[Excerpt] One of your most important jobs as a steward is unifying the members in your area to work together and build the union. Building solidarity is essential, especially in tough times, but it can be challenging.
Here are things you can do to build and maintain unity

Margolies, Ken

English

[Excerpt] One of your most important jobs as a steward is unifying the members in your area to work together and build the union. Building solidarity is essential, especially in tough times, but it can be challenging. Here are things you can do to build and maintain unity.Margolies39_Building_Unity_in_the_Workplace.pdf: 2506 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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Building Unity in the Workplace

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Articles and Chapters ILR Collection 
2012 
Building Unity in the Workplace 
Ken Margolies 
Cornell University, kam47@cornell.edu 
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Building Unity in the Workplace 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] One of your most important jobs as a steward is unifying the members in your area to work 
together and build the union. Building solidarity is essential, especially in tough times, but it can be 
challenging. 
Here are things you can do to build and maintain unity. 
Keywords 
labor unions, stewards, solidarity, unity, membership 
Disciplines 
Unions 
Comments 
Suggested Citation 
Margolies, K. (2012). Building unity in the workplace [Electronic version]. Steward Update, 23(5). 
Required Publisher Statement 
© Union Communication Services. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/764 
PDATE NEWSLETTER 
Building Unity 
In the Workplace 
One of your most important jobs as a steward is unifying the members in your area to work 
together and build the union. Building 
solidarity is essential, especially in tough 
times, but it can be challenging. 
Here are things you can do to build 
and maintain unity: 
Introduce Members t o Each Other 
Find opportunities for members to get to 
know each other in comfortable situations 
like lunches or union social functions. 
Look for key members to help you con-
nect groups to each other. This could 
include people who speak more than one 
language or get along particularly well 
with lots of different kinds of members. 
Keep Members Informed 
When members don't know what you as 
steward are doing, or what others in the 
union are doing, they sometimes think 
the worst. They may assume nothing is 
happening or someone is making deals 
without their knowledge. That's why it is 
so important to keep members informed 
of any union activities or actions you take 
as a steward. 
Stop Rumors 
Members hear and repeat rumors all the 
time. Sometimes rumors lead to argu-
ments, suspicion and divisions. Talk to 
members about the danger of starting and 
repeating rumors. Encourage them to not 
believe rumors about work or the union 
but instead to come to you so you can get 
the correct information. If you don't have 
the information, say you will find out and 
then always get back to the person—even 
if it's to say you weren't able to get the 
facts requested. 
Be Inclusive 
Actively seek to have all groups where 
you work involved and represented. This 
could mean job titles, workshifts, ages, 
races, ethnicities, gender, sexual orienta-
tions or any other aspect of yout co-work-
ers. If you see groups of members who 
are not involved in the union, 
get to know one or more peo-
ple from the group that is not 
involved. At some point you 
can discuss why they are not 
involved and how to turn that 
around. Often you will find 
that they stayed out of union 
activities because they didn't 
feel welcome or needed. 
Be Transparent in Decis ion-making 
Make sure everyone knows what questions 
the union is considering, how and when 
the decision will be made, and how the 
members can get involved. Invite everyone 
to give their opinions. Talk to members 
who may not readily volunteer their ideas 
and ask them to share their thoughts. Once 
a decision is made, make sure everyone 
hears about and understands it. 
Bridge t h e Generat ion Gap 
Members with seniority often say that 
younger workers don't understand or 
appreciate how hard it was to win the 
Reach out to 
all groups of 
workers, not 
just the 
"regulars." 
things the union fought for over many 
years. Younger or newer members may 
feel that others in the union don't take 
their ideas seriously. 
If you are one of the senior mem-
bers, a younger person can help you learn 
about the concerns of the other genera-
tion. Perhaps they have an issue that the 
union is not addressing. Maybe they feel 
excluded because at union social events 
their music doesn't get played or they are 
turned off by how meetings 
are run. Once you better 
understand the younger 
members you can start find-
ing ways to involve them 
more in union activities and 
start a dialogue that can lead 
to greater unity. 
Bring People Together t o Address 
Common Issues 
It takes a lot of communication, especially 
one-on-one discussions with your members, 
to identify common issues and convince 
people to work together for solutions. Start 
with an issue that's winnable and affects 
many membets. Together, discuss ways to 
resolve the problem and then develop a 
plan of action to convince management to 
agree. Once members are involved in a 
common struggle they are more likely to 
become a strong, united group, more pre-
pared to fight the big battles that almost 
always lurk just down the road. 
—Ken Mar-Holies. The writer is a senior- associate lit the Worker 
Institute at Cornell University. 
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