Paula Dorsey has spent most of her adult life fighting for workers. After serving 19 years as president of AFSCME Local 426 in Milwaukee, Dorsey became a staff representative for the local about two years ago. Under the union’s contract with the city, she is released full-time from her city job to work for the union, handling employees’ grievances.

“I do it because I enjoy it. I enjoy helping people,” she says. Dorsey says she enjoys negotiating good union contracts for workers because she knows that means their families will be able to afford to live a good life. “Unions are an important avenue to protect the rights of working people and to build communities.”

Last year she served on the union committee that negotiated a new three-year contract for Milwaukee city workers. It was a hard negotiation, she says, because the city changed mayors and labor negotiators during the talks. But eventually, the workers stood together and won a good pact.

Dorsey says the contract talks pointed up one of the toughest problem facing workers today: Apathy. “We have to get people to understand that they are the union and they have the responsibility to protect our good jobs. They need to look at what’ s going on in the politics and how that affects your budget and your community.”

It’s particularly important for working people to get involved in their local government’s budget process, Dorsey says. “We pay taxes and we need to see where that money is going. We need to show up at budget hearings and make sure that they [government officials] get the facts about what’s going on from the people who are doing the jobs our taxes pay for.”     

Dorsey, who describes herself as “50-plus, single with no kids,” says the union is her family as well as her life’s work. “I never wanted to do anything else,” she says.