Meet in the conference hotel lobby at 6:45am for a casual bird walk with fellow nature lovers! We’ll walk the nature trails in Catherine Chevalier Woods, right behind the hotel. Bring binoculars if you have them.
Robotics at Amazon is just getting started, but already it's intensifying work, degrading jobs, and displacing workers. Hear how robotics and A.I. are reshaping the relationship between workers and bosses.
The management's rights clause has found its way into almost all union contracts. For years it often consisted of a single sentence, but the longer this clause gets, the more it can undermine the whole rest of your contract. Learn why these clauses are so dangerous and how to narrow the language back down.
This session will feature a short song at the start by Joe Jencks, Musicians Local 1000.
Join us for a discussion of coordinated bargaining in various scenarios: within the same union with a common employer, across different unions with a common employer, and across different unions with different employers. Topics will include aligning contracts, coordinating actions and strikes, and negotiations strategy.
An expiring contract can get members fired up and paying close attention. How can we use contract campaigns to build union democracy that lasts? Learn from union members who organized daring contract campaigns. Based on inclusive member discussions and creative collective actions, they won more than paycheck gains, making their unions more member-led and ready to fight.
The engine of any contract campaign is a member-to-member communication and organizing network that reaches the entire workforce. Panelists will take us through the steps of how they built and activated Contract Action Teams and used that power to win.
Colleges and universities are not only places to explore and test ideas; they're also workplaces with increasingly corporate structures. Faculty and staff members are fighting to defend vibrant, diverse education and demand better employment opportunities. Hear how unions are organizing militant contract campaigns, defending workers' rights from attack, and devising strategy to set standards across multiple states.
Work where the output is measured poses special challenges for workers. Where did the company get its standard? How can we know if it's accurate? What can we do if we think it’s unreasonable? We'll explore the basis of standards and how to address them, including the most effective ways to investigate and challenge output quotas and inadequate staffing.
Muchos lugares de trabajo tienen comités de salud y seguridad que no son tan efectivos como podrían ser para cambiar condiciones peligrosas en el trabajo: condiciones que pueden lesionar, enfermar o matar a los trabajadores. Este taller se basará en las experiencias de los participantes y discutirá los elementos clave que pueden hacer que el comité del sindicato o centro de trabajo sea más eficaz. También exploraremos estrategias para aumentar la eficacia de los comités laboral-patronales y lograr que la dirección solucione los peligros clave que identifican los trabajadores.
Across the country, ICE is terrorizing workers and stomping on our most fundamental civil liberties. But they can't do it without support from major corporations who are only too happy to rent them hotels and vehicles, offer logistical support, and carry out deportation flights. Hear from organizers who are identifying and holding these corporate collaborators to account, and learn how you can join the fight.
A pesar de los esfuerzos de la administración Trump para intimidar a los trabajadores inmigrantes, usted sigue teniendo derechos, sea o no sea ciudadano. Descubra secretos poco conocidos sobre los derechos que asisten a los trabajadores inmigrantes y a aquellos no sindicalizados bajo la legislación laboral federal, así como estrategias para defenderse de las cartas de discrepancia de datos, del sistema E-Verify y de las auditorías de los formularios I-9.
Las políticas discrecionales en la aplicación de las leyes laborales impactan el terreno de la lucha para los trabajadores, los centros de trabajadores y los sindicatos. Trabajadores y organizadores compartirán estrategias para dar seguimiento a investigaciones y litigios de varios años de duración, en un tiempo de inestabilidad política y los cambios en las políticas sobre la protección de los trabajadores.
The boss hopes we'll let language divides make organizing a nonstarter, but it doesn't have to be. Learn how to build member power across multiple languages in your union and forge winning campaigns in a multilingual workplace.
Chinese capital and workers have spread across the Global South, where they find heightened exploitation and deteriorating labor and environmental standards. Learn about the conditions and struggles of Chinese workers, both within China and overseas—including in the Middle East and Southeast Asia—and consider possibilities for building international solidarity.
Educators everywhere are facing the pain of savage austerity, government coercion, and attempts to repress union militancy. But bottom-up resistance and resilience are also everywhere. From a massive strike this March by teachers across Catalonia, Spain, to "little fires everywhere" in the UK, to resistance against Trump-like demagoguery in Alberta, Canada, the stories will teach and inspire.
