 Welcome everyone to our labor notes caucus building webinar and this is one of a couple that we're going to be doing and this is about getting started on building a caucus. Couple pieces of logistics before we introduce ourselves. We are recording this and so we have turned off the video for everybody who is not speaking and if you want to change your name if you're anxious and all about that in terms of being recorded you can do that. We've also muted everybody and we've turned off the chat for now. So we hear from our panelists. We will take questions and at that point we will turn the chat back on and you can put your questions in. We didn't want to do that too soon because we were afraid we would lose some of your questions over the 45 minutes or so that we're going to be hearing from our panelists. So with that welcome again. My name is Barbara Madalone. I am a staff organizer at Labor Notes and I am delighted to work with my comrade Lisa who's going to introduce herself in a moment. Just to say a little bit about me before we get started I've been with Labor Notes for five years now. My work with Labor Notes is primarily with educators, K through higher education and also through that with reform leaders and caucuses. I come out of caucus myself, educators for democratic union in the Massachusetts Teachers Association where I was president having been elected out of that caucus before I came to Labor Notes. So really excited to be here, excited to see the level of interest that we're getting in caucuses at Labor Notes. So Lisa you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, so Barbara said I also am an organizer at Labor Notes. I've only been on the Labor Notes staff for about four and a half months now. Before that I was a staff organizer for Unite All Workers for Democracy, UAWD, the reform caucus in the UAW. I work very closely with one of our panelists, Scott Holdison, on campaigns to win one member one vote in the UAW and on our successful campaign to elect seven reform candidates, the UAW International Executive Board including Sean Fain. So that's what I was doing the last couple years. Before that I was a rank and file UAW member and I'm also very excited about the series and our great panelists tonight. So Barbara, do you want to say anything more? Should we? Yeah, just to talk a little bit real briefly about how we think about caucuses in Labor Notes. What we mean when we say caucus you're going to find people use the word caucus in unions themselves in different ways. When we're talking about caucuses in Labor Notes we're talking about groups of members who get together because they have a shared vision of the kind of union that they want. And the caucuses that we're talking about don't need to be sanctioned by the union. Sometimes we'll hear about caucuses in some unions that are just sort of they're just thinking of themselves as like a slate running for office and that's sanctioned by the union. We're not thinking of it that way, although that may be one manifestation of a caucus. The caucus that I'm out of Educators for a Democratic Union in the Mass Teachers Association, Mass Teachers actually has a policy that says that there can be no caucuses in the union. We said well we're not asking for your approval to meet as a group of members to talk to each other about the kind of union we want. We are not of the Mass Teachers Association, we are in the Mass Teachers Association. So that's what we're thinking about as we do this and we're going to be spending this session and then a couple of sessions beyond this talking about what does it mean to be a caucus, why and how do workers come together to be a caucus and what's some of the work that we can do as a caucus to transform our unions. Imagine many of you have been to our what to do in the union break your heart workshops or maybe you've been to our secrets of a successful organizer where in beating apathy you'll hear about people talking about feeling that the union is breaking your heart. When we're thinking about caucuses we're thinking about what can we do as union members committed to union work and to committed to unions as critical sites of transformation to move our unions to be the unions that we want them to be democratic, transparent, led by the rank and file and willing to take on fights. So with that we're going to invite our panelists to introduce themselves. We didn't say what order we're going to do this in. So she went. I didn't know I was going to be first. Hi, everyone. I didn't I didn't know you're going to be first either. Amazing. Hi, everyone. I feel really honored to be here with all of you and all of our panelists. I'm Sheara. I you see her pronouns. I'm from Philadelphia. I'm a middle school teacher in our school district in the city. I'm a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and an organizer with the caucus of working educators. I've been a teacher for 13 years and I've been a member of our union for eight. I started my journey as a teacher in a non unionized charter school and found my way to our caucus and then into the union and into a public school. And I'm excited to share some of the work that we've done with you all tonight. Great, Nora, go ahead. Hi, I'm Nora. So I'm a storyboard artist and a writer in animation and I live in Los Angeles and that makes me covered under I at C in the animation guild. I'm in I at C local eight three nine. And I at C is we cover theater, motion picture workers, stage craft workers, live events, workers and theme park workers. And I do a lot of organizing in my union and our recently formed caucus is called Crew. It's the caucus of rank and file entertainment workers. So I'm honored to be with you guys here tonight. I think you guys are a wonderful superstars to be around. Great, thanks, Nora and Scott. Well, I want to say thank you for inviting me to to join in this panel. My name is Scott Holdeson. I'm auto worker from Ford Chicago Assembly Plant. That's a UAW local five fifty one in Chicago. I've been an auto worker for 34 years. And I'm one of the founding members of the Unite all workers for democracy caucus. And we're going to talk a lot more about UAWD during the course of this. So I'll just say that about it right now. I also chair the steering committee for UAWD. And I want to say that Lisa is a rock star organizer for UAWD. She was a glue that held us together through some really tough times. And UAWD would certainly not exist without Scott. So that's the thing. OK, thank you, everyone, for introducing yourselves. And we're going to move into our round of questions. So we would like all the panelists to answer this question. Maybe we can go in the order in which you did introduction. So share and Nora and then Scott. So the questions are, how did you discover each other, the initial members of the caucus as like minded people? And then what goals or concerns did you all share in common? So those are the questions. So share it. Good. Great. So are the story of the caucus of working educators and Philly proceeds me. It was founded in 2014. And I came in a couple of years later. And so the in terms of the founding of we that like story is very important. And there were basically like the short version is there were a lot of people who were stewards in our union who were really trying to make change in terms of getting union leadership to get on board with like different kinds of campaigns and like move on different social justice issues. And we're really unsuccessful. And so like the initial like spur of the caucus of working educators was just like a real frustration. I think with the contradictions in the school district of Philadelphia, the timeline of which you can find online. I won't go into a ton of detail, but horrible draconian austerity about 10 years ago were creating conditions that were really awful and people were really upset by the fact that our union leadership wasn't taking action. So the first founding of the caucus of working educators really came from that in like 2013, 2014. Since then, I think like we've been through many rounds of founding. And I think that like I was taking some notes before tonight. Some of the things that brought us together were just looking at my notes were like really wanting to organize