A grant helps the cross-border campaign for Colombian flower workers

 
Berger-Marks awards $129,177
to organizers & groups for 2008

Four women organizers, six groups and two research/education proposals won new Berger-Marks support this Spring. Earlier, two grants for ongoing campaigns were also renewed.

Many of this year's grants went to projects that reach out to immigrants and across borders to build solidarity and counter the brutal competition that often pits workers against each other worldwide.

Others are producing work we will help distribute -- from a workshop Facilitators' Guide to new research by Cornell's renowned Kate Bronfenbrenner. Some are planning events you're invited to attend. If you aren't already on our email list, please click the sign-up link to the left so you'll be notified when these and other tools are available and events are scheduled.

We're already seeing exciting results from grant-supported work; it's our pleasure to congratulate the following grantees:

Grants to organizers in '08

Zelmira "Mira" Hatala:

Building Contract Action Team at Washington Post

Local 32035, The Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild-CWA

Hatala, who had previously served as chief mobilizer for two union contract campaigns, came out of early retirement for the current drive.

Since the Post is an open shop, which means union-represented workers aren't members until they individually join, Hatala's goal is to educate people about the union and convince a majority to sign up. She aims to recruit and train grassroots leaders through a Contract Action Team. Through the Team, activists convey information to and from the workforce, mobilize employees around issues, and organize meetings that offer training. Hatala also intends to update and improve printed materials and a related video.

Carmen V. Hulbert:

CWA Shop steward organizes in Mexico

Local 31222, The Newspaper Guild-CWA in New York

Hulbert is working with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center to organize around press and media freedom in Mexico, where a high proportion of journalists are women.

Hulbert honed her organizing skills and got a taste of success when she helped unionize EFE News Service workers two years ago.

Kathy S. Petersen:

IAMAW Local 839 Vice President reaches out in aerospace

Peterson aims to sign up more union members among the 6200 manufacturing  workers at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita Kansas, represented by Local Lodge 839 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers .

Since Kansas is is a "right to work" state, each member has to sign up individually, and just over a majority have done so. As the July contract opener approaches, building the membership will strengthen the union's negotiating power. Petersen's goal is to contact all non-members. She's worked on previous in-plant organizing campaigns, and over the past year, more than 770 new members have joined the union.

Karly M Safar:

From student activist to CWA organizer

United Campus Workers, CWA Local 3865 in Tennessee

Safar began organizing to win a living wage for all University of Tennessee workers when she was a student and joined the Progressive Student Alliance. Now she's pursuing that goal as an organizer with the Communications Workers of America's United Campus Workers. In the 2005-2006 academic year they had pushed for a $1,200 raise for all UT employees, using a student Labor Week of Action and other actions to pressure the administration. The legislature approved the raise the following year. In their 2007-2008 campaign, the union-student alliance won overtime pay for all UT Agricultural workers, and the president of the UT system pledged to launch a wage study.

"We are organizing wall to wall every sector of the University workforce," says Safar. Just over half the workforce are women.

STITCH uses trainings developed with Central American Union women to strengthen immigrant women in U.S. unions

Grants to organizations in '08

Center for WorkLife Law:

Database for arbitration cases over work/family conflict

The Center for WorkLife Law is a research and advocacy center at UC Hastings College of the Law that fights employment discrimination against mothers and other family caregivers. The Berger-Marks grant will help the Center build on its work with unions and collect arbitration decisions that address work/family issues. They intend to organize the cases into a searchable database.

Center director Joan Williams feels confident that this data will "correct the mistaken impression among public policymakers and the press that work/family issues are of concern only to highly paid professional women." It should also help unions to be more effective advocates for paid sick leave and other measures that support working families, and to use their experience responding to work/family conflicts as a powerful organizing issue.

Read interview with Joan Williams about the Center's work

Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations:

Roundtable talks in on women-centered campaigns

Held in New York, meetings focus on how women organize

The Foundation is helping Cornell conduct a series of six roundtable discussions, each featuring an in-depth analysis of a woman-centered organizing campaign. The goal is to help organizers and activists from across the northeast U.S. develop new ideas, strategies and analyses to boost their success in organizing. The case studies proceedings will be published in print and web format.

The meetings highlight strategies that focus on the whole lives of workers, build on community alliances, and develop organic leadership within workplaces and the community. The goal is to build organizations that will remain strong after union cards are signed or elections are held.

DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association:

Domestic workers unite in New York/New Jersey

Focusing on a workforce of housekeepers, nannies, cooks, etc. that is overwhelming Filipino and female, DAMAYAN works to inform workers of their rights and build community. It is setting up a collective center for their social, political, physical and psychological well-being, and organizing for a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Domestic work can be highly stressful, isolating and toxic, and is exempt from many of the job standards of the Department of Labor.

The grant will help DAMAYAN hold small house meetings that bring workers together to share common concerns, acquire the skill and ability to advocate for their own rights and welfare, and learn about the social, economic and political roots of forced migration and poverty. Each house meeting is hosted by a domestic worker who involves other domestic workers in her/his neighborhood.

