Working America ‘One of Labor’s Greatest Successes’ (workers outside of collective bargaining)

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/05/working-america-one-of-labors-greatest-successes/

by James Parks, Apr 5, 2008

More than 2 million workers have joined Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, and one of the nation’s preeminent labor scholars says if it keeps up its present pace, it will become the largest labor organization in the country.

Why has Working America been so successful when past efforts to organize workers outside of collective bargaining have failed? In a Point of View column on the AFL-CIO website, Richard Freeman, who holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in economics at Harvard University, says:

The story of Working America is one of the greatest successes in reaching workers outside of collective bargaining since the Knights of Labor in the 1880s. Its primary mode of enlisting members is through community canvassing, where bright young activists go door to door in potentially union-friendly neighborhoods. At the same time, Working America’s strong online program has resulted in 60,000 new members signing up through its website.



Freeman’s column describes a two-day workshop at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program last fall on how Working America’s outreach is making a big difference in boosting the strength of the union movement. Click here to read the column, “Working America Is at Your Door.”

Freeman points out that national surveys show many workers want to join a union-affiliated organization that avoids employer opposition and that Working America’s pilot canvassing in 2003 showed people would join an organization that asked them to come together to press for workers’ interests in the public arena, even if it could not represent them at work.

He says Working America “has successfully tapped the desire of workers to participate in the labor movement.”

People joined in droves and continue to do so. Some 67 percent of those contacted—Democrats, Republicans, fundamentalists, gun owners, you name them—join. Today, 89 percent give their telephone numbers and one-third give their e-mail addresses when asked by Working America canvassers or when joining online. Twenty percent show their commitment by writing a letter on an issue important to them, which the canvasser picks up and mails to the public official or agency.

FULL story at link.

[Joanne98]

1. Excellent news! K&R!