"Unions are from Mars..." by Pancho Arguelles - cont.

 

“The biggest challenge is that unions have more money and there- fore don’t see themselves at the same level as community groups.”

“Fundamentally unions have a self-interest in terms of how it builds membership and how it gets members,” one longtime union organizer told me, “and the critical part is in terms of how much political capital unions use in terms of defending the rights of immigrant workers. Community groups have to go to the locals, to the local base, instead of going to the big cheeses.”

 

As always, money is also part of the equation. “The biggest challenge is that unions have more money and therefore don’t see themselves at the same level as community groups,” notes another young organizer. Unions should not think that they are the gran cosa (the real thing) because they have money.

 

“Also, sometimes the unions think they don’t need to involve the community groups because they think they’re so powerful. When I worked at a community-based organization and we collaborated with local unions, one of the main issues was that the union always took full credit for all work even though we at the community-based organization did a lot of preparation for the events..."

<< BACK   |   NEXT >>