deeply in our buildings in our school buildings. There are 220 schools in the school district of Philadelphia. And as many of you have probably felt in your own unions, the shops are very separate from the union leadership. Like one is here and one is here. And people so desperately wanted to make changes in their shops, which for us are our school buildings, but we're not getting enough support to do that in really deep ways. People often found have found that their only work in terms of unionism is like being a building rep and running some meetings and like being a liaison between the members and our administration. And so a lot of our current members and organizers in the caucus really want to do deep, powerful development work in our schools so that we can get really powerful wins on the ground and not wait for our school district leadership to make changes around things like class size and working conditions and safety and all of those things or wait for our union leadership to take action on them either. So that was one theme that really brought us together. And I think that another thing that I was thinking about was like a real desire and feeling of like solidarity is something that has brought people together in our caucus over the last two or three years, especially since the pandemic started in March of 2020. I think that during that time, like the lives of students and families and educators in the city of Philadelphia were under attack and like this really awful way where people if they were sent back into school buildings really feared that they were going to die. And as we've seen across the country, I think since then like the pandemic set off or like surfaced this feeling of like what is going to happen with our lives and our livelihoods in terms of our schools. And so I think since March of 2020, the caucus of working educators has brought in people who want that feeling of solidarity where people are really going to have your back and like go to battle with you and not necessarily go to battle on a picket line. Like we have not had an official strike during that time, but like really go to battle with a difficult administrator or go to battle over really difficult working conditions in our schools and also go to battle over some policies and issues that are affecting our teachers and educators, every kind of educator across the city. So I think like really wanting to organize deeply in our shops, I'm going to like go back and forth between school building and shop because I know that both are important. I sometimes call our school our shop at school and people are like, what are you talking about? So I'm learning to use both interchangeably. So like this really desire to organize deeply in our school buildings and then also I think since the pandemic, a deep desire for solidarity and really backing each other up in our workplaces. And I'm just thinking about something that I think somebody said earlier at the beginning during introductions, like really making that distinction between the union and union members and like really living into what it means to be a union member and a union leader on the ground and not waiting for somebody who runs the union, whatever that means in your particular workplace to do it for us. So organizing and a desire for solidarity have been really important for our people in Philly. Thanks, Sharra. Nora, go ahead. Yeah. So how sort of we discovered each other for our caucus was we found each other surrounding the 2021 basic agreement that IACI was negotiating. And for those who don't remember in 2021, IACI held a strike authorization vote for the first time in many decades. So their union, you know, we came out for them with a 98% authorization and 87% participating in the members, you know, they saw their union use the most powerful tool available to them for the first time in decades. And they saw a kind of contract that got them. You know, this was a time when we needed the union to be working on the union. We didn't address, there were articles about this that brought the community on board, but motion picture workers were working and still are working 15, 16 hour days for weeks on end with no breaks, no weekends. People had stories of driving these long drives home, nearly crashing their cars. People some did did crash their cars and, you know, on on set safety being a really big thing for them. And the contract really didn't address it. It wasn't merely our members holding us back from wielding more power. You know, we gave them this 98% authorization vote. But it, and it wasn't merely bargaining techniques, but it was the way that the union was operating. Despite having this strength of the member base, the union wasn't operating from a place of strength. So in 21, there was this group that I kind of banded onto to form around the Hollywood locals, but it eventually fell apart because it was primarily focused on campaigning for issues instead of changing the way that the union was working. We knew we wanted to form this caucus. So we got together another group and we rallied around labor notes actually in 2022. As the vector, we knew like a bunch of national unions would coalesce. So we organized around it, knowing we'd meet IATC members over and we wanted to build a coalition of members out of that. And what we shared in common fundamentally was that we all deserve more. I think everyone in IATC would agree with that, but I think what we shared in common the most was how we wanted to get that. We made like this direct connection between achieving what we wanted in our workplaces and the amount of avenues of participation we had. We all had experiences with union bureaucracy that were unsatisfying and frustrating. And as an 839 number in Los Angeles, my health care, for instance, is affected by bargaining that takes place without any input from my membership because our contract is, our contract is bargained separately. And our contract's health care that is something that IATC negotiates. It's de facto tacked on to my contract. And I think it's important to note that I shared things in common with people from local 52 in New York and Philly. They're also affected by the basic agreement in a similar way. So we had the same problems across all these state lines and across different types of jobs. One person might be working as a construction worker on stages and sets. And I'm working as an artist in Nickelodeon, but we're affected by the national unions bargaining in the same way. So that's sort of like how we all came together and how we kind of found what we shared in common. Thanks, Nora. And Scott. Well, I'm starting to see a common theme here of shop floor issues and national bargaining that was very disappointing. That's been something that's been going on in the UAW for a very long time. So, you know, this reform movement in the UAW didn't just fall out of the sky. There were people working on reform for decades because of the cooperation scheme that our union was involved with with the companies. So I had tapped into one of those networks around 2010. But the corruption scandal in the UAW really opened a opportunity for reform to take hold. So in 2019, there were some people that I had met through auto worker caravan that I was talking with. And there was somebody that I had met at a constitutional convention that sent me a Facebook message. He was a president of local 259 in New York City. And that was Brian Schneck. He sent me a Facebook message that simply said article 80 or article 30, I'm sorry. And that meant that that was a constitutional clause that allowed us to as members to file charges against international officers because we had been in the midst of a deep and wide corruption scandal at the international level of our union. So that message, I returned with article eight, which I had in mind calling a special convention to change the way we elected those officers from the conventions system to the direct one member, one vote system. And that Facebook message, the following day, we started, we had a conference call out of it. And there are about a dozen people on the conference call. Some of them from auto worker caravan. Some of them that I had met through Facebook exchanges and others that I had met through some of the union