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The UCLEA Northeast Regional Summer Institute for Trade Union Women
All students will attend a Leadership Skills class. In addition, each student will participate in two 4-session workshops and two 1-session mini-workshops. Evening activities will include a picnic, a talent show (Tell your favorite joke! Join our chorus!), and Labor History Night, a multi-media extravaganza. Workshops for the 2000 school are:
BASIS FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING
Instructor: Jessica Govea
ORGANIZING THE UNORGANIZED
Instructors: Carla Katz & Merrilee Milstein
The survival and continued strength of the American labor movement depends on our ability to organize more workers to join and become active in their unions. In this workshop, you will learn the fundamentals of organizing: determining organizing targets, identifying issues of importance to workers, developing a campaign and its components (house calls, telephone banks, leafleting, etc.), assessing union supporters and most important, communicating the union message. Workshop participants will practice various organizing techniques and discuss how to apply these techniques to possible organizing opportunities in their own communities.
BASIC GRIEVANCE HANDLING
Instructor: Flo Stern
Investigating, preparing, and processing a grievance; for those with little or no experience in handling grievances. This will give you a hands-on opportunity to test yourself in a way that builds your skills in a non-threatening, non-confrontational situation.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Instructors: Cathy Collette & Rochelle Semel
Are you worried that you'll go blank before an audience? Need some tips to improve your oral presentations? This workshop is designed to give you self-confidence and polish in speaking before a group. You'll have opportunities for practice and feedback in a friendly, sympathetic setting, and the benefit of up-to-date strategies for coping with speaking assignments.
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE
Instructors: Cathy Scott & Eileen Sullivan
ECONOMICS MADE SIMPLE
Instructors: Lois Gray & Debby Bell
This course will help you understand what is happening to your paychecks and job prospects and how your standard of living is influenced by economic choices and government policies. Questions for analysis and discussion include: Wages and Benefits, Inequality, Poverty, Growth, Unemployment and Trade. Focus will be on the power of workers to effect changes.
GRIEVANCE HANDLING (ADVANCED) & PREPARING FOR ARBITRATION
Instructor: Debra Bergen
This workshop will teach you the skills necessary for monitoring and enforcing your union contract, how to prepare for arbitration, and the basics of conflict resolution.
COMMUNITY AND POLITICAL ACTION
Instructors: Colleen Gardner & Linda Mason
This workshop will teach individuals interested in winning electoral elections the nuts and bolts of an effective campaign. Topics will include but are not limited to: setting campaign goals; developing a strategic campaign plan; setting up a campaign organization; recruitment; voter identification; record keeping; evaluation; getting out the vote on election day.
BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS FOR ORGANIZERS
Instructor: Donna Schulman
An introduction to basic computer skills, this workshop will be oriented towards how to use those skills in internal or external organizing. We will cover word processing (creating effective flyers), database management (keeping track of members & contacts), and the Internet (basics of corporate research). Classes will be taught at the UConn computer lab. Requirement: familiarity with a typewriter or computer keyboard.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Instructor: Ida Torres
This workshop will provide union representatives and shop stewards with the information necessary to defend the legal rights of union members at the workplace and to strengthen the union. Includes the rights and responsibilities of union stewardship, the legal rights of stewards and how to investigate grievances.
MANAGING STRESS
Instructor: Marsha Anderson
Trade union women have to juggle work, family, friends, community service, and of course, union activity. In this workshop, union women will learn and share techniques and strategies for handling stress and "life overload."
MOBILIZING/INTERNAL ORGANIZING
Instructor: Adrienne Taylor
This workshop teaches the local union member how to overcome apathy, improve meeting attendance, increase members' participation, and build coalitions. Learn strategies and effective techniques to help build participation in your union or group.
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Instructors: Medelka McLean & Anne Noonan
We will focus on the "nuts and bolts" skills and strategies for collective bargaining. Participants will examine the negotiation process as an on-going method for resolving workplace disputes. Topics included are: 1) Who Is On the Negotiations Team? 2) Preparing for Negotiations, including situation analysis, planning, and division of labor 3) During Negotiations: Proposals, Strategies, Impasse, Settlement 4) The Contract: on-going negotiations. Instruction methods will include brief lectures, small groups, and simulations.
