How a Maryland Union Added Nearly 1,000 New Members

Video Transcript:

Pia Morrison: I think it's always incumbent upon us as a union to make sure that we're reaching out to our members in a way that is most accessible for them.

Travis Simon: We don't have the capacity at SEIU 500 to really have folks at every single work site talking about the union, getting them involved, getting them signed up, getting them engaged in the union. So, it's really vital that we have partners like American Fidelity that can go out and talk about the value of the union to any worker, whether they have a PhD or if they have a GED.

Pia Morrison: There's so much trust there because of the professionalism and because of the care. I feel like our members are in good hands. And I feel like we can send American Fidelity to any of our work sites and that our members are going to have an excellent experience.

Travis Simon: In terms of collaboration with American Fidelity, when it's open enrollment, we sit down with the team, we talk about, alright, these are the work sites that would be really good targets for you all to focus on in terms of where we need membership growth for the union, but also where, you know, American Fidelity has folks that aren't signed up for their services. So that's been super productive and I think resulted in a lot of memberships for us, but also it's been mutually beneficial. Over the last two years, it's increased our percentage at one of our largest units at least ten percent. That's an almost ten thousand person unit when they've helped us sign up close to thousand new members at MCPS alone.

Pia Morrison: How you all have supported our short term and long term strategic planning, just again, the professionalism, the care, the kindness, the collegiality.

Travis Simon: American Fidelity is actually part of our strategic plan. They have their own section of our strategic plan, which you know, probably is pretty uncommon for a vendor relationship to be a part of a strategic plan for an organization of our size.

Pia Morrison: So American Fidelity has been a really wonderful partner in our efforts to grow and build our membership up.

Travis Simon: That's how I know this partnership is working. We're seeing the impact in our membership. We're seeing the increase in our revenue. The membership dues that are coming in, the initiation fees that are coming in from the members that American Fidelity is helping us sign up. So we're seeing it in our budget, and we're seeing it in terms of just more members that we can then engage with.

Pia Morrison: There's nothing like a partner that wants what's best and puts your needs at the top of what's important for them. And that's what American Fidelity has shown us the most.

Travis Simon: It helps us grow as a union, helps our bottom line, gets more members engaged, so it's a no brainer. This has been one of best partnerships that I've we've had as an organization with any vendor or any other organization, by far.

There may be inaccuracies in an auto-generated transcript.