When everything feels like it's falling apart, this book will be your lifeline. Drawing on 50 years of experience helping thousands of workers to navigate just about every imaginable organizing challenge, Ellen David Friedman has created a field guide to help you make sense of the everyday chaos and devise your next step in any situation. Hear from the author and four of the organizers featured, and nab your copy of our new book before it sells out!
Improving our workplaces, strengthening our unions, and fighting for a better world: it's good work, but it's often hard. Hear successful organizers describe strategies to take care of ourselves and each other as we build a dynamic movement that can win. Between brief presentations, everyone will have a chance to share what they've figured out in their lives.
Queer and trans workers have long been at the forefront of intersectional solidarity, bridging identities and social movements. We’ll share highlights of LGBTQIA+ labor culture, comics, and current dispatches, and connect towards building queer futures and vibrant multiracial unions, in style.
Hear how worker leaders and organizers are using workplace safety issues to build worker power on the shop floor at Amazon. Learn about different models that union and not-yet-union workers can use to challenge abusive workplace practices and improve safety conditions. We’ll explore strategies for comprehensively addressing worker demands around health and safety, the structures and tools that work best, and how to make health and safety campaigning effective across industries and workplaces.
"These kids don't want to work any more!" "These boomers ruined it all for us!" Generational divides are played up in the media, and show up at our workplaces and in our unions. This session will explore what's behind generational conflict at work, and share strategies for building unity.
Authoritarianism and corporate power converge through the system of courts and prisons to keep wages low, undermine organizing, and make profit. A clip from the award-winning documentary "The Alabama Solution" opens this session, spotlighting incarcerated organizers who are leading work stoppages against brutal repression inside Alabama prisons. Panelists will discuss the continuum from prison labor on the inside to sub-minimum wage temp work on the outside. Hear why organizing criminalized workers—in and after prison—is essential to building working-class power.
Palestinian unions continue to ask workers of the world to end all complicity with Israel’s regime of apartheid and genocide. Since the founding of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in 2005, unions and labor federations across the world have endorsed BDS as a key form of solidarity with Palestinian workers. Hear from unionists engaged in solidarity organizing, including a case study of divestment, a campaign to defend journalists, and grad workers speaking out on campus. You'll get concrete tactics and strategies to implement in your own union.
Are you tired of greedy corporations and executives taking and taking... and leaving us crumbs? This interactive workshop focuses on how billionaires and bosses try to divide working people so that we will fight each other instead of them, and how we can build a strong working-class movement to stand up to their money and power. You'll leave able to run similar political education workshops for members of your own union.
We’ll discuss labor-backed independent candidacies running both on and off the Democratic ballot line, what to do in areas where elections are completely dominated by Republicans, union political education in the face of bleak electoral choices, referendums on working-class issues, and lessons from the Labor Party of the 1990s.
It's a natural step from building shop floor power to building campaigns for policy change. As organizers, we're often already engaged in campaigns beyond the workplace. How can we apply democratic unionism in these campaigns? How can we use them to expand membership and empower members to lead? Learn from organizers who have translated workplace power into policy campaigns that expand workers' rights.
The murder of VA nurse and AFGE member Alex Pretti, during anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, drew national attention to the role of federal workers in resistance to the Trump administration. This panel brings together VA caregivers and health care reform advocates to discuss union mobilization of vets within their own ranks, efforts to build cross-union unity among VA labor organizations currently stripped of bargaining rights, and “Save The VA” coalition-building.
Leaders should be aiming not only to find a replacement when it's time to move on, but also to identify and develop new leaders who can help build the union's capacity and power. We'll talk about where to find potential new leaders, how to support and develop them, and what kinds of union structures can help.
Sometimes our unions feel like they need a "restart" button. Maybe members were used to more of a service model of leadership, or a tough fight has left your leadership in shambles. Hear from folks who have built up a strong, fighting local when it seemed unlikely.
Getting elected was the easy part—running the union brings a new set of challenges. Hear from experienced reformers about how to turn things around at your workplace, get members involved, and move a program. Learn what pitfalls to avoid and what steps are essential to leading effectively at your worksite and in your union.
Learn how to listen to your co-workers and recognize what they care about, assess their attitude towards forming a union, and ultimately get them to support the campaign. We'll discuss the importance of socializing before you organize, and getting to know your co-workers. This workshop is for workers forming a union.
Ready to declare you’ve had enough? A collective march on the boss can shift the balance of power. Hear from workers who've done it, and learn how you and your co-workers can prepare to do the same.