WORKER EMPOWERMENT THROUGH TEACHING TECHNIQUES
Instructors: Dale Melcher & Tess Ewing
Labor education is a tool for making all the work of the union - bargaining and contract administration, organizing, and community and political action - more effective. This workshop is designed to teach union activists how to get the membership involved in union work through education and training. Participants will learn how to: assess group and individual needs; design educational and informational programs for their members; and use a variety of interesting and motivating teaching techniques. This workshop is required for students interested in participating in the Teaching Apprentice Program of the Northeast Regional Summer School.
WOMEN IN NON-TRADITIONAL JOBS
Instructor: Eileen Sullivan
This workshop is for women working in a non-traditional job (where less that 25% are women) or those who are considering one. You will hear from women who have endured incredible hardships on the job and have learned how to sustain and prepare for future challenges.
ADVANCED COMPUTER SKILLS FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Instructor: Donna Schulman
Skills, tips, and techniques over and beyond basic word processing, oriented towards the collective bargaining process. We will focus on spreadsheets (costing out the contract), Internet research (how to investigate your employer), and word processing (advanced features to use for newsletters and flyers). Classes will be taught at the UConn computer lab. Basic knowledge of word processing is essential, basic Internet skills are preferred, but no spreadsheet experience is necessary.
LEGAL RIGHTS FOR UNION MEMBERS
Instructor: Lisa Schur
This workshop will cover the basic issues of American labor law, focusing on the Wagner Act, court decisions and rulings by the National Labor Relations Board. We will examine how Congress, the law and the courts have interpreted the Wagner Act, which was originally designed to encourage unionization, in ways that make it harder for workers to form and join unions. Besides looking critically at the current state of the law, we will also look at ways the law could be changed to make it easier for workers to express their rights, form unions and bargain with employers.
GOOD NEWS! HOW TO PRODUCE A NEWSLETTER
Instructor: Judy Hoover
In this workshop you will learn about organizing a newsletter committee, learn the theory, mechanics and materials needed to produce a Local Union newsletter. Participants will produce a twelve-page newsletter covering the events of Summer School. The articles will be written by fellow classmates and reporters. Information about Desktop Publishing software will be available, however, no computer skills are necessary to participate in this class.
USING THE ARTS IN ORGANIZING
Instructors: Bev Grant & Elise Bryant
A song, a skit, a chant - help put the spirit into your organizing work. This workshop will help you discover how you can use and create culture, what resources are available, how to be your own resource, and how successful organizing efforts have utilized culture. A combination of discussion, demonstration, hands-on experience and FUN!
STRATEGIES FOR PAY EQUITY
Instructor: Carolyn York
Pay equity tops the list of working women's concerns. In this workshop, you'll learn everything you need to know to understand and win pay equity. You'll find out how the consultants evaluate jobs and how to use the results of job evaluation studies to achieve pay equity. We'll also discuss new strategies for winning pay equity quickly and painlessly. Finally, we'll look at current state and federal legislative initiatives and figure out how we can join with other advocates to mobilize around the issue.
WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
Instructor: Cecelie Counts-Blakey
Protecting workers' rights in a global economy requires international solidarity among workers in all countries. In this workshop you will learn how the changing patterns of communication, manufacturing, immigration, trade, politics and culture relate to the American labor movement agenda. You will also learn about issues facing our sisters in other countries and develop strategies for international labor solidarity.
Tuesday, July 25th
BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE WOMEN'S COMMITTEE
Instructor: Jane D'Amico
GETTING THE MESSAGE OUT
Instructor: Dale Melcher
PREVENTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Instructor: KC Wagner
VOTER REGISTRATION
Instructor: Jessica Govea
NAVIGATING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP
Instructor: Lois Gray
LABOR AND COMMUNITY COALITIONS
Instructor: Colleen Gardner
CONSENSUS BUILDING
Instructor: Peggy Buchanan
Tuesday, July 27th
MANAGING STRESS
Instructor: Ellen Warren
YOUR UNION'S ROLE IN ELECTION 2000
Instructor: Janet Ryder
RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Instructor: Cecelie Counts-Blakey
THE UNION'S ROLE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Instructor: Cathy Colette
FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES
Instructor: Lisa Schur
WORKPLACE CHANGE/EMPLOYMENT INVOLVEMENT
Instructor: Adrienne Eaton
PREVENTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Instructor: KC Wagner