organizing or not organizing, but some of the union conferences and committee work that I had done. So that was how we found each other. And then what goals did we share in common? Well, it's pretty much right here on my shirt. No concessions, no corruption and no tears. We had been suffering concessions for 40 years in the UAW, but they had really gone into high gear around 2007. And that's what kind of lit my fuse on the reform movement. You know, I had been working on getting those agreements voted down each time because they were bad agreements. You know, they brought us the two-tier wage and benefit structure. They took away COLA. They took away a minute of break time. You know, just some ridiculous concessions that, you know, we're, you know, just so deteriorating to the spirit of the union. And so those were the things that we started to organize around. And, you know, one of our goals or our goals really were to fight back against those things with democracy and transparency in our union. And we were bound to determine to win those through transforming our union, making it more democratic and making it more open for the members. Great. Thank you, Scott and Nora and Shira. I just want to sort of pull out from that little, you know, you all talked about the things that you and the members were unhappy about. But what was different in your stories than sort of stories of just saying how bad things are was that you all did something where you brought people together to, with the idea that there was something you could do about that. So you move beyond a good description of what sucked to like, all right, let's talk to each other about what we're going to do different about that. So in that context, I'm interested and maybe Scott and Shira, you can talk about this a little bit. Like, how did you move to saying like, but we need a caucus? Like, why does a caucus matter in your context? What is that? Some people might say, why don't you just run for election? Or, you know, some people might say, why don't you just leave the union? But why in particular, did you say like, we need to build a caucus? What did building a caucus mean to you? Well, if it's all right, I'll go ahead and get started with it. So nobody can tackle the size of the problem that we were facing alone. And that's what building a caucus is really. We were looking for a group of UAW members that were like-minded, that wanted to work together to achieve our goals. Really, that's kind of the definition of a caucus. And to unseat the administration caucus was going to take something of a counterweight to that, that, you know, ingrained bureaucracy, a little history about the administration caucus. In the UAW, the same group of people have been running the union since 1947. At that time, we had a very famous president, Walter Ruther. If you're into labor history at all, you know a little bit about Walter Ruther. Ruther formed the caucus in 1947, and they really pushed out all the other challengers to their power. And they held power in the UAW from 1947 until last year. They held almost every international executive board seat. And through that, they were able to do that because of the convention system. And, you know, they only had a few people to try and convince to tow the line. We can get into more about how they towed the line. But really, we needed to get some like-minded people together to take on that entrenched power. And we saw some examples in the labor movement. So some of those great examples were the caucus of rank and file educators that took over their union in Chicago, the Chicago teachers union. Also, Teamsters for a Democratic Union. They had been a caucus working to reform the Teamsters for decades. So, you know, we saw a more recent example, and we saw an example that had was really mature. And we tried to take the best of both of those and build a caucus that would be able to, you know, take on the entrenchment of the administration caucus. So those were some role models for us. And, you know, again, the reason to build a caucus is because nobody does this alone. And so that was our main initiative for making it a caucus. Thanks, Scott. Sure. So I think I'm going to reference C to you also, like Scott did with core. The core caucus was really important for our founding members of the caucus of working educators and the book, how to jumpstart your union. They read the book together 10 years ago or so, 11 years ago. And I think it was, you know, I think it was, you know, I think it was, you know, And about the 2012 strike and like, I think that it was sort of like a toolbox, like how are you going to do this in your own city? And I think it being educators and it being a teacher's union and educators union was also a connection for PFT members who are thinking about building a caucus too. I think the question that I'm going to focus more on for this is how do we build a caucus for a really long time and have like moved through different ways of it? Sometimes like people are going to leave and they're going to come in and they're going to leave again. And it can be really hard to sustain this idea of a caucus within this very large union. Our union is 13,000 members strong. And our caucus is not nearly that big. And so sometimes you can wonder like, do we still need this? And I think one of the main reasons that we still have one that we really need one is that the caucus is I think where people learn how to put this idea of our union is our members into practice and really learn how to organize people in their building and learn how to organize people around issues. There are a lot of things that our elected leadership does to give people tools to exist in their schools as shops do words as building reps. But in terms of actually doing the thing, I think we by we I mean working educators and Philly, like in our we meetings people are learning how to take action and feel like they can do it together with other people in their schools and really take union membership from being a paper member where you pay dues to actually fighting for something with other people collectively. And so I think that's one of the things that has allowed us to sustain our caucus over a long time. This idea of developing new leaders and developing people who can become powerful in their own lives, powerful in their own schools and then also powerful in fighting for things that impact people all across the city. So it's been really interesting I think to see our caucus take on both issues that impact everyone. In so many schools like based on region or based on like a policy or based on like a contract issue or sick leave policy things like that and then also really developing people's ability and capacity to like look at their school and look at the people who are around them and say like what matters to us like what matters to the 20 people that I work with every day or the 50 people or the 70 people and how can we fight for this together. And so sometimes I feel like there's this tendency at times for us to be like you have to pick one like are you going to pick the caucus work are you going to pick the building work and like they can diverge but I think we've really in sustaining the caucus we have figured out how these two things can really work together. And so I have had the like honor I would say like to work with people who are like becoming really powerful shop stewards in their schools. While also doing really amazing work that relates to campaigns that our caucus might be running. But sometimes our caucus is not running a campaign. Sometimes the work of our caucus is developing people's ability to fight back against bully bosses or having one on ones with members in their school or making a list of everybody who is a union member or figuring out how to sign people up for dues since our school like our school district doesn't do it anymore we have to do it ourselves. And so I think like the caucus campaign work and the building work like interplay each other and we can't I don't think that we are able to do that without our caucus and so the two like these two ideas or three ideas kind of work together to like help us remember that having like this organization and having this collective of people who are learning how to transform our union