Shop stewards are the face of the union—the ones members see day to day, and rely on for everything from basic questions about the job to handling complicated grievances. But stewards are also in a great position to strengthen the union by getting more people involved: by thinking like an organizer. Meet with activists from different unions across the country to learn about how to be more effective stewards by organizing.
Bajo las amenazas de la administración Trump, los trabajadores inmigrantes han tenido que organizarse para defender sus derechos. Escuche de líderes sindicales y comunitarios sobre como han hecho este trabajo de autodefensa.
Stewards are the backbone of the union, defending co-workers when they need it most. We'll review how stewards can use their special rights and protections to most effectively advocate for their co-workers in investigatory interviews—and how to handle supervisors who are trying to put you off or trip you up.
When it comes to grievances, is your local stuck pushing paper more often than winning “instant justice”? Are grievances bottlenecked in the hands of a veteran steward or solo staffer? Hear from activists who are changing their unions’ grievance culture with direct action, group grievances, and mini-campaigns, and drawing more members into solving everyday problems on the job. We’ll also review the challenges, and how to avoid slipping back into well-worn grooves.
You can maximize the impact of tactics by making them part of a larger strategy. Draft individualized components for reaching your organization’s main goal. Practice activities that will help you recognize members’ strengths, identify community alliances, and align purposeful, escalating tactics to build the power to win.
Unions fight for better wages and working conditions, but we also want to build power to win transformative change for working people and the planet. How can we work across unions and sectors, align with community partners, and build powerful alliances that begin to change the balance of power? Hear how unions are developing a long-term agenda and strategy to win bigger gains.
Workplace mapping, a tried-and-true step in campaign planning, can help workers discover different sources of leverage based on specific work performed. Reflect on new ways to bring pain to the boss and explore possibilities for adapting this method to different industries.
Striking sounds exhilarating, but it's also scary and takes a lot of work. What are the building blocks for getting your union and co-workers ready to strike? Panelists in this interactive workshop will reflect on their strike experiences and share lessons from the picket line to the bargaining room.
Meet with union and nonunion workers at logistics giant Amazon. The more we're in touch, the better we can use our collective power along Amazon's supply chain.
Are you in a workers cooperative? Is your union or worker center organizing or supporting workers co-ops? Are you curious about how unions and cooperatives can work together for democracy and workers’ power? Come share experiences, resources, and ideas.
Saturday June 13, 2026 11:05am - 12:35pm CDT John Wayne
Graduate workers have a lot of organizing to discuss, from creative grievance victories to challenging contract fights. Discuss what's working and reflect on what is not with fellow grad employees.
Meet other members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. How can we keep building the momentum to strengthen and democratize our union?
Saturday June 13, 2026 11:05am - 12:35pm CDT Seatac
Are you a blue-collar worker toiling in a factory building stuff? Share strategies and learn from other workers in the manufacturing sector about how they've won stronger contracts and transformed their unions.
Join postal workers from all four U.S. postal unions, and abroad, to talk about how we’re organizing to breathe life into our unions and save the public postal service.
Saturday June 13, 2026 11:05am - 12:35pm CDT Florence
Meet fellow members of the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union to talk about issues in our industries, how we can coordinate campaigns at common employers, and how we can transform our union into a fighting force. All grocery, retail, and meatpacking workers are welcome, union or no union.
Workers centers are waging bold fights for fair wages, immigrant defense and more. Learn about tactics others are taking up and how to build power in your community.
Culture is how movements build identity, sustain energy, and make change imaginable. An upsurge of new alliances—fusing politics and culture—is transforming organizing, labor, and community activism. Drawing on historical and contemporary campaigns, artists and activists on the front lines will share the cultural strategies they deploy to build power, win campaigns, and resist authoritarianism.
Calling all construction workers: meet up here to discuss big issues on our jobsites, challenges for our unions, and how to grow networks to transform them. Members of related trades like utilities are welcome too.
It's 110 degrees out, but the boss wants business as usual. How can we bring our co-workers together to keep us safe—and build our power—through all the climate mayhem? Hear from workers who have organized around heat, floods, and other dangerous weather. Then you'll have the chance to discuss how your co-workers already bring up climate issues, and plan steps towards collective action.
Bullying, conflict, and other divisions weaken us. The more united our worksites are, the easier it is to solve problems. In this interactive workshop we’ll practice member-to-member communication tools that help increase respect among co-workers, fight oppression, and respond collectively to workplace problems.