Read about DAMAYAN support for nurse treated like slave by Philippine diplomat

NOA staff at board meeting last fall in Albuquerque

National Organizers Alliance:

Supporting a 'community of organizers'

The National Organizers Alliance was formed by organizers seeking to have a "home" to talk about their craft and work across the lines of race, gender, geography, sexual orientation, age, labor, community and issue. They have 430 members and a mailing list of 4500 people who receive the Ark Magazine.

Berger-Marks is backing NOA's 6th national gathering under the theme, "Building A House for Organizers," held at the National Labor College at the end of June. The group will look back to the movements of the 1960's and explore questions like: What progress did we make, where have we failed? What forces are we up against? And in the future, what kind of world and country are we building? They expect more than half the participants will be women, and two out of three will be people of color.

STITCH:

Training to build solidarity with women Latina workers

STITCH is  a women's solidarity network that shares organizing experiences and strategies across borders. In Central America, thousands of women organizing unions or fighting for leadership positions within unions have benefited from STITCH support and training. STITCH has created a collaborative women's leadership training manual and curriculum.

The Berger-Marks grant supports its Immigrant’s Rights Project, which STITCH launched on behalf of women Latina workers in the United States. The trainings are adapted from its curriculum in Central America and based on input from immigrant women workers about how the labor movement could help their fight for economic justice.

This year's training is offered jointly with unions  and community groups. It stresses the importance of moving women into permanent, formal union jobs and building a more inclusive movement for economic justice. It aims to not only help immigrant women become leaders, but also to work with groups like CLUW to break down divisions among women in the labor movement, and educate non-immigrant labor activists and organizers.

US Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP):

Justice for Colombian flower workers

For 20 years USLEAP has worked for economic justice for workers in Latin America. This grant helps fund their Flower Worker Economic Justice Project, launched in 2005 in Colombia. It aims to improve working conditions and wages for flower workers and help the unions organizing them.

Sixty percent of the flowers sold in the U.S., mostly for women, are grown in Colombia, which leads the world in violence against union members. Most flower workers are women; many are discriminated against and endure sexual harassment and over-exposure to pesticides.

USLEAP wants to better connect women buyers and recipients in the U.S. to the women who grew, picked and packed their flowers. The grant helps USLEAP research flower distribution, respond to worker rights violations, produce campaign materials for religious and women's organizations, and build awareness and support with tools like Mother's Day cards.

Read about recent flower worker breakthroughs

Academic/ Research grants in '08

Discussion Guide for 'Strategies for Promoting Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions'

Labor Education Program at Michigan State University

Now available online -- see links below

Michelle Kaminski

Educators and unions now have a valuable tool to make use of the Berger-Marks funded report: I Knew I Could Do This Work: Seven Strategies that Promote Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions. The report called the attention of policy makers and labor leaders to the issue of women’s leadership roles and how to expand them.

The Facilitator's Guide, written by Michelle Kaminski, will help spread this information more broadly through the labor movement. It can be used to lead brief workshops with union activists in small group settings, whatever the background of the facilitator. It will help people not only learn of the recommendations, but also discuss how they can be carried out in their unions.

To get your copy

Click the links below, and then either print or save to your computer:

Download the Discussion Guide free of charge:
In pdf form (Just 170K)*     As a Word document (3.8M - be patient!)

Download the free handouts:
In pdf form (Just 136K)*     As an MS Word doc (2.4M - be patient!)

Research on 'The Changing Climate for Union Organizing at the Turn of the Millennium'

Kate Bronfenbrenner, Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations

With this report Bronfenbrenner and Dorian Warren of Columbia University build on her past work, including a report on organizing among professional workers funded by Berger-Marks. It will be a national study of employer and union behavior in union organizing and first-contract campaigns.

Dorian Warren

Researchers will look at the changing characteristics of the companies, industries, bargaining units, and unions engaged in organizing, collective bargaining, and political activity, tactics, and other factors. They will also compile the first-ever comprehensive database of non-NLRB "card check" and recognition election campaigns.

Special attention will be paid to situations where women workers predominate. The report will tell us not only about women being organized and what works best, but also about the organizers themselves and how much progress unions have made in hiring, recruiting and training women as staff and lead organizers.

Two '07 grants extended

Schwegmann organizes at Lee newspapers

Cathy Schwegmann continues to make contacts and build organizing committees at Lee newspapers in central Illinois, as part of a plan to reach out to Lee employees nation-wide. She's worked with members to launch a Leewatch website, and helped stewards survey coworkers to develop contacts in unorganized papers all over the country.

AFSCME Council 26 makes progress with federal workers in nation's capital

AFSCME Council 26 has reached a contract agreement for the first time since the local was organized ten years ago, and members just ratified it. With the original Berger-Marks grant the Council hired Agnes Crabtree, who has worked with stewards to build lists, involve members through small meetings, motivate members to talk to coworkers, and rally around issues. Overall membership has increased, but their first focus was on re-involving members, as the key to future growth.

Thanks to all applicants

We’d like to thank all who submitted proposals, including those that our limited funds can’t cover.

More information about Berger-Marks grants.

* The free Adobe Acrobat program is needed to view pdf documents.

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