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AFL-CIO Pre-Convention Outreach and Engagement

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AFL-CIO Pre-Convention Outreach and Engagement JULY 2013 UPDATE Interim Report to the AFL-CIO Executive Council on AFL-CIO Pre-Convention Outreach and Engagement The 2013 AFL-CIO Convention in September will take bold and decisive action to answer the challenges of working people and unions today and in the future. In advance of the Convention, the AFL-CIO has conducted an unprecedented outreach program to gather the broadest possible array of creative ideas and strategies for building the labor movement that working families need now. The program has been robust and far-reaching. Since late March, more than 6,400 people have participated directly in the massive in-person, online and social media discussions: • Approximately 4,700 people attended in-person listening sessions, including four regional state federation and central labor regional conferences, state federation conventions and meetings with allies and partners. • Nearly 950 comments have been posted at our Convention website, aflcio2013.org, generating more than 28,000 page views; another 949 comments came through Facebook and Daily Kos. • More than 75,000 people have seen our Facebook posts—with engagement (Facebook posts and shares and Twitter posts and retweets) that reached nearly 3 million. This interim report provides an overview, highlights of the conversation that have been held through July 1, 2013, and a summary of key themes and recommendations that have been made. THE LISTENING SESSIONS In-Person Sessions In-person listening sessions have provided the opportunity for rank-and-file members, union leaders, community partners and allies to join the discussion in the communities where they live and work. To facilitate this process, the AFL-CIO developed a “Let’s Talk” tool kit that provided tips on organizing sessions, background on key issues, suggested questions for discussion and a form and website link for reporting back top ideas and recommendations. To broaden the reach of these sessions, the AFL-CIO has provided training and support to affiliates and others who wanted to conduct their own sessions. aflcio2013.org 1 The in-person listening sessions began in March with the four regional state federation and central labor council conferences, and have included meetings of state federations, local labor councils, national affiliates, partners and allies. As of July 1, 136 listening sessions had been held, with 30 sessions planned for the remainder of July, August and September. A complete list of the listening sessions is included in the Appendix. Online Engagement Our online listening program got a kickoff boost from a May 6 Twitter chat with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (see the conversation here: http://storify.com/AFLCIO/1u-future-tweet-chat). The Twitter hashtag (#1ufuture) was used in 1,388 tweets (and counting) with a reach of 2,287,458 accounts during the hour-long Tweetchat alone. On that same day we began the Facebook engagement, which by May 20 had attracted 147,168 views of our posts, 255 total comments and 663 shares of our post. President Trumka also posted a column on Daily Kos, the progressive blog. There were more than 129,000 unique visitors that day, and the column received 167 wide-ranging comments. These social media statistics indicate just the start of our efforts and can be expected to grow, as social media usage does, exponentially. Also on May 6, we launched an interactive website hosting discussions moderated by noted activists, academics and journalists at aflcio2013.org. By mid-June, the website had attracted nearly 19,000 page views and 700 comments. The website’s kickoff discussion featured Daily Kos blogger Laura Clawson moderating a discussion around this question: “The sustained war on workers from the right has left unions trying to prevent rights from being weakened rather than setting the agenda. Where are the opportunities to play some offense?” Dr. Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, hosted our second weekly online discussion around this topic: “Union density is higher among black workers than it is for any other racial or ethnic group of workers. How can the labor movement use this to build a stronger movement for social change?” The third weekly host was Elianne Ramos, CEO of Speak Hispanic Communications and vice chair of communications and PR for Latinos in Social Media (Latism). Her topic: “Latinos are the fastest- growing ethnic group in the U.S. workforce and their employment experiences are as varied as their individual histories. How can the labor movement use new technologies to solidify its Latino membership?” From May 27 to June 3, Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large of The American Prospect and op-ed columnist at The Washington Post, hosted a discussion on this topic: “Since unions represent only a sliver of private-sector workers on their jobs, should labor open its rolls to other workers aflcio2013.org 2 outside a collective bargaining context? Should the focus shift to organizing working people at the community level?” The following week, David Moberg, writer and senior editor at In These Times moderated, asking the question: “Would unions need to change their organizational structure or methods in order to mobilize workers for large-scale initiatives that could strengthen the labor movement?” Then, between June 10 and June 15, Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, asked: “How can we create a culture shift and raise the consciousness of America’s public about the need to improve wages and working conditions?” The week of June 16 to 23, Robert Reich, Chancellor’s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, author of 13 books and secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, led a discussion on addressing inequality, posing the question: “The rich keep getting a bigger share of the economic pie while everyone else’s share keeps shrinking. What should be done to reverse this trend?” And from June 24 to 30, Dorian Warren, assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, asked: “What would a broad and inclusive labor movement look like and do, and what would it need to provide for you to join it?” THE CHALLENGES WE FACE “We are in a life-or-death struggle for the soul of America, and right now the rich, corporate special interests—the bad guys—are in the lead. Let’s get to work to change that starting now.” Participants in in-person and online listening sessions are well aware of the challenges we face. The need for a concerted effort to revitalize the labor movement is illustrated by the chart below, which was included in the orientation materials for in-person listening sessions. The chart speaks volumes on the wisdom and necessity of engaging the labor movement and the broader progressive community in a discussion of how to collectively build the power we need to address the real and serious problems of working Americans. The trends are clear and devastating: Union membership is down by 1.9 million people since 2000. Union density is down by more than half since 1980, to 11.2%. With the population growing and union membership flat or falling, our share of the electorate is down 30% since 2000. If we want the fortunes of America’s workers to change, these trends must change. aflcio2013.org 3 The good news is that the engagement has been broad and enthusiastic. Union leaders, activists and progressive allies all made meaningful contributions to an emerging set of themes and ideas about how labor can help create and sustain movements and coalitions in our communities and workplaces, for success in politics and achieving economic justice, to organize and educate, to empower people. The overarching response to the questions raised in the engagement process is that the labor movement should be better and more strategic at the things it historically does, organizing workers and bargaining for working families, while at the same time doing more, much more, to innovate and build community and global partnerships to advocate for social and economic justice broadly defined. The challenges that addressing these themes present to the labor movement are serious. Participants emphasized that the labor movement should become more diverse, elevate women and people of color, develop immigrant leaders and act to help young workers who are not in unions. They want more education, more political capacity, more support for central labor councils and state federations and to literally open the doors of union halls to the community. Growing income inequality, declining wages and lack of economic opportunity were identified as challenges the labor movement must address. These efforts must be broadly focused to target inequality for all workers, with particular focus on the most disadvantaged. Given the globalization of the economy, this requires a global response through enhanced international union cooperation and solidarity. The need for labor to improve its internal and external communications was given much attention by participants. Unions are poorly understood by the public and many union members. Participants believe it is necessary for labor to have a recognizable, distinct voice on issues that resonate with the public. Finally, participants believe that figuring out how to create the links and structures to institutionalize community partnerships and broaden our engagement with organizations that aren’t unions is an important task. We were given many examples of unions and labor-community coalitions engaging in this work, successes to be built upon. WHAT PEOPLE HAVE HAD TO SAY d Collective Bargaining and Bread-and-Butter Issues Are Important to Workers “As long as people have bosses, they are going to have problems with them. People would like an institutional buffer between their bosses and themselves.
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