Chances are good that you’ve had your heart broken at least once by one of your own leaders. Whether you tried to get involved and there was nowhere to go, or the members got sold out, or leaders want to keep the union as their exclusive club, it can feel pretty harsh. We’ll talk about how to organize with your fellow union members to recommit to your union, and to change the culture into one where leaders respect and serve the members.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you had your heart broken by the leadership of the union you work for? Frustrations can be plentiful in organizations that are supposed to be all about justice and democracy. Join other union staff to talk frankly about what you can do when a few people at the top—either officers or executive staff—are hoarding information, decision-making, and power. Share experiences of helping rank-and-file members democratize their unions, and strengthen practices of power-from-below.
