The local lodge meeting followed the same agenda it had for three decades. The meeting started on Sunday afternoon since that was the only time everyone was off. Some years ago they made the decision not to have meetings immediately after shift since it would require three meetings. It wasn’t long after that the only people who attended were the regulars. A few retirements later and it was down to only the officers and a few stewards.
The monthly meeting was about doing union administrative business which somehow ceased to be about the member’s business and became being about the union’s business. The Treasurer gave the report, old business, new business and adjournment. Frequently there would be discussion as to why more members failed to attend the monthly meeting. By that time no one remembered that they used to hold meetings immediately after or before shift and that the agenda focused on work place issues not taking care of union administrative business.
A few months ago, the President after returning from a national staff meeting decided to appoint an organizing committee. Instead of asking the regulars she used it as an opportunity to recruit new blood. She went on to the shop floor and started asking members until she had a group of 10 union rookies. She then appointed one of the retirees as Chair, since he had seen it all and was a good source of both local, community, and employer history but was not limited by it.
Her charge to the committee was simple. I want you to house call every member and ask them who they know in any of the four organizing targets in the area. She set up a process where after the house call each team would fill out the same PCR used by the organizing department with added information about the workers at the targeted mill. The members divided the list based on where they lived so they could each make a few visits several evenings a week. Although no one wanted to visit Jake, he was just a mean old dog. Although, the team that did that visit acknowledged that after a few minutes even Jake seemed to soften up a bit. Thus over the next several months was built a database of issues that were of concern to the members as well as a list of members who knew someone in the targeted mills and what that relationship was.
The next step was for the committee to set up house meeting with two members, two committee members and the workers they knew who worked in the targeted mills. A few no shows in the initial meetings diminished the committee’s enthusiasm but as they started to gather more names and find their own styles, they saw the plan coming together and morale improved dramatically. After a while they actually looked forward to their weekly house calls.
These meetings were relatively short and friendly. All the committee members had to do was to get the non-union workers to talk about their job. Before long you couldn’t shut them up. They started to discover that they had similar issues even though they worked with different employers. After about an hour or so the committee members thanked them for coming and did a brief explanation about the union. How they had a voice at work and had protections against unreasonable bosses and random discharge and assignments. These meeting were all summarized and the pcr’s updated.
When this was done, the committee took a month to analyze the information. They then house called those who seemed to be strong leaders from the same mill. Asking each to talk about their co-workers, key issues in the mill and the management team. Who had what problems and who was related to the boss. It became clear to all involved that one mill was more ready than the others. It was no surprise that the mill with the toughest management team who would most likely fight the hardest against the union was also the mill where the workers were most ready to fight and most needed to fight.
At the end of these meetings a few of these workers volunteered to build lists of names and addresses. The committee members followed up with these list builders every week and in about a month they had a fairly complete list of workers, addresses, and issues. At this time they turned the lists over to the District organizer who started building a committee. The District organizer kept the two local VOC members and the unionized members who knew the workers in the process even inviting them to the organizing committee meetings.
It wasn’t long before the “A” cards were signed and the campaign launched.
A funny happened along the way. More members started to attend the monthly union meeting and instead of talking about union administration they were talking about the struggle to help these new workers join the union. Watching non union workers fight reminded the members about their rights and their own struggle decades ago. Suddenly, talk on the shop floor was about the poor bullpen of the baseball team, how the kid was doing in little league, and how the campaign was going for the mill next door. One member even wrote a letter to the editor about why they were helping the workers to form a union.
By election day it was a fairly common discussion in the community. Everyone knew there was a union in town, good, bad, or hostile, everyone knew. The pastor even prayed for the workers fighting for social justice, and included a comment in his sermon.
Last thing I heard, they had put on the agenda for next month’s meeting changing the monthly meeting to immediately after shift.
June 29, 2006