The strongest alliances go deeper than "you support us on this, we'll support you on that." Hear how unions and community groups are forging long-term ties based in shared values and strategy. Years of spadework have laid strong foundations for current fights to defend immigrants, oust ICE, defeat Islamophobia, and win a contract at Starbucks.
Unions are critical in the fight to push back authoritarianism and the erosion of our rights. Join us to learn the anti-authoritarian playbook and how to use our union power to defend democracy. From the Freedom Trainers program.
Your workplace may feel like an unorganized mess, but the truth is you’re not starting from zero. There’s organization there already—though it might have nothing to do with the union. Learn how to map out the existing networks in your workplace, identify the leaders in those networks, and then knit them together into an organizing committee. Based on the popular book Secrets of a Successful Organizer.
Everybody has complaints and frustrations, but an organizer has the power to turn problems into opportunities. Learn how to sort through the issues you hear from co-workers, bring people together, and make a plan to solve them. Based on the popular book Secrets of a Successful Organizer.
Surprise, creativity, and humor can be the keys to rank-and-file engagement. Whether you’re facing a contract campaign, a privatization battle, or a dormant membership, these tools can be scaled to fit your situation. Discover the talents among your members for song, humor, creative props, and theatrics. Learn the principles of creative organizing, share examples, and develop tactics you can take home. Solidarity and laughter make a potent mix!
Your boss isn’t using A.I. just to write emails. Hear from workers across industries about what happens when employers use A.I. to surveil, transform, and automate work, and learn how workers and unions are defending their dignity and autonomy.
Learn how to skillfully navigate contract negotiations! This bargaining crash course will cover legal frameworks, common terminology, drafting proposals, opening up bargaining to members, and other tips and strategies.
A massive boom in A.I. data centers is sparking fierce controversy in towns across the country. While construction workers see a rare chance to grow their unions, many working people fear higher electric bills, water shortages, job cuts, and rampant pollution. Hear from workers and a researcher about how unions can build common ground, organize data center workers, and win huge concessions from corporate developers.
Rising temperatures, severe storms, and other climate-fueled disasters are already threatening workers' safety. While health and safety laws are designed to protect workers during emergency conditions, enforcement agencies do not have resources to keep workers from harm. Unions can both prevent these risks and fight for a sustainable planet. Practice using health and safety tools to reflect on your own experiences with climate change hazards and take action in your union.
Learn how to build rank-and-file teams to dig up information on your employer, and once you’ve got it, how to turn it into a winning organizing or bargaining campaign. Explore the basics of company and industry research to supercharge your campaign and build your union.
Management attorneys' strategy in a first contract is to delay with multiple counters for each proposal, refuse to bargain more than two to three hours a week, and propose frustratingly long management rights clauses. After an exhausting organizing drive, what's a newly organized group to do? We'll get into different strategies such as transparent and participatory bargaining, doing a power analysis during the organizing drive, having most proposals ready to go right away, and planning communications and actions.
Public sector workers provide vital services working people depend on, and they're a bastion of union strength. That's why the 1 percent and their political allies love to attack the public sector through austerity and union-busting. Hear how unions are organizing and fighting back.
Unionized publc sector employment has been a critical source of stability for Black workers both historically and today. Austerity and attacks on public workers are a threat to this pillar of racial justice. Hear from Black workers about their experience in the public sector and why it's so important for fighting racial inequality.
Under a "guestworker" temporary immigration program, your ability to work is tied to your employer, granting the boss extreme control and significantly raising the stakes of an organizing campaign. Learn how workers are fighting against this abusive system through litigation and cross-border organizing.
The organizer's creed is: it's always possible to do something. But in truth, it doesn't always feel that way. Getting exhausted, being overwhelmed, dealing with conflicts among co-workers... these obstacles are real, and hard. The wisdom we can cultivate as organizers is how to keep going at these moments. We'll learn from one another.
Burnout—emotional, physical, or mental—is a fact of life for many of us in the labor movement, whether it's due to our jobs, our union activism, or both. Join us for a thoughtful and compassionate discussion of how we can address burnout on an individual and a group level, and how we can organize ourselves so that our work can be sustained.