from the bottom up is so powerful. And I also just like want to cite something else that I know that a few of us have talked about like democracy and transparency like those are things that are really important in our unions as a whole and I think what our caucus has allowed us to do is to really start exploring what those things look like in our buildings as well. So like one thing that I'm really excited about over the next like six months or so is I really want I'm really excited about the ways that we want to teach people how to have like more democratic chapter meetings in their schools. How do you have a how do you facilitate a discussion? How do you make sure that people are coming to your chapter meetings when there's such limited time and when educators are so stretched. So those aren't necessarily caucus campaigns to work for transparency in like our union like the big idea of our union like our PFT like those are things where we're teaching people and really holding each other to this idea of having democracy and transparency in our chapters. And by chapter I mean like a school of 20 people or 30 people because when you have that in our buildings like people start to expect that beyond also and also like anyone I mean I know a lot of us like we want to have more union democracy but having like a really democratic like exciting energizing chapter meeting like in your shop is so powerful and like just the looks of like demoralization when people walk into the room and then leaving with like wow that was like really cool like solidarity like that's something that we really want to teach people how to do. So I know that was a little long but we've been thinking about that a lot and filling with like why we still have why a caucus so we're teaching people how to do it in our schools too. Yeah and that democracy angle is so important and it's something that you know we're working on in the UAW as well. We're working on drilling it down into the local level and like you were talking about Sharon it's so important to get member engagement through those democratic processes and I had to have a friend that once said that unions can be the greatest force for democracy in this country and you know nothing could be further from the or you know that's that's so true that's so true that we build democratic processes by getting the workers involved. I just want to say I totally agree like that stuck out to me too Sharon is that like creating these systems within your caucus that teach people to lead the more they participate in it and the feeling of that being so powerful for people that like democracy and actually having your voice heard and having it heard is not a need to change is not a far off concept because it is so far off especially if you're an American and you like participate in the American system of democracy too it can feel like nothing you do is democratic and that maybe democracy doesn't even work that well but actually seeing it work like in a meeting is like one step towards like really moving forward. Thank you everyone. The next step or the next question is for Nora. So what were some steps you took that built the core of crew. And gave you a shared sense of purpose and I imagine you know some of that was what you just spoke to. So having been around in 2021 where this group of people kind of came together in Hollywood but you know they tried and they didn't really they were they were thinking more issue based and then seeing how well it works when you're not just issue based I think the work of a caucus isn't organizing around the issue first and then connecting it to this bigger picture so getting both people and their union leadership to stop thinking in these three year contract cycles and hammering home that like these issues aren't going to get fixed unless there's a really strong member channel for your voice to come through and then like starting to kind of look at your union structure and the way it runs and the way the power is concentrated you start building this like knowledge on how you can change that like the teamsters for a democratic union is really clear about doing and we took a lot of steps in the beginning to kind of like really like hone down on what we wanted we started working on this like governing document and principles immediately we needed to be all on the same page we separated our collective wants into like these four pillars democracy education solidarity and strong contracts we wrote things under these headers and we approved them anyone who joined the caucus after that had to read and agree to them and then we also reached out to a lot of other union members in the process and started thinking in the way of like and by other union members other developers of other caucuses because I think broadly in IAC there's this like deep dissatisfaction with the way that the union is run and that kind of makes your job easier but the more trans more like transmogrative or transformative aspect is still not on people's minds the typical byline of the IAC member who's frustrated is well we should impeach the international president that'll fix it but you have to push that further and when you're thinking about like building your core membership it's not just the president's fault that you have the culture of disinformation and lack of understanding of your contracts there's this whole waterfall structure here that yes you know starts at the top but we have to ask people to look at how a president can be even put into power without so much as a vote of a single rank and file member and then ask them if that's a system that they think should stay in place if things are going to change around here and that's sort of like the conversations that we started having with people when we brought them into the caucus because you have to build up you can't just stay small we had some difficulty at the beginning too people were concerned with like security they didn't want anyone to say the word caucus so we started voting you know and that was sort of kind of to sheer's point like the way that we flexed these democratic structures right like every step we took we voted on it we wrote that down and then voting becomes easier being more democratic becomes easier it becomes it comes to you a little bit easier we set out a system that would teach people how to lead the more that they participated in it we had a system of selecting a group of three coordinators that facilitate the meetings do agendas and then they rotate out every three months so people who have never led anything in their lives you know they're forced to kind of become a leader even temporarily and facilitate so after all of this stuff we kind of talked about security and then you know we worked for a year we didn't go public until it was a planned thing that everybody knew beforehand and the result was we had this very strong sense of shared purpose and like a very diverse representation across many locals because we really did the work of like bringing in other voices that we hadn't heard before and then getting them on board with the idea and the principles of change could you say a little bit more Nora before we move on to the next question about like very specifically what you did most recently before you came out as a caucus and how you you had this webinar but you had to get people to that webinar so could you sort of tell the steps that you took in terms of reaching out to people right yeah so so we talked with we have like a lot of like people that we talked to so I we've talked to Ken Paap from CTO we've talked to Jesse Sharkey from CTO from the teachers that have been mentioned Sarah Hughes was a big influence but most recently we contacted Ellen David Friedman for this private chat who was through labor notes and so she gave us a lot of advice and one of them was pick a goal and stick to it and then that will be sort of like where you kind of like your north star for when you're organizing to your event because as we learned from CTO the only way you attract doers is by doing things so kind of moving out of that like sort of just like talking to each other and talking about the problems and the where we wanted to go we had to actually actually do something so we had this big national webinar called our