Case Study: School Discipline Reform in California

At the core of The California Endowment's (TCE) work is their Health Happens Here strategy. Health Happens in Neighborhoods, in Schools, and with Prevention -- and Health Happens with All Our Sons and Brothers. TCE sponsored a case study of school discipline reform in California, and engaged Nancy Latham (LFA's Chief Learning Officer) and two other consultants (Tia Martinez and Arnold Chandler) to research and write the study. The case study tells the story of how community and youth organizers, public interest lawyers, and statewide advocates came together to support school discipline reform. In a remarkably short period of time during 2011 and 2012, this issue went from the fringes to the center of policy debate -- with ten bills introduced, seven passed, and five ultimately signed into law. These new policies are an important milestone in the effort to back away from overly punitive "zero tolerance" school discipline that fuels high drop-out rates among young people of color. These policies will make it easier for schools to support and educate, rather than marginalize, our sons and brothers

Creating A Monster: AFSCME\u27s Ready-to-Fight in Illinois

[Excerpt] Frequent media images of hundreds of county workers marching in front of public buildings in Rockford, Illinois, chanting confrontational slogans, rocked an otherwise sedate community. In an area where trade unionism derives its identity from the now small manufacturing sector, TV audiences were mesmerized by the sight of nursing home workers, court clerks, mechanics, jail guards, clericals, probation officers and tradesmen standing together, redefining the nature of unionism in Winnebago County

Equal Voice for America's Families

Outlines September 2010 discussions, including the need for refined strategies to advance the low-income working families' movement for community change, collaboration, innovation, accountability, and capacity building. Assesses progress by issue area

Come Join Us! Volunteer Organizing From a Local-Union Base

[Excerpt] Four months later, May 3, 1991, Delta workers elected to join the UAW by a vote of 68 to 58. The small numbers belie the real significance of this achievement, for Delta is the largest Japanese-owned supplier yet organized by the UAW. Equally important, this victory highlights the potency of two overlapping strategies: the use of volunteer organizers, and the reliance on a local-union base for launching and sustaining a drive

On Message: Using Strategic Communications to Advance Social Change in Black and Latino Communities

This report aims to highlight examples of efforts involving black- and latino-serving nonprofits that utilize strategic communications to enhance their advocacy work and improve opportunities in communities of color. a project of the abfe/hip initiative, this publication is informed by the findings of a nationwide scan to identify groups taking the lead to integrate strategic communications in their advocacy, organizing, and social change efforts in black and latino communities. conducted in 2007, the scan included an analysis of emerging research in nonprofit communications; a cataloging of the notable successes of several nonprofits and coalitions across the country; an online survey of grantmakers with an interest in high-priority issues in black and latino communities; and follow-up interviews with nonprofit leaders and the grantmakers funding their work. the scan also included information gathered under the guidance of a national advisory committee of media practitioners, grantmakers, advocates, researchers, and nonprofit leaders who volunteered, at the request of abfe and hip, to provide structure and lend leadership to the research

The Failure of Organizing, the New Unity Partnership and the Future of the Labor Movement

[Excerpt] The New Unity Partnership (NUP) has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in union circles. Its inception can be traced to the July 4th holiday in 2003 when five national union presidents gathered for a candid private discussion about the future of the labor movement. The motivation for the summit was concern about the collective inability of unions to reverse their fading fortunes. At this and subsequent meetings the unions considered structural and strategic options to promote union growth, ultimately committing to a form of mutual aid pact to pool resources for coordinated organizing initiatives and to support each other in critical campaigns. The controversy stems not from this tangible outcome, but from the NUP’s call to dramatically restructure the entire movement by redefining the AFL-CIO and consolidating unions into fifteen or twenty sectoral powerhouses

Bottom-Up Organizing: HERE in New Haven & Boston

[Excerpt] HERE is a union in the process of change. After decades of cooperative relations with management, the union\u27s national leaders were rudely awakened when the major hotel chains jumped on the union-busting bandwagon in the late 1970s: contract concessions were demanded, organizing drives were vigorously opposed, and programs were implemented to weaken existing locals. HERE has responded with a newfound militance, demonstrated in strikes in New York, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Monterey, California. To stem the decline in the union\u27s membership, Vincent Sirabella, the innovative and politically progressive head of HERE\u27S New Haven Local 217 since 1957, was promoted to Director of Organization in 1983 by HERE President Edward Hanley

The Pressure is On: Organizing Without the NLRB

[Excerpt] Ask the typical union organizer to define success and he or she will probably say, Winning elections. Many labor organizations, including ours, have found out that winning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election does not mean that the workers involved are going to receive the benefits of a union contract. One third of representation elections won by unions do not result in a collective bargaining agreement. In fact, just winning an NLRB election is a tough proposition. In 1990 the union win rate was only 47.6%. Even more alarming is the drop in the number of elections held in 1990 — 3,423, the lowest since 1984. In the 1960s and \u2770s, there were twice this number of elections each year. This trend is truly alarming when you consider that at the end of 1990 unions represented only 16.1% of the nation\u27s workforce — quite a drop from 35% of workers with a union contract in the mid-1950s. What can the labor movement do to reverse the trend of fewer and fewer workers being represented by unions

Making Pigs Fly

[Excerpt] You\u27ll see a union in this hospital when pigs fly. So went the opening statement by the new Vice President of Human Resources at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois. Poor staffing ratios, out-dated equipment, lack of respect and nonexistent communications between staff and management compelled the nurses of St. Joe\u27s to bring in the Illinois Nurses Association in February, 1991. Fifteen years earlier, the nurses had tried to organize a union but had lost the election. Ironically, the issues were the same — nothing had changed. The odds still appeared to be against the nurses. St. Joe\u27s management hired the notorious law firm Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson and two anti-union consultants, Modern Management, Inc. and Management Science Associates. They forced the nurses out on strike for 61 days in the dead of winter, and tried to use a Colorado-based scab nursing agency, U.S. Nursing, to bring in replacements. This time, however, the outcome was different. On March 16, 1993, after the longest strike in Illinois nursing history, the St. Joe\u27s Nurses Association/INA signed their first contract with the medical center. Had it not been for the overwhelming community support, built over the months of organizing and negotiating, there is little chance that we would have won our struggle for a union. We gained support not only because our cause was just, but because we had strong primary and secondary leadership in the union and a communication network which reached every St. Joe\u27s nurse. We took these same strengths and skills and applied them in the public arena. Anti-union management, union-busting lawyers and consultants could not stop us

Assault on Workers’ Rights

The cases in this report describe employers\u27 blatant contempt for the rights of workers to voice their opinions in the workplace. Obsessed with retaining unilateral and total authority over their employees, the owners of companies and their agents go to great lengths to crush efforts by workers to exercise their right to an independent voice. Employers harass, intimidate, and threaten workers with reprisal so that they will abandon their quest for union representation. Those who emerge as leaders of these attempts at self-organization and those who openly question terms and conditions of employment are singled out for ridicule, assigned onerous tasks, disciplined, and often fired. While management wages a frontal attack on workers, company lawyers manipulate the legal process to delay, frustrate and defeat the campaign for independent representation. As a result, the right to an independent voice for workers has become a mirage