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.
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.
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.
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.