Employers impose aggressive discipline policies like “zero tolerance” to reinforce their authority. Unions must be equally aggressive in insisting on the time-honored principles of just cause. This workshop will help you to prepare and present grievance and arbitration cases, raising defenses such as disparate treatment, lax enforcement, and double jeopardy. A model request for information will be distributed.
Attacks from the Trump administration on queer and trans people—including blows to gender-affirming health care, education, and legal gender recognition—are intertwined with efforts to erase the existence of immigrants in the U.S. and dismantle federal agencies and social safety nets. Hear how LGBTQ+ workers are involving their unions in these fights, organizing to protect the rights and dignity not just of queer and trans community, but of others as well.
When we build power on the job, we’re taking power from those who already have it—so it’s no surprise they tend to fight back! Learn how to “inoculate” your co-workers, that is, prepare them for a crackdown and help them interpret the boss fight as it goes along. This training is relevant for anyone who is forming a union, but also for anyone who is stepping up the level of activity in an existing union.
With facilities on every continent except Antarctica and more than 1.5 million employees, Amazon is the infrastructure that makes the global economy move, from the virtual to the physical world. One click can set in motion a vast network of warehouses, cargo ships, planes, and delivery vans. Get a glimpse of how Amazon workers in Spain, Germany, Poland and France are organizing against a corporate giant.
Many of us avoid talking politics at work... but how can labor change the world if we can't even talk to each other about it? Do you have differences of opinion with your co-workers on immigration, war, who’s elected to run the country, you name it? Hear real stories and practical advice from workers who are finding common ground with their co-workers. Come share your stories and practice how these conversations can go better.
Hear how Puerto Rico’s working class is organizing in the face of authoritarianism to combat austerity and budget cuts that have made life more difficult. From the Trump administration’s repression and hateful rhetoric to the colonial trajectory of the Fiscal Control Board over the past 10 years, we’ll examine the various arenas where unionists have fought back, including struggles to overturn budget cuts, uphold sexual and reproductive rights, and defend migrants, and how we’ve built coalitions with feminists and environmentalists to fight for a better world.
Turn your pension fund from an inscrutable black box into a tool for organizing. We'll practice power-mapping your pension fund, how to begin to research your fund's investments, and how to talk to your fellow union members about using your pension investments to help, not harm.
Politics can feel exhausting and hopeless, but politicians hold many of the levers that could make our lives better. Hear how some unions are going all in at the local and state levels and chipping away at the changes workers need.
Zohran Mamdani won the mayorship in New York City promising free childcare, free buses, and a rent freeze. Now he's in office, childcare and the rent freeze are underway, and there’s a huge battle to tax the rich. Hear why a few brave unions backed him when he was a long shot, how city politics changed when he got in, and what else NYC unions and the working class could potentially win under a Zohran administration.
You want a stronger union. Is it time for a reform caucus? How would you get started on solid ground? This workshop, based on a new Labor Notes guide, will help you plan first steps to a lasting movement for a democratic union that can beat the boss.
Teachers unions met 14 years ago to chart a path to union reform and organizing through reform caucuses. What was the purpose, and what were the outcomes? What role does the ongoing network serve now? And what can it teach us about the role of worker networks in transforming our unions?
Contract time is an opportunity for a rank-and-file caucus to expand its reach within the union and demonstrate a more powerful way to fight the boss. Hear how caucus activists built successful contract campaigns despite opposition from local union leaders, and grew their network in the process.
You know the old saying: "You learn more when you lose." Well, learn from "the greatest hits" of union administrations that have failed. Put these losing suggestions to work in your administration, and you're on your way to coming in dead last in your next election.
Opposition factions, staff conflicts, intervention from the international, management who seems to have endless energy to mess with you: how do you keep from being mired in endless drama? We know the answer is to stay focused on the vision, but in this workshop we'll discuss some ways to analyze the hurdles, challenge old norms and structures, and build supports to stay focused.
Are you beating your head against the wall trying to get other workers involved? This workshop is for you. Hear success stories from those who’ve turned their workplaces around and turned apathy into action. Learn practical organizing tools for engaging your co-workers, taking action, and getting results. Based on the popular book Secrets of a Successful Organizer.
Everybody has complaints and frustrations, but an organizer has the power to turn problems into opportunities. Learn how to sort through the issues you hear from co-workers, bring people together, and make a plan to solve them. Based on the popular book Secrets of a Successful Organizer.
