DESCRIPTION

Your local is the most important vehicle that you build and exercise power through. A strong local will enable you to carry out your mission as a local president—to advocate for and protect your members’ interests and to fight for what your students and clients deserve. This is no easy task. That’s why it's important to know where you’re starting and continue to assess how you build capacity in each of these areas. This assessment will help you more clearly articulate what your local’s strengths are, what areas you may want to improve and what your priorities should be to strengthen your ability to win.

Participants will:

• Understand what elements are essential to have for an effective local
• Have a deep and meaningful understanding of your local’s capacity
• Begin an honest conversation with local leadership about your local’s current effectiveness
• Take action to strengthen your local’s capacity to fight for your members

PRESENTERS & ACTIVITIES

This class features a downloadable worksheet with questions to discuss about your local with your local leadership and LRS. There is no webinar component. To complete the project, once you have discussed the worksheet, you will answer a few questions about your experience having this kind of conversation.

DESCRIPTION

As a leader in your union, the issues you will deal with most frequently concern your terms and conditions of employment. Your members (and sometimes even administrators) will come to you with questions about the contract – often before opening the contract themselves. Consequently, your familiarity with the contract will help you quickly respond to questions and concerns about the terms and conditions of employment for all your members.

Participants will:

• Know terms and conditions of employment
• Be able to answer basic questions about the contract
• Participants will use their contract to answer a series of questions about their contract on our online platform.

DESCRIPTION

Being a local union president means you are responsible for the administration of what amounts to a small business. Your training as a teacher, SRP, professor or nurse probably didn’t include how to manage a local union. In this class, participants will review and develop the essential skills for effective local union administration including facilitating productive membership and leadership meetings, interpreting the local’s constitution and bylaws, and conducting local leadership and delegate elections with integrity. Learn to avoid the most common pitfalls encountered by local union leaders so you can focus on membership engagement and meeting your union’s most critical needs.

PRESENTERS & ACTIVITIES 

The format for this class is all online coursework. You will read your constitution, know the role of the president as outlined in your constitution and identify key components and the roles of the officers of your local.