Building a Stronger Union for our Future

Workplaces across America are becoming more and more hostile for workers, including those where workers are represented by a union. Corporate America has declared war on working people, demanding more while at the same time paying less. They are supported by a political climate that reaches all the way to the White House. This battle also continues beyond our workplaces, and it is aimed directly at the middle class, our seniors, our nation's children, but especially at those struggling in workplaces across our country – the working men and women that make up today’s American Labor Movement. [More]

If our labor movement is to survive and be powerful again like we were in our glory days, we must make fundamental changes in the way we operate. For our local Union, this means that we must make the necessary changes needed to gain more power to deal with our employers and those that are working against us.

Last year, I appointed a working group from my staff to pursue internal organizing for our current membership and for the future of our union. The committee has spent months analyzing all work functions that are performed within our union. They created a vision of what our local will look like in the future, providing more services for our members, along with more opportunities for active involvement. Soon, the committee will make a strategic recommendation on how Local 21 can change from how we are structured and where we are today, to a stronger and more effective model of unionism. The goal is to reach what I call the silent majority – the 90% of Union members that rarely come to monthly unit meetings, that don’t understand or care much about the Union, and that don’t participate in collective actions against our employers or our country’s political process. By involving the entire membership in each and every one of our battles – by reaching my goal of an active organizing model of unionism, we will go back to our labor movement’s roots; before the laws were in place that curtail our efforts, and before grievance and arbitrations procedures and other legal delays by management were so widespread in our workplaces.

When we reach that model, we will have a better educated, organized membership that is willing to take action to resolve disputes in our workplaces, as we bargain for improved contracts and when we need to demonstrate power. The unity and involvement of our membership is the most important source of power we have as a Union. An educated, organized, and mobilized membership taking action helps convince management to give up more than they had planned to, each and every time.

Through one-on-one contacts and collective actions, mobilization helps to inform and involve every member in matters that affect them, while lending additional support to the stewards, staff, and officers of our Union. In addition to building the power of the local union, this can help to minimize anxiety and frustration members may feel as each contract expiration date approaches.

Mobilization and dispute resolution move along parallel timelines. Mobilization activities are aimed to complement and support what is going on in grievance meetings and at the bargaining table. Since its inception, the labor movement has sought tools to level the playing field with management. Coordinated actions at work sites and rallies, both large and small, effectively draw attention to our issues and bring pressure on management. Pressuring management to meet our members' needs is what mobilization is all about, and it will strengthen our Union for the future.

As my staff finalizes their work and the recommendation for our local union’s strategic plan and organizational change, you will begin to read news on this website about how our Union will grow stronger in the months and years ahead. It is critical that we communicate more often and better than today, and that means two-way communications. Encourage your co-workers to sign up for e-mail news updates and also to attend the unit meetings every month, where I will continue to be more specific about where our Union is going, how we will get there and what the gains will be, as we strengthen our Union for the future.

Continue the great job you are doing as members, activists and stewards. Continue communicating with other rank-n-file members, our sisters and brothers that collectively, make up our great organization – IBEW Local Union 21. Your dedication, commitment and hard work for our union are critically important. If you have any ideas or other thoughts, good or bad, please call me directly at the Union office on extension 225 to discuss them. By working together we can bring justice, dignity and respect to the 11,500 IBEW Local Union 21 members working throughout our jurisdiction.

Fraternally, in solidarity,

Ronald E. Kastner

President-Business Manager & Financial Secretary