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:: Monday, February 28, 2005 ::

Will More Dollars for Union Organizing Solve Labor’s Failure to Grow Stronger? LaborTalk By Harry Kelber
Three Proposals to Upgrade Union Organizing

First, the training program of the Organizing Institute must be improved. It is woefully inadequate for large-scale organizing. It can easily be demonstrated that the O.I.’s “graduates” are no match for the sophisticated anti-union “consultants” that major corporations hire. We need higher standards for organizers. Why should organizing campaigns last two or three years and, more often than not, end up as losers?

Second, each union should cultivate a corps of volunteer organizers who have worked or are working in the same occupation and industry as the unorganized workers. Most non-union individuals are suspicious of paid staff organizers, trying to “sell” them the union for their own selfish reasons. They generally feel the same way about any organizer who has never worked at their job and can’t appreciate their problems. But they may respond well to organizers who have first-hand experience about their work and can answer their questions about the union.

Third, the AFL-CIO must do a far better job in reaching out to the many millions of workers who say they want a union. We’ll never be able to organize them unless we can talk to them on a sustained basis. A weekly professional-level, hourly television or radio program could be helpful. So could more exposure by labor leaders on talk shows and press conferences. These are activities that the AFL-CIO is better qualified than individual unions to undertake.

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