contract, our fight a rank and file member forum and so what our union wasn't doing was bringing people from all these international unions to give opinions and like give their thoughts about their aspirations for the union and we wanted to bring that together and get a good chunk of IAC members working on that so then we talked with Lisa the shoe who's here right now and she actually gave us some training on list building and so we were building these sort of like lists from our own contact databases that we had, people we knew putting them all in lists and sort of like working out what's called list work and sort of learning through doing that and that was how we got this sort of like big database of people where we're kind of like reaching out to them and kind of doing the work of telling them about this kind of debut event and then making it so that our first event represents our movement which is a national movement it's not going to start from Hollywood we aren't like Hollywood only focused we wanted it to be inclusive and so I'm thinking about doing it for everybody and so I think that was really successful because it kind of put us on the map in people's minds like wow like people are coming together like that's something I can join on to and I think a lot of IAC members are so fractured because of the nature of how separated our work is and how we are national a lot of people are probably looking at the same kind of structures that we are and analyzing them and thinking how can I change this and to kind of be a beacon where you can kind of snowball all of those people into the same place has been like really really good because once they see you on the stage they kind of just come to you. Thanks. So Scott mentioned this a little bit and Nora just talked about it but I'm wondering for Shira and maybe Scott if you have more to say about this too this idea of like you know you've talked about building the caucus as like you can't do it alone within your union but then what I also hear is like you're not doing it alone as caucus building either that you're reaching out to others you're finding resources and they be really important for the folks who are listening to get a sense of like what are some of the resources that you've used in order to build your caucus and maybe we can hear from Shira and Scott if you want to jump in about that a little bit. Yeah I can yeah I can share briefly I think I'm like thinking about two buckets I guess of resources that we've pulled from one has been like the science and method and tools and like all of the handouts like secrets of a successful organizer like all of the stuff that we need to be able to do the needed work of organizing in our schools and in our caucus learning how to make a workplace chart learning how to talk to an administrator a manager all of those things we've pulled from both labor notes and then also other union organizers especially in Philly who have been generous both like with their time and also like the tools that they've used in their own union work so I think like that's one set of resources because those relationships are so important and then I think the second one has been to reach out to people who are also educator caucuses union members organizers etc in other parts of the country who have had really big wins and I think like being able to talk to people who have had really big wins in their schools and then also really big wins in their in terms of like their whole union membership like both are really important because like you have like union like the union and then you also have your union members and like we're getting to a place where we want both of those to mean the exact same thing but not every thing not every place is there yet so we have talked to people in Chicago in New York in Los Angeles in Portland in every city in Massachusetts North Carolina like people who are doing the work of fighting like the phrase that so many of us have probably heard like the schools our students and our staff and our families deserve and really pulling on lessons from rank and file members from union leaders from people who are in caucuses from people who are not in caucuses because regardless of whether we're in a caucus or not I think like we're all do like we're all doing the organizing work and people are at you know in different places in terms of what that looks like so I think like talking for example to people in Los Angeles during their really powerful strike in 2019 that came off of many years of building structures to make that really powerful in their school in their schools across the city like that was like a very formative moment I think for a lot of caucus organizers because it was like wow this is what this is what happens when you build power in a chapter this is what happens when you build power across the city and like looking at all of the like points a b c d e f g in between so that's just one example um that was like feels I can't believe it's like almost five years ago but I think like talking to people who are doing the same work um as us has been really useful and like talking to people in caucuses and also to people who aren't um or who have you know who haven't gotten there yet who aren't planning to um because I think that organizing work and like finding the things that we want to change and win um like hearing those lessons I think can like boost our own morale too where we don't have to be we don't have to be alone in our shops and in our um workplaces and we also don't have to be alone in our caucuses too um and I think those moments and relationships have been really important for people that I'm like very close to in working educators in terms of realizing like wow like I'm I'm not alone like you're not alone in your school and you're also not alone in your union membership and in your experience as a rank and file educator and you're also not alone as an educator um because being an educator right now is rough being a worker is rough um it always has been so yeah so I want to give Scott if you say something but I just also want to just jump in from my experience listening listening to share also thinking about what we learn by teaching others like I've known share for a while been a part of watching working educators develop as a caucus and that when you get to go out and talk to other people who are asking you questions how did you do this that there's the development of knowledge in that too so how we are how we are talking to each other about the work and teaching each other Scott I didn't know if you want to jump in with something there go ahead yeah I just I just want to talk about the the importance of networking and uh I think that's what Shira was getting at was was networking across the country and one of the best places to be able to network is a labor notes conference uh they only happen every two years and we skipped one during the pandemic uh but they're they're an excellent opportunity to get to know people that are fighting the fight that you're fighting uh and and there's so so much to learn but there's also so many people to meet that you can learn from in between conferences uh so that's so important uh another thing uh with networking is attend you know join join your local union uh standing committees attend union conferences you'll get to know other people within your union uh you'll get to know both sides right you'll get to uh know the uh the ones that are entrenched and you'll get to know a few people that are are uh really thinking about what the possibilities could be uh to transform their union uh so those are a couple of things that stuck out to me uh uh about uh you know resources uh but in the UAW there were uh there were networks of of people that had been working to reform the union for decades uh and uh you know it's important to find those people to act as mentors uh I've had mentors uh I've mentored other people uh and it's it's important to find uh those people that have been through those battles before and can help you uh pull together and uh you know I first learned about fighting a bad contract uh by passing out flyers at my own plant and we've got it voted down but then it passed nationally uh so I knew then that I had to expand that network outside of the