GETTING PEOPLE INVOLVED!

The more workers involved in the campaign, the more likely you will succeed in winning recognition, securing a first contract, and building a healthy local union that will remain strong for years to come. The main way you recruit people as active participants in a campaign is by explaining that there will only be a union if they work to create one, and take ownership of the process. Also:

Ask. The best way to get someone to do something is to ask him or her personally. This is infinitely more effective than trying to recruit through a mailing or phone call.

Make clear what job you are asking people to do. People are more willing to begin with things they know they can do. When they accomplish something, they are more confident, and will participate more next time. Encourage people to ask questions. Remember that most people have never been through an organizing campaign before and that they don't know what tasks are involved or what is meant by "leafletting" or "house calling."

Tell each person how his or her job fits in with the rest. People want to understand what they are part of, and they work best when they know that together are depending on them.

Start small and build. The first time, ask someone for three addressees and phone numbers. Don't ask them to find 150 addresses in two days, they will probably fail and you will lose a potential activist. People will be more willing to do more as their confidence builds.

Keep people accountable. At each meeting, check and see if and how the person did the assignment. This sends the message that the work is important, and helps to identify problems early.

Explain how their work will help make people's lives better. Be enthusiastic about the importance of the work. People will work hard and take enormous risks if they truly believe they can make a difference.

THE EMPLOYER'S CAMPAIGN

Because the boss lives in mortal fear of having to share power with you, he will do whatever it takes to defeat your efforts to build a strong, democratic union.

The goals of the anti-union campaign are the direct opposite of the union's

They want to divide
We want to unite!


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They want to confuse

We want to educate!

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They want a tense and stressful environment

We want a relaxed, calm, open environment!

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They want to scare people

We want to empower people!

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They want to distract people from the important workplace issues

We want the focus of the campaign to be on workplace issues!

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They want to retain a system where someone else has the power to make all decisions for you. We want to have a real decision-making partnership where we have the right to fully participate in every decision that affects us and the jobs we do.

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE MEETINGS

While some employers set-up mandatory, large-group meetings early in a campaign if they think it can slow or reverse the union's momentum, most of the mandatory, large-scale meetings happen in the last weeks of a campaign. Most of the time, attendance is required.

The most common format is a speech by the president or owner of the shop. During this anti-union meeting do not expect a free, open discussion or a free-wheeling question and answer period following the presentation. The final captive audience meeting usually takes place in the few days preceding the vote and frequently features a slick video prepared specifically for this audience and this campaign. Sometimes, earlier in the campaign, groups of employees are forced to attend meetings where generic anti-union videos are shown (again without discussion or debate or questions and answers).

The first captive audience meetings are fairly tame, they will tell you that they think the union is a bad idea for the company. They will try to convince you and your co-workers that, together management, supervisors and employees can do a lot and bring about real change without the "problems" unions create.

As the campaign progresses, the captive audience meetings become much more intense. The person delivering the anti-union speech is more serious. Everyone is more tense and uptight after weeks and months of the campaign.

Discussions, debate or questions are not welcome. No law requires them! They can ask you to leave if they don't like your comments or behavior. They can force you to leave. They do not have to invite strong union supporters, if they think that you might spoil their presentation.

For the president or owner of the company, this is the climax of the anti-union campaign. He must be serious and in control. Unequivocal and unbending in his statement of opposition to the union. Yet he also must be more human, compassionate, trustworthy and believable than he has ever been during the campaign. For, this is the time when, with compelling sincerity, he will ask for "another chance".

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE MEETINGS

If your supervisor insists that you take a company letter, there really isn't much that you can do. Just be polite...and, once again, ask your supervisor to show you some respect and not to bother you with these letters. You don't really have to read them or discuss them with him.

You might want to ask "Why?" are they bothering you so much with these letters? "Why?" are they interfering so much with your work? And, "Who?" is really writing them? You might want to ask your supervisor if he is really comfortable bothering you like this.

CHALLENGE THEIR FACTS! Don't let their lies, distortions and misrepresentations go unchallenged. Correct their distortions PUBLICLY! Propose that the union staff be invited to address these claims at a company meeting or at the captive audience meetings. Every opportunity you get, propose "open forums" where representatives of both the union and management can respond to questions of employees who voluntarily attend.

