertain to mental health and deinstitutionalization. Other topics covered include taxes, Reagan-era budget cuts and other economic issues.

AFT Ohio Federation of Teachers Records

dgolodner — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:59:11 -0500

The Ohio Federation of Teachers is a state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and represents primary and secondary school teachers, college and university professors, adjuncts, graduate and student workers, and support staff. The AFT established the Ohio State Federation of Teachers as their first experimental state federation in 1933, which was later officially chartered in 1938. Many locals did not affiliate with the state organization until 1968 when the AFT began to require them to do so. It was not until the 1970s that OFT locals gained collective bargaining rights. Throughout its history, OFT has used collective bargaining, strikes, lobbying and testimony on legislation, and other efforts meet its goals. The OFT and its local affiliates have developed ways to assist teachers and improve retention that have been models for other states, particularly the Toledo Plan, Career in Teaching, and Peer Assistance and Review programs. Other issues the OFT addresses are teacher health and retirement benefits, pay, tenure, curriculum, school budget problems, and charter schools

Part I of this collection contains general office files, correspondence, and minutes as well as conference materials. Subjects include the federation's activities with improving membership and public schools, professional and educational programs. There is information dealing with the Ohio politics and communication with Ohio locals.

Part II contains documents related to the union’s activities and initiatives for educator and student rights and improving education systems. In particular, information on programs for peer review and career development are included. Material types include correspondence, reports, minutes, convention and conference proceedings, constitutions, publications, legislation, newsletters, press releases, speech and testimony transcripts, pamphlets, and photographs. Additional subjects include organizing, bargaining, legislation and court cases, and conflicts and collaborations with the National Education Associations Ohio charter, the OEA.