the realm of just my local uh so uh you know that's where uh you know being involved in in union committees and being involved in the labor uh movement uh and who puts the movement in the labor movement but labor notes so uh yeah that's that's some of the uh things that I've tapped into yeah thanks Scott thanks for the advertisement for the 2024 labor notes conference I dropped the registration link in the chat which I hope people can access um uh yeah well we're gonna have a lot of programming about caucuses and reforming your union at at the conference so everyone should come um so I think we're just gonna skip a couple questions just so we can um get to uh your questions um in time so uh this question is for Scott and Shara um how have you negotiated the relationship between organizing around a specific issue and organizing to transform your union as a whole so kind of a broader deeper focus um so uh Shara if you want to start with that yeah I um I think like I I talked a little bit about this before so I think I'll just echo it again um I think that both of those things with focusing on issues that matter um to our workers to our educators and then by extension our students and our families and then transforming the union um that they can work in tandem with each other they don't have to be in contradiction with each other I think that we can keep them separate but I also think that we can make sure that they are um like allowing us to do not necessarily like parallel things but like two kinds of work that can really intersect um I think doing like the work of transforming our unions has to start in our like at least I know for us like it has to start in our shops in our schools um in order to get to a place of transforming like really big picture um it's like all of the ways in which we have transformed our union big picture so many of them have started in our school buildings um we have had people organize um around getting asbestos remediated in our schools asbestos is a huge problem in Philly um other toxins that are making our students and us really really sick um making sure that um our buildings are safe making sure um that we have exactly what we need to be able to do our jobs um getting heaters fixed getting air conditioning like all of the things like these are just facilities issues like there's a very long list of things that are members pft members and also people who are involved in our caucus have organized around and um I think like there's this I know and I know that like many people probably heard this before there's a phrase um in TD you work in teamsters for a democratic union um work where you aim for the boss and you hit the union and I think when we finally figured out that that's the direction that we could go in like when we started really focusing on our schools and then focusing on city-wide issues that really affected I would say a majority of workers across the city so like facility facilities issues really dehumanizing sick leave policies those things are going to get the attention of um people very quickly and they will also get the attention of other union members the people who are elected to lead our union um our school level bosses our district bosses every there's so many layers of management in the school district of philadelphia and so I think like we are transforming it very slowly and we don't know and cannot predict when a school level issue will set something off city-wide um and I think it's up to us to like be able to kind of go with the flow and like see what is going to like become very exciting for people outside of a school or if it doesn't like how to really support people in an individual school building or a few school buildings to still win um even if it doesn't like set fire across the whole city um and so I think like we we balance both by doing both at the same time uh which is very hard but I also think that being disciplined in making sure that the two are connected with each other um and that we're really focusing on our school buildings um right now in terms of where we are as a caucus has helped us do that um and I also think ultimately like there are ways in which and I know that there are ways in which that being a union member um in philadelphia being a pft member um has shifted and it has changed and it and it ebbs and flows like we know that like history you know takes things in different directions um and it's a process of like evolution but I think that especially since we was founded in 2013 I think that um like there is this idea of solidarity that um is extremely prevalent in for many pft members and then also in some ways like there is still in many ways there's still like so much more work to be done but when we keep reminding ourselves that like it starts in our buildings like that's where we are as a caucus I think that we can reach a lot of people um that way so that is how we balance both it's really hard but um we are trying our best to make sure that they intersect as much as possible thank you share go ahead scott yeah well I agree with share that uh you know the two concepts are not mutually exclusive right uh you know you're looking at issues uh you know upfront but those issues are the things that are going to transform your union uh so uh you know for us in the UAW the issue was that the the union was in the boss's pocket right uh and uh you know we felt it for uh for a long time uh but then it then it was right there in our face so that gave us not only the issue uh but also what needed to be done to begin the process of transforming our union uh we're uh by no means done transforming our union but you know we've come a long way uh so you know some of those issues are are going to help you stay focused uh on the on the uh the ultimate goal of transforming our union so you know with UAWD uh you know we started out uh fighting corruption right uh you know the the boss or the union uh leadership was literally in the pockets of the company leadership uh so we had to fight that corruption uh to begin with and that's how we formed that's what we formed around that was the core of our of our uh impetus uh to form a caucus uh and then from there we went into uh trying to democratize our union right so you know from fighting corruption to all right how do you keep corruption at bay it democracy and transparency uh so you know we worked on democracy democratizing the UAW uh it was both through uh the constitutional means where we were organizing for a special convention to do that uh but then covid hit and and put all that uh you know and end to all that organizing uh so then we tried to work through the courts and and then we got the consent decree that allowed us to have a referendum so there was another issue that we were working on it was democracy it was something that would transform our union uh and then from democracy uh once we won democracy we had to find uh good candidates and then we had to get them elected so you know each issue is is building upon uh another to uh ultimately transform your union into a union that is of for and by uh the membership great and wins remarkable get some remarkable wins uh and your stand-up strike as well yeah um okay we're gonna turn chat on thank you uh Nora and Scott and Shira um we're gonna put the chat on and invite uh a few questions um so if you want to put those in there um and then uh we'll look through them and take about 15 minutes to answer questions so go ahead and um okay just gonna take a look here at those invite our uh panelists to look as well and maybe answer pick a question that you would be interested um got Cassie's asking a question about announcing uh oh we just announced I could answer yeah you want to take that one up Nora how you came to that decision uh I actually find that like um so I've been looking at like a lot of different like um the way that caucuses kind of present themselves online um and uh I wanted to sort of like push that a little bit more um we're very much drawing from a lot of the um uh the kind of like established caucuses like TDU because TDU has the sort of like online presence that's very educationally focused um they have a lot of like resources and they become like a hub for people who want to understand their union better in that um