ONE-ON-ONES

"One-on-Ones" are a critically important piece of the anti-union campaign. Supervisors and sometimes managers will call employees in for face-to-face "discussions" about the union. These are not voluntary nor are they casual. If it is on paid time, employees have no choice but to go if the owner or supervisor insists. Remember, for the amount of hours they pay you, they essentially own you and they can require you to go to these meetings.

In a one-on-one, you are entirely alone with your supervisor! That can be pretty scary and intimidating! And, that's the point!!!

The company owner or supervisor have an agenda to follow. it may be constructed around one of the boss' letters or be more conversational. In any event, the owner or supervisor has the employee alone in a room with no one there to support or defend the employee or to counter what the owner or supervisor says. there is no equal time for the union side. Most of the time they do not target the strong union supporters but the more vulnerable employee who they believe can be moved to their side.

The more intense one-on-ones are more frequent later in the campaign, especially in the 4-6 weeks before an election.

SO, WHAT CAN WE DO TO BEAT THE ANTI-UNION CAMPAIGN?

LET'S START WITH SOME OVERALL COMMITMENTS:

1. We will always be respectful of other people's opinions and feelings.

2. We will answer all questions about the union honestly and to the best of our ability.

3. We will do everything in our power to keep the campaign positive and focused on the issues.

EACH ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBER AND UNION SUPPORTER

SHOULD START BY DOING THE FOLLOWING:

Be open and public about your support for and commitment to the union.
Ask management and your supervisors to respect your decision and commitment and the decisions and commitments of all your co-workers.
Ask them not to bother, harass or discriminate in any way because of someone's support for the union.
Ask them not to interfere in any way with anyone's legal right to support the union.
Ask them to conduct all campaign activities openly, honestly, respectfully and democratically.

HOW DO WE BEAT THE CAPTIVE AUDIENCE MEETINGS?

Assuming that union supporters are invited to these meetings, at the very beginning of the meeting, rise, identify yourselves as union supporters and, very respectfully, declare that this meeting is taking many of you away from important work. Don't get into a confrontation and don't leave the meeting!

Try to turn the meeting into a more democratic forum. By doing this you should be able to expose the boss' hypocrisy. He has no interest in an honest, open and democratic discussion and exchange of ideas!

Propose to the person running the meeting that instead of a controlled, mandatory meeting that he should agree to a series of regular, perhaps weekly forums. Employees would be free to attend, voluntarily to ask any questions of management or union representatives. The forums would be held on company property for the convenience of employees.

If they agree then all employees will get the whole truth about the union organizing campaign. If they say NO ask why are they afraid of free, open discussion. Ask why we are all required to sit here and listen to just one side of the story?

As a rule, it's not a good idea to disrupt the owner's presentation, after your proposals have been rejected. Remember, he is really speaking to the "swing" and "undecided" voters and he has been prepared to turn your interruptions or disrespect to his advantage in the eyes of the voters he is targeting.

During the owner's presentation, try to respond to the things he says and try to set the record straight. Don't let the lies and distortions go unchallenged! But, do it respectfully!!

If you are asked to leave, do so; but, first, try to shame them, in the eyes of your co-workers, for the undemocratic and disrespectful nature of the proceedings.

If union supporters are not invited, you should nevertheless show up at the meeting and try to gain entrance. Your strongest argument is, once again, the one of democracy and respect.

When the meeting is over, talk to every identified union supporter to determine what effect the boss' performance had on them!

UNION BUSTERS

"The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten and always, always attack... really the consultants are terrorists. Like political terrorists, the consultants' attacks are intensely personal."

During any organizing campaign your employer will ultimately hire a union-busting consultant to run his campaign to try and defeat the employees legal right to join a union. More often than not these consultants are attorneys and they operate their campaigns of deceit from the sidelines.

Marty Levitt, a former union buster has described in vivid details the way union busters go about their business in his book Confessions of a Union-Buster. According to Levitt: "Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit. A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth. As such, it is a war without honor. The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack."

When your boss hires labor relations consultants or attorneys to battle with the union, he gives the consultant run of the company and closes his eyes. The consultant goes to work creating a climate of terror that inevitably is blamed on the union. These consultants go about the business of destroying unions; they invade people's lives, demolish friendships and crush the will of the employees to make a better life for them and their families.

The Amalgamated Lithographers of America would like to thank

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS

LOCAL 103 OF GREATER BOSTON

BILL CORLEY, ORGANIZER

for their kind permission to reprint the above article