But with the best leaders, when the work is done... the task accomplished, the people will say "we have done this ourselves." – Lao Tsu, China, 700 BC

The GCIU stepped into the 21st century with its first education course designed for adult learning and focused on teaching local leaders how to shift their locals' structure and behavior from the traditional "service" model to the modern "organizing" model.

During the week-long course at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring, Md., 24 local officers and stewards from GCIU locals around the United States learned new ways to approach members and management and new strategies for organizing, collective bargaining, grievance handling, and member education, communication, and mobilization.

GCIU Vice Pres. Duncan K. Brown conducts a session on organizing.

The program was based on similar courses developed by the GCIU in Canada with assistance from the Canadian Labour Congress. Coordinating the program was GCIU Vice Pres. Edward J. Toff. GCIU Vice Pres. Duncan K. Brown led the sections on organizing, grievance handling, and contract enforcement. GCIU Rep. Alan M. Tate and Toronto 500M Vice Pres. Norm Beattie led sessions on leadership skills, collective bargaining, communication, and education.

The local officers were introduced to the "nuts and bolts" of the union during evening question-and-answer sessions with GCIU Pres. George Tedeschi, GCIU Secy.-Treas. Gerald H. Deneau, Richard J. Whitworth, executive assistant to the GCIU president; and Bonnie Lindsley, who directs the GCIU Data Processing/Membership Records Department. The group answered questions on topics ranging from the state of the union, how to handle dues and financial records, and computer linkups with the International to how to request International assistance with bargaining and organizing.

Tedeschi said the new administration "is doing things differently. We're doing things smarter. We're putting the resources where we can get the best value."

With the U.S. election two weeks away at the time, Toff and GCIU Vice Pres. Lawrence Martinez conducted an evening session on the importance of political action and how to get members involved and educated on the issues important to working families.

Attorneys Martin R. Ganzglass, Anton Hajjar, and Melinda Holmes of O'Donnell, Schwartz and Anderson answered questions in the areas of filing for representation elections with the National Labor Relations Board; collective bargaining procedures, tactics, legal obligations and rights; drug and alcohol testing; safety and health law; and the Americans with Disabilities and Family and Medical Leave acts.

Toronto 500M Vice Pres. Norman Beattie, standing, offers pointers during a role-playing exercise. Seated forefront from left are: Neil Scalzo, Memphis 23H; Joseph L. Inemer Jr., Philadelphia 16N secretary-treasurer/business manager; and Curtis Rickard, Richmond 40N recording secretary.
Talking with GCIU Secy.-Treas. Gerald H. Deneau, left, are, from left: Hagerstown 754S Secy.-Treas. Zelma K. Warrenfeltz; St. Louis 505M Secy.-Treas. Chico Humes; and Washington Court House 774S Secy.-Treas. Florence Wilkerson.
Richard J. Whitworth, executive assistant to the GCIU president, answers questions for Fayetteville 673S Secy.-Treas. Alan W. Goad, center, and Hagerstown 754S Secy.-Treas. Zelma K. Warrenfeltz.

Retired Vice Pres. Edward Donohue urged participants to get their members active on politics. "We live in a very hostile environment in this country," he said, with corporate and conservative groups chipping away at union members' rights under labor laws "all because we're sleeping," he said.

The sessions of the program dealing with leadership skills, member communication and education, grievance handling, bargaining and organizing are designed to help leaders shift their locals from the "servicing" to the "organizing" model, Tate said. On leadership skills, he said, this means that "showing people how to do something and letting them do it themselves is more effective than carrying people" by doing it all. "With the organizing model, members see they can do something and be part of the union. It mobilizes members."

In the traditional servicing model, members expect their dues money to "buy" them services, such as grievance handling and contract bargaining and enforcement, from local officers and staff. In that mode, members see the union as something outside themselves, and local officers and stewards see themselves as the ones assigned to do most, if not all, of the work. These traditional locals rely on experts, specialists, and union staff to perform routine union functions. The emphasis is on formal grievance, negotiations, and legislative processes. There is little information-sharing and communication channels flow from the "top" to the "bottom." The locals and its members are dependent on employers and therefore reactive to what employers do. In organizing campaigns, organizers try to "sell" the idea of unionism to workers.

Tate, Beattie, and Brown helped the participants understand that the centralized, "do-it-all" structure burns out local leaders, leaves little time for organizing, and doesn't build the union through member participation.

Unions throughout the United States and Canada have built successful organizing programs by shifting to the "organizing" structure for their local unions. In the organizing structure, members see themselves as the union. Officers and stewards lead by educating and mobilizing all the members. Formal grievance and arbitration procedures are supplemented with member action. Local leaders and members set goals and strategies together, then take collective action to solve problems. Locals using the organizing model are independent of the employer and proactive. Instead of "selling" the union, organizers mobilize and educate committees of rank-and-file activists to organize new members.

The new organizing model impacts nearly every aspect of local union operations, from new member orientation and membership meetings to contract enforcement and developing bargaining goals and organizing targets and programs.

Beattie warned that the shift to the proactive organizing model is "going to be very hard work to get members to participate," he said.

Participants said they were excited about the new teaching methods that involved a series of exercises that required the local leaders to come up with their own answers to specific union situations. Role-playing exercises sparked creativity in problem-solving as participants worked on them in small groups.

Attorneys Martin R. Ganzglass and Melinda Holmes outline representation election requirements.

They also praised the setting of the Meany Center campus, which offers college degrees in labor studies areas.

Wilkes-Barre 137C Pres. Robert M. Chaney said he was "very impressed with the directors the involvement of the students. They made the atmosphere relaxed for proper training and the direction to learn."

Joseph L. Inemer Jr., Philadelphia 16N secretary- treasurer/business manager, said the program is "a very valuable course. It not only educates you but helps you get rid of your fears. I recommend it for any union official no matter how many years." He said shifting his local into a structure that encourages organizing is "my number one priority. It's the main reason I came here. It's our future at stake. Otherwise, the International will have to merge, and we'll lose our identity."

Washington Court House 774S Pres. Brenda K. Eggleton said: "We have built an inner-strength here that we can take back with us. We've got to swing the momentum in the other direction" to organize. She added: "I love the role playing. Before you know it, this is clicking in your head, and that's education. You're actually living experiences."

Local 774S Secy.-Treas. Florence Wilkerson said that in each course area – "leadership, organizing, labor law – there is something all of us can learn and apply what we've learned. If we are educated, we can educate our committees so nobody has the burden of doing it themselves, and it's a chain reaction. Our members went to sleep, and we're trying to revive them."

Participants gather after the awards ceremony during the first GCIU Leadership Education training course.