AFSCME Fellows Seek Ways to Help Workers - Union or Not!

Monday, August 10th, 2015

AFSCME Fellows Richard Olszewski, Ashley Capacio and Dayne Lee

This year’s fellows at AFSCME in Washington, DC, found their shared fellowship experience to be both educational and rewarding. Ashley Capacio, Richard Olszewski and Dayne Lee were all hard at work researching, writing and finding ways to better help both AFSCME members and non-union workers across the country.

Each fellow was assigned different focus areas for the duration of their fellowships. Ashley reported that one of her favorite assignments was working on an amicus brief to defend teacher tenure statutes in the state of California.

Richard and Dayne, meanwhile, were heavily engrossed in research. Richard spent his fellowship investigating issues affecting AFSCME locals, particularly how state constitutional protections of public employee pensions work to prevent state governments from reducing pension payments to retirees. Dayne, on the other hand, worked on a project early in his fellowship where he analyzed newly-enacted legislation and how it could help emergency medical workers in California negotiate for better terms in their contracts. His focus then shifted to researching how independent workers can organize and fight for better pay and working conditions in the face of labor and antitrust statutory challenges.