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WEAC Collective Bargaining Director Mike McNett cut to the heart of
the reason local leaders and organizers attended the Summer "Organizing"
Academy.
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'Advocacy without power is ineffective." |
“Creating change requires the exercise of power,” he said at a session on "Organizing for Action."
“Power is the ability to shape outcomes," he said, with his
words projected on a screen in front of the room for emphasis. "The
issues that impact your school, your job, your students, your family
will be made by those who have power. ...
“Weakness can’t accomplish anything. Advocacy without power
is ineffective.
“You are the people who know what is best for public education.
You are investing much of your life into this enterprise. You should
have a significant voice in shaping the future of our schools.
“If you lack the influence to make the major decisions, others
who are less qualified or who have different priorities will make those
decisions.”
Our greatest power is based on the people who make up our organization,
McNett said. Our 97,000 members are trained communicators with strong
community connections.
It is our role as leaders to inform, engage and mobilize our members and other stakeholders “to exert their combined influence to obtain positive goals,” he said.
The bottom line: organizing unleashes our power.
The nature of power
McNett offered the following quote from Frederick Douglass, one of the foremost leaders of the fight to abolish slavery in the mid-1800s:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Organizing for Action
In an Organizing for Action session Monday, Brenda Erdman and Steve Bauer, both of Reedsburg, shared “war stories” from their contentious bargain.
Erdman said she was initially hesitant about engaging in job actions
for fear they might hurt her students. But she realized the Reedsburg
School Board was jeopardizing its great schools by not offering teachers
a fair contract. She decided it was best for the community to put pressure
on the board by participating in the job actions.
The local engaged in a common action called “working to the contract”
– limiting their work hours to those required in the contract –
and quit all volunteer extracurricular activities.
Bauer gave members in the session an idea they liked: REA put an ad
in its community newspaper during the tense bargain with a list of volunteer
activities. The ad said those activities would stop until a contract
was reached.
Discussions such as these took place in each of Monday’s six Organizing for Action sessions. Members spent the last hour of the day formulating their local plans that included requesting that local school boards pass resolutions calling for the repeal of the Qualified Economic Offer law and revenue caps. The plans include internal/external communications, engaging members in the effort and activities to pressure the board.
Great Organizers
What do you know about some of this country’s great organizers?
Saul Alinsky:
Cesar Chavez:
Crystal Lee Sutton (Norma Rae):
A. Philip Randolph:
Si Kahn:
Margaret Haley:
Posted August 6, 2004