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Young Workers Learn Union Building at Organizing Institute
You want them to join CWA, but what do you say to young people who have never had the good pay and benefits that come from belonging to a union? It’s a challenge that union organizers face every day when they meet with young workers at job sites, local restaurants or at their homes.
“Our nation’s youth are the future of the labor movement,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, “and we know that young people respond well to advice when it comes from their peers.”
That’s why CWA recently organized a three-day training program for young organizers with the AFL-CIO and other unions at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, Md.
CWA sent five students and three instructors — all under 30 — to the organizing institute, where they repeatedly rehearsed various scenarios in which they encountered nonunion workers.
“Communications skills are the basics of organizing,” said Erin Bowie, 24, an instructor for the program and District 1 organizing coordinator, who came to CWA after helping organize the affiliation of Southern New England Telephone workers into the union a few years ago.
Bowie and fellow instructors Matt Halbeck, 24, a CWA organizer in Dallas, Texas, and Alysia Welch, 29, a Local 1032 organizer from New Jersey, taught listening skills, how to explain the basics of a union, how to deal with people’s misconceptions — like you have to go on strike when you join a union — and how to inspire workers to come together as a union to demand fair pay and benefits and fair treatment at work.
Halbeck told students about his experience organizing airline workers. “We’re getting ready to start back up at American Eagle, which is where many of the younger (American Airlines) workers are.”
Welch, who has organized Cingular employees and is now working with health care and cable TV workers, enjoyed watching the changes in her students. Some were nervous when they had to act the part of an organizer or the part of a worker resistant to joining a union. Said Welch, “Now they realize how important organizing is. It was nice, over the three days, to see them improve.”
The students’ work at the institute is already paying off.
David Rewey, now 31, a network technician with Qwest in St. Paul, Minn., has been volunteering as an organizer for Local 7201. He’s already brought in 21 new members at AT&T Broadband and still does house calls, phone calls and sets up meetings to organize Broadband workers. He knows they need CWA: “Low wages, medical and health benefits and just having a voice in the workplace — these guys can’t stand up to their boss and say, ‘this isn’t right.’”
Dave Coker, an outside plant technician for BellSouth, is serving as chair of Local 3607’s newly formed organizing committee. North Carolina is a “right-to-work” (for less) state that allows workers who have union representation to escape from paying dues as members or representation fees. “Right now we’re working on an internal campaign, focusing on signing up nonmembers at BellSouth.”
“The OI training was some of the most valuable I’ve ever had,” Coker said. “It was inspiring to meet other young, militant, trade unionists committed to social justice. We have a big job in front of us with only about 12 percent of the U.S. workforce organized. We should look at it as the opportunity to organize the other 88 percent.”
Melissa Burpo, a new member of CWA’s Texas State Emloyees Union, has already joined an organizing committee to try and sign up members at the Texas Workforce Commission in Austin, where she is an adjudicator of disputes between management and employees.
Yvette Clark of Itasca, Ill., a Local 4202 member who works for Cingular, is helping organize workers at Verizon Wireless.
One student, Colin Medland, 27, came all the way from Nyon, Switzerland, to participate in the institute. A researcher and organizer for Union Network International, a worldwide confederation of communications unions including CWA, Medland learned from role-playing and from a video how employers spend enormous sums of money to convince workers not to join a union.
“We stand a much better chance of bringing union benefits to workers around the world if we talk to them before their employers. We’ve got to get going, and we’ve got to get there first.”
“Our nation’s youth are the future of the labor movement,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, “and we know that young people respond well to advice when it comes from their peers.”
That’s why CWA recently organized a three-day training program for young organizers with the AFL-CIO and other unions at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, Md.
CWA sent five students and three instructors — all under 30 — to the organizing institute, where they repeatedly rehearsed various scenarios in which they encountered nonunion workers.
“Communications skills are the basics of organizing,” said Erin Bowie, 24, an instructor for the program and District 1 organizing coordinator, who came to CWA after helping organize the affiliation of Southern New England Telephone workers into the union a few years ago.
Bowie and fellow instructors Matt Halbeck, 24, a CWA organizer in Dallas, Texas, and Alysia Welch, 29, a Local 1032 organizer from New Jersey, taught listening skills, how to explain the basics of a union, how to deal with people’s misconceptions — like you have to go on strike when you join a union — and how to inspire workers to come together as a union to demand fair pay and benefits and fair treatment at work.
Halbeck told students about his experience organizing airline workers. “We’re getting ready to start back up at American Eagle, which is where many of the younger (American Airlines) workers are.”
Welch, who has organized Cingular employees and is now working with health care and cable TV workers, enjoyed watching the changes in her students. Some were nervous when they had to act the part of an organizer or the part of a worker resistant to joining a union. Said Welch, “Now they realize how important organizing is. It was nice, over the three days, to see them improve.”
The students’ work at the institute is already paying off.
David Rewey, now 31, a network technician with Qwest in St. Paul, Minn., has been volunteering as an organizer for Local 7201. He’s already brought in 21 new members at AT&T Broadband and still does house calls, phone calls and sets up meetings to organize Broadband workers. He knows they need CWA: “Low wages, medical and health benefits and just having a voice in the workplace — these guys can’t stand up to their boss and say, ‘this isn’t right.’”
Dave Coker, an outside plant technician for BellSouth, is serving as chair of Local 3607’s newly formed organizing committee. North Carolina is a “right-to-work” (for less) state that allows workers who have union representation to escape from paying dues as members or representation fees. “Right now we’re working on an internal campaign, focusing on signing up nonmembers at BellSouth.”
“The OI training was some of the most valuable I’ve ever had,” Coker said. “It was inspiring to meet other young, militant, trade unionists committed to social justice. We have a big job in front of us with only about 12 percent of the U.S. workforce organized. We should look at it as the opportunity to organize the other 88 percent.”
Melissa Burpo, a new member of CWA’s Texas State Emloyees Union, has already joined an organizing committee to try and sign up members at the Texas Workforce Commission in Austin, where she is an adjudicator of disputes between management and employees.
Yvette Clark of Itasca, Ill., a Local 4202 member who works for Cingular, is helping organize workers at Verizon Wireless.
One student, Colin Medland, 27, came all the way from Nyon, Switzerland, to participate in the institute. A researcher and organizer for Union Network International, a worldwide confederation of communications unions including CWA, Medland learned from role-playing and from a video how employers spend enormous sums of money to convince workers not to join a union.
“We stand a much better chance of bringing union benefits to workers around the world if we talk to them before their employers. We’ve got to get going, and we’ve got to get there first.”