Could you use more activists at work? How about a way to quickly spread information throughout the workplace? This workshop will help you build power with a member-to-member network at contract time (Contract Action Team) or in between contracts (Member Action Team). Learn how to find other activists and leaders, and how to build an infrastructure to take on bigger and bigger workplace fights.
Unions can’t expect workers in our shops to line up for a membership card or get active in the union—we need to go out and engage them. Hear from organizers who have taken on the challenge.
Chances are we've all been to a bad meeting, but they don't have to be this way! When run effectively, meetings can help you bring co-workers together to beat the boss. Learn how to make a good agenda and hold a lively yet focused discussion, so people leave fired up with an action plan.
Leadership isn't about taking everything on ourselves—it's about developing others to participate, by providing the resources and opportunity. Using the "Learn It, Do It, Teach It" philosophy, this workshop will cover how to get more people involved and expand the capacity of your union.
Nuestro poder como trabajadores se basa en la herramienta más esencial a nuestra disposición: la huelga. Escucha cómo los trabajadores han retenido su fuerza laboral para construir poder juntos y obtener concesiones del patrón.
Union stewards often find that regular conflict with supervisors is part of the job. But sometimes you come up against particularly difficult supervisors who try to undermine the union at every turn. Meet with stewards from a variety of industries to talk about strategies for handling bad management, and learn some new ones.
Grievances are a lot more than what you write down on a form or what gets said in a hearing. Some of the most important work that goes into winning a grievance happens before you even file, and pays off big time if the grievance ends up going to arbitration. Join stewards and officers from a variety of industries to discuss strategies for grievance investigation and share best practices.
Open shop conditions don’t have to be a death sentence. We'll cover strategies for building and maintaining stronger unions even under so-called “right to work,” particularly in the public sector.
To shape a pro-worker economic future, we'll need industrial policy: coordinated goverment action to plan what our economy produces and how. Learn how some unions and community organizations are beginning to do this at the state and federal levels.
Minnesota unions and community organizations seized the public imagination on January 23 with an economic blackout and 100,000-person march. Minnesotans have formed dense networks to patrol neighborhoods, feed the hungry, and train everyday people to scout for rampaging federal agents. Hear from union leaders about the lessons they learned by taking on the state and winning.
What can teachers and Amazon workers learn from one another? Hear how workers are building power and striking in two very different kinds of workplaces (and three countries). Between an anti-union mega-corporation and an embattled public sector, and across national borders, it's illuminating to see what our struggles have in common.
Audiophiles of the world, unite! Strikers in the 20th century sometimes made vinyl records to raise funds and get their message out. These artifacts offer a lively glimpse of grassroots worker culture in different times and places. Enjoy the music, browse the album art, and hear the history behind a few of these fascinating records collected in the new book Strike While the Needle Is Hot (Common Notions Press, 2025).
Build practical skills for bargaining in this hands-on workshop. We'll examine how employers use technology and its effects on work, then work through a structured exercise to define a bargaining problem, draft targeted information requests, and develop enforceable demands and contract language. We'll draw on examples from the UC Berkeley Labor Center's Negotiating Tech inventory to highlight real-world provisions and bargaining strategies.
Open bargaining isn’t a particular template or set of boxes to check. It’s more like an attitude towards democratic inclusion and power for rank-and-file members. We’ll hear from unions that have increased transparency and democracy in negotiations, along the spectrum of open bargaining, and discuss pitfalls that may occur as you close in on a tentative agreement.
Women and gender-nonconforming workers face a host of additional challenges on the job—not just from the boss, but also sometimes from co-workers and union officials, particularly in male-dominated jobs. Join us for solution-oriented conversations about being the “only” on a job site, sexual harassment, pregnancy and childcare, gender discrimination, the importance of mentoring networks, and solidarity on the job. Transgender and nonbinary workers are welcome.
It's critical that jobs in the clean energy sector become high-quality, union jobs. Unions are beginning to make this happen in two ways: legislative campaigns and industrial policy from the top, and new organizing from below. Come learn about the development of clean energy industries and how unions are taking advantage of opportunities to organize.
Public sector bargaining laws are highly uneven across the U.S.—from states with union shop to states with absolutely no bargaining or union recognition rights for public workers. Hear how fights to win back collective bargaining rights are reinvigorating unions and empowering members.
Much of the U.S. labor movement was built through struggles over safe working conditions. Learn how others have used a reactivated focus on health and safety to win not only a safer workplace but also a revitalized union, and learn new tools and strategies that you can apply in your workplaces and industries.
