I work at a non profit and we just won union recognition and are slowly moving towards first contract negotiations and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING. Would love to chat with some folks about their experiences, especially if you’ve negotiated around contracts/grants/etc.
Doesn’t directly address the contract aspect or the NGO angle but you could do worse than reading Wages so low you’ll freak by Mike Pudd’nhead for general left union ideas. Although I only read the first book of several in the series so maybe it comes in later.
Holy shit, dude tried to organize for a whole four years? Maybe I should be more grateful that it was so quick for me. Luckily our agency is propped up by social currency so if they really tried to fight union efforts the community would set them on fire lol.
Don’t be afraid to leverage that.
The great thing about being frontline workers with strong community relationship is that sometimes people who feel strongly in solidarity take actions which would be “in bad faith” or even illegal if the workers themselves did same action. You can’t be held responsible for what independent people do.
A comrade was organizing at a nonprofit when they were fired. Big union did not back them up. Bricks started being thrown through the windows of the nonprofit by discontented service users. Comrade went on to another job but none of the other organizers were fired and now org has a contract.
Fuck that’s so wild! We already get bricks thrown through our windows, but man there would probably be dozens more. They can’t keep fixing the windows forever! Lol. Really though I think we are going to steer into becoming more public since the first BU is getting into Financials. It sounds like for next negotiation meeting they’ve invited a local solidarity organization to have a lunch outside the meeting place as a visible sign of support. And I think we’ee going to ramp up gradually. I’d already been thinking about creating a Twitter and Instagram, contacting union represented colleagues at the county, going to the local weekly paper and so on. Just gotta keep up the energy for it all, that’s the challenge
Well I don’t know how much pull youse have, but do you think your employer would notice you the bricks stopped for a little while? Maybe at a very strategic moment. it might even be more spooky for them.