they in their presence um both on the shop floors and um and uh in their presence online so we're in we're a national caucus so we were thinking that a lot of our stuff had to be um kind of like um pushed in the the webosphere honestly um in order to have these national conversations they're all going to take place via zoom honestly um so we kind of looked at branding a little bit um and we thought that it was pretty important to us um and how does it happen through actions um I think you should definitely plan around like a big event um that brings your union together to do what you want to see more of in your union if that's transparency more democracy whatever it is for us we wanted to see people talk to each other more um and I think that that is kind of the step the first step to getting people thinking more about democracy is people will come out uh if they think that they will be heard on their issues um so we uh the event was structured around um gathering people's um aspirations for the upcoming contract cycle and then um kind of conglomerating all of those all of that feedback into a uh report of demands that we're working on and those demands would go out publicly to our leadership um because a lot of the time uh it's not clear um how uh people are supposed to uh get their uh proposals on a table in front of their employers uh using the national leadership system that's currently in place it's not clear to a lot of people it's confusing people don't know what they're fighting for so creating a central hub where people could come to the the event come and talk to each other hear from each other understand each other's issues better that's what you want your union to do um so try and think in that kind of a way where you both have like presence online right um I think our website is pretty cool uh it gets people excited um ayatsikru.com and then also thinking about like what you'll do like making sure that um you don't just look like a flash in the pan and that your actions are uh belying like the underlying core principles so trying to actually do some kind of event you know I think it would be easier with like a local locally focused caucus because you could do the event in person um or in the region or in the area um but yeah I would I would combine those two things as sort of an online presence where you can get the word out that way and then also an event so there are a ton of good questions here um I don't know if Scott or Shira or others have like I know which ones I'd like you to answer but I'm wondering if there any that you're reading that you're interested in answering well I uh started reading from the beginning so I'll start with the first one and and that was and I've been in that situation right you know I've been the vice president of my local union uh and uh I was uh you know basically the only reform candidate or the only reform officer uh in the room right so uh I did that I put together a caucus uh to run for local union office along with me uh didn't end up winning in that next election that was 2019 uh but uh you know the the main thing is that you uh don't give up when you the only way to lose is is to quit uh so in 2019 in the beginning of 2019 I lost a bid for president of my local union by the end of 2019 I was forming uh helping to form united all workers for democracy uh so you know sometimes uh you know you're going to get road blocks you're going to get uh rough patches uh but as long as you don't give up uh you're going to continue building on uh you know building on the the reforms that you want to see uh and you gotta continue organizing your members you know you can't stop talking to your members when you lose a tough election that's that's the advice that I would have and also I wanted to point out that Ron was the next question and and I would remiss and and not pointing to railroad workers united as one of the examples that we looked to when we were forming a caucus because they've done some great work uh and uh you know when you have I've been in both situations when you have a convention system and now we have the direct election system the the convention system is so much tougher uh we had to uh we had to organize around contract time right we had to organize no votes on on bad contracts uh and you know we we would try and get delegates elected to those conventions and build a network of getting delegates elected even in now that uh you know in 2022 we didn't have a majority of the delegates in the convention but you know we we did make some uh some changes that uh you know we weren't able to make to make before uh the corruption scandal had had made major headlines so there's uh you know definitely a rough time there when uh you know I was a delegate at a convention in 2010 uh 2014 2018 and 2022 and the first three were pretty rough experiences but you know you have to stick with it I just wanted to say there were a couple of requests for um I think our panelists to share their contact info if you if the panelists feel like dropping your emails or whatever in the chat or the website for your caucus for those who haven't seen that yet um please do so um and I just put my email in the chat as well and for for those who aren't aware I I'm in touch with uh workers who are organizing within the UFCW um uh round reforms so I saw some conversation around that so I just wanted to let you know I put my email in the chat as well for those who want to be connected sure did any of those questions happen at you yeah um a few did I wrote down a few um I'm gonna try to keep my answers short on a few of them um there was one about uh what do you do about people who say that caucuses are divisive uh do it anyway they're wrong um and just like keep doing it um I think that people realize that they're not divisive when they just like see you doing it anyway um I think that it's just a scare tactic um and in the same way that uh like I keep telling this to people in terms of like what they're doing and their schools around like difficult situations where people are using scare tactics administrators are using scare tactics like they're scare tactics and they're meant to make us stop but don't let them make you stop um so do it anyway um uh you do not have to run uh you do not have to run um I will just leave it at that um you do not need your caucus to run ever um you can if you want to but you don't have to so I think that like combating this idea that that's necessary right now is like part of it both um for you not by you like who asked the question but just like for ourselves and then also for people who we talk to it's not a requirement um so I think that's one thing that's really important we can do it at some point but we don't have to do it now um there was one question about how do we ID issues I think one thing I've learned um is that when we're IDing issues is a caucus it's really important for people to talk about what their issues are at their jobs um and that can really help bring people together around this idea of like both transforming our union and then um like transforming our workplaces so not just like what are issues with the structure of our union but like what are issues that you're facing um at your job so that has been really important for us um and then there was another one um about how to keep people engaged and how to run like a good meeting I think like one thing that I have found is like being okay with people who are not necessarily ready to join a caucus it's okay like invite them anyway not everybody is going to be ready to like go to all of the um webinars I used to be like I only want to talk to people who like want to go to all the webinars and like read all the books and talk about this all the time that it's okay if they don't want to it's like okay if they only come sometimes um there will be people who like really want to dive in deep um super fast but also it takes people um a long time sometimes to get there just because like people are really busy like our families need us like our jobs need us our per we need to take care of ourselves etc so um I think like having ways that people can come to a meeting and talk and like really getting to know people one on one is super helpful to keep people engaged um and uh inviting people to