A health and safety committee can transform the workplace: jump-starting your organizing with action that gets a lot of people involved, and victories that people really feel. We'll explore committee models that both union and nonunion workers can use, and the structures and strategies that make committees effective.
The bosses fear our collective power, so they try to pit us against each other, non-immigrant vs. immigrant. But the more workers are active in the union, the greater our power on the job. Learn how to build a union culture that welcomes and develops immigrant leaders, fosters open discussion to overcome divisions, and builds our collective power.
This meeting brings together workers from around the globe who are in various stages of starting their own Labor Notes-like networks or organizations. Whether you’re well on your way or just beginning to dream, come exchange ideas and experiences.
Catastrophic fires, floods, earthquakes, and the daily degradation of life from industrial pollution are the urgent realities of emergency responders around the world. Firefighters, first responders, and emergency room nurses are embedded in these harsh realities day after day, while our governments cut budgets, reduce services, and ignore long-term consequences. But, as these unionists explain, it is possible to use the power of emergency workers to forge a path forward.
Burnout—emotional, physical, or mental—is a fact of life for many of us in the labor movement, whether it's due to our jobs, our union activism, or both. Join us for a thoughtful and compassionate discussion of how we can address burnout on an individual and a group level, and how we can organize ourselves so that our work can be sustained.
This workshop will start with a short poem by Katie Giede, Union of Southern Service Workers.
Strategic corporate research is a powerful tool, but it can't be used on its own. Union victories depend on developing a serious analysis of a company, and using that information to build a comprehensive, multifaceted, escalating campaign. Bring your knowledge of your company, union, and allies, and we'll work from there to learn how to move from research to a winning campaign.
How can you build any lasting organization in a workplace where the annual turnover is 150 percent? This panel is about sharing and developing strategies to organize with our co-workers at large employers like Amazon, despite the churn.
Most Amazon delivery drivers are employed by third-party subcontractors. In a typical last-mile warehouse, the workforce is divided among several of these small companies, plus some Flex drivers using their personal vehicles and a phone app. How do you organize under these conditions? We'll hear from drivers who are doing it, and strategize how to hold Amazon accountable through collective action.
Frequent collective action builds power. In this participatory workshop for Amazon workers, learn how to evaluate workplace problems to find which ones are ripe for organizing, and how to involve more members and build union power.
Labor movement membership is at 10% of the workforce and shrinking nearly every year. Unions do a good job of winning NLRB elections, but not nearly at the scale we need to grow. We need more ways to organize and reach the millions of workers who want to join a union. One way is where workers without official recognition and a contract form a union and fight for improvements on the job - what EWOC calls Pre-Majority unions. This form of organizing is available to any group of workers now—whether they can't get legal union recognition, or they feel that winning an election may be years away, or they don't necessarily want a contract, but simply want to organize for immediate improvements. Panelists from several pre-majority unions will discuss challenges and successes in their campaigns.
Join Latino activists to discuss how our unions can foster Latino leadership and address the issues affecting workers of color and our communities. How can we get our unions in gear and how can we build stronger connections across unions?
State repression isn't new for the labor movement, but the tone has shifted with the rhetoric of the current administration. Bosses are finding new ways to sow fear and distrust. Yet union activists are pushing back and getting stronger through organizing. Their experiences offer insight that can help us all prepare for the next wave of challenges.
Learn how to build an effective campaign team, increase your visibility, identify voters, deal with negative attacks, avoid common mistakes, and get out the votes.
There's a backstory to the inspiring uprising in the Twin Cities. Trump picked the wrong place to pick on, because a coalition of unions and community organizations there had been planning and building together for many years. Those relationships yielded a coordinated bargaining plan in 2024, shared demands, and political power, and set the stage for mass action against Trump in 2025. Learn more about their education, organizing, and political coalition work.
For as long as unions have waged strikes, bosses have fought to restrict them using no-strike clauses, lawsuits, and labor laws. Today most union members face some restriction of our most powerful weapon: our right to strike. So how do we get around no-strike clauses while minimizing potential harm to the union, leaders, and members? How do we challenge restrictive laws without giving bosses a free shot at our bargaining rights and assets? There are no easy answers, but we'll start the conversation.
Troublemakers are winning union office all over! Join other elected reformers in office to connect and discuss building a stronger, militant labor movement together.
Saturday June 13, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT Rosemont A
