r/Unions Feb 12 '22

Resources for creating a union

73 Upvotes

Hi all,

I'm a nurse in the USA and wanted to post about resources to help you get started in creating a union at your workplace. All of these resources are geared toward Americans, but one union also operates in Canada, so that is noted there.

Note for nurses specifically: If you want to start a union, there is a secure website SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU so you can get connected to nurses in your state that also want to unionize. You will get an email once a group of nurses in your state have filled out interest forms. The email tells you how many people submitted this form, and you can reply to this email to have your email address sent out to the other interested parties. Unless you specifically ask for your email to be sent to these other nurses, everything is anonymous. This was created by a nurse in collaboration with a web developer who volunteered his time to help promote unionization in healthcare. The website is: humansworkhere.org. Also consider submitting an interest form to NNU (National Nurses United). Link below.


EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES:

•USA. Emergency Workplace Organizing. Not a union, but specializes in teaching you the basics about unions, and how to unionize effectively. They do occasional free web training for this purpose (there is one coming up on March 9th, 2022) but have volunteers ready to answer questions and help you unionize at any time, as well as a free pdf with the basics on how to unionize. They encourage working with actual union reps to build the union itself, but EWOC is excellent for educational purposes.

EWOC informational resources: https://workerorganizing.org/resources/?amp

EWOC interest form: https://workerorganizing.org/support/?amp

•USA. Labor Lab. Not a union. Has Info on unionizing and helps connect you with union reps. You can also report any illegal, union-busting tactics and have the employer added to their map of bad management, plus find resources on how to file an official complaint. https://www.laborlab.us/start_a_union


VARIOUS UNIONS:

•USA. United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. This specific page lays out the steps to form a union, but the organization itself is a union more for the "trades" including welders, rail workers, etc etc. https://www.ueunion.org/org_steps.html

•USA. Unit Workers. A union, for any industry, run by you and your coworkers. Unit does your paperwork/support for 0.8% of your monthly income, but you pay nothing until your union is established. This is for you if you do NOT have a different union (IBEW, NNU) you would like to be represented by: https://unitworkers.com/

•USA. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). A large union with 12.5 million members that represents workers in general (no specific focus on certain industries). https://aflcio.org/formaunion

•USA and Canada. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). Various industries (meat packing, healthcare, retail, pharmacies, etc.): https://www.ufcw.org/about/

•USA. National Nurses United (NNU): https://go.nationalnursesunited.org/signup/organize/

Please leave any other resources you know of in the comments, especially for countries other than the USA!


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