How to Connect - cont.

2. Pick issues that resonate.

Not all the issues you work on will provide an equally good basis for collaborative efforts with labor. Start out with one where you can make a good argument for its relevance to the union.

 

Unions today are under siege. U.S. laws governing labor organizing are among the most regressive in the developed world; manufacturing and industrial unions are losing thousands of jobs, and there f o re members; and globalization is creating tremendous downward pressure on American wages and benefits. Faced with a hostile political climate and sinking membership in the private sector, unions are feeling the pinch financially, and most tend to urgent member-driven priorities. This means they must see your issue as related to their self-interest in order to devote resources - staff time, money, political capital - to it.

 

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