things like this like I'm invited uh someone that I work with to a labor notes thing next week um and like we're gonna go together and so like if you're gonna go to something invite one person to come um and then in terms of like how to run engaging meetings I think that one thing that I have learned um it's just so important to have people uh talk to each other like in small groups like at um at our schools now like I always tell people like make sure that your meetings are where people are not sitting with people in their grade team or like not sitting with people that they already talked to and like have the questions be really open like how was your day um or like what's something that was really rough this week um and I have found that some of the most energizing meetings that I've been in that have been ones where the question is really open and people like find their way um to like wanting to take action or what the next step is and then also on the flip side too I think that having um a next step in place or like having a plan or like having like so what are we all gonna do next is also really important because it helps people remember that they did not just come to talk about what the problem is um and so like figuring out ways to connect um what's going on to like what we can do about it um can be like a good uh a good meeting like if I'm talking as like if I'm talking for more than you know however much time you want to decide in a meeting before people are talking to each other like it's not a good meeting um so like making sure that people are talking to each other for big blocks of time um and then really being able to hear what other people are saying so like having really good shareouts and report outs with a stack so that people can listen to each other um are I think what make make our union meetings ones where people want to come back and um how to keep people focused on building power without getting mired in politics with executive boards and councils and things um I think that that um that has been like big like we've gotten so much advice from so many successful councils that you really you just can't involve leadership in the in the equation at all almost like um the things that you do don't you don't have to be a leader leadership position to do them you can do the things that you want your union the work that you want your union can to do you can do it um you can find ways to do it um and uh when it comes to talking about elected officers just our technique has been to completely ignore them because it doesn't matter who is in the leadership seat as long as the processes that got them there are undemocratic and I think that everyone wants more of a say in who leads them and how their their leadership is elected so we often say that we don't we do not even talk about like leaders at all we don't think that it it's productive and it doesn't focus people on the right things because um even if we ousted all of our leadership we would still have these same systems and that's sort of like what we try to tell people um and uh um you know don't be afraid uh if you know uh a leader calls you something like um you know you're trying to destroy the union or something like that uh we have not like really engaged with that at all and that's been really successful for us um uh if if people feel challenged by the idea of changing a system then that's their problem hey great I think um I'm just blown away by how great these questions are to be honest um and I say I just want to upload something that was said in the chat which is um some of these great questions we weren't able to answer today um some we might actually address in our future webinars on caucus development so definitely come back for those but here is the book democracy is power uh which is written by the late Mike Parker who is a member of UAWD um and Martha Gruwell um it's a really great book um it's uh grapples with a lot of the questions um that were asked in the chat so I recommend people check that out um so um we're going to head into wrapping this up and we're actually going to end with a question for the panelists on what are questions you think we should be asking you and other caucus members as we continue to develop the series what are what do you think some of the most important questions um you know you would want uh workers starting their own caucus to be asking you um so uh start with start with you Scott since you're already unmuted well I would start with a bunch of the questions that we didn't get to in the chat that's that's for sure uh and uh you know one of them that uh piqued my interest was uh uh how do you uh navigate uh the the politics uh when you're a newly elected officer uh and uh you know you have uh uh you know longer term officers there that uh have been in the entrenched bureaucracy uh and that's all that they really know uh so you know that would be one that I would recommend we take up the next time uh and uh or you know whoever you all take up the next time uh and uh so there you go there's my suggestion all right um Nora I think a really good one is um uh how do you implement a caucus that operates in a democratic way and how do you implement a caucus that um teaches other people to be leaders um because that's uh what you want thank you uh Sharra um I I was thinking about the same thing that Nora was in terms of like how do we build leadership like how do we build our own leadership um how do we build the leadership of other um rank and file members who are organizing in their workplaces um and then I also I just wrote this down earlier like um in terms of like why we are all here um I feel like going back to the question of like what um what do you want like to change about your workplace and what do you want to change about um what it means to be a member of your union can be really important because sometimes it um it's just like really easy to lose sight of like why we're here um and so I feel like that first question of like what do we really want to change about our work or like our workplace and you know what do we want to change about what it not just our union but like what it means to be a member of our union um can help us figure out what we want to do and then what we want potentially um our caucus to do too great thank you I think we're gonna take up these questions some of the questions in the chat those Barbara and I plan uh the future uh webinars um I guess um you know as we close this out I just want to say you know I spent a lot of time working with UAW members um and UAWD now I'm getting to work with members of a lot of other caucuses I think um there are definitely a lot of common lessons to be shared across all the caucuses I know I'm noticing a lot of similarities at the same time every workplace is different every union is different um uh in an important way so I don't think you know I feel like you know just in the short time I've been at labor notice clearly it's not sort of like a one-size-fits-all solution you're gonna have to figure out how to build the reform caucus in your union and it's probably gonna look a little different from um you know UAWD IOTC crew or um caucus of working educators so um but I am so excited to see everyone who's been on this call and all the different unions they represent and you know everyone grappling with trying to organize a reform caucus and um uh Barbara and I both shared our contact information the chat I'm just gonna drop my email again because it probably got lost up there so um please don't hesitate to um reach out to us um if you uh you know have questions or need support um and yeah thank you everyone for joining Barbara do you want to say any parting words um I be honest I'm reading Stanley's uh comments in the chat and it just makes me want to say like gas Stanley it's hard sometimes to do this work and I think all of our um uh panelists talked about really reaching out and finding other people so you're not alone in this work that's that's what the caucuses give us is a shared project and comrades to do the work with um but also feel free to reach out about that and uh the last thing is just like the chat is blowing my mind I mean Scott Nora Shira you blew my mind you were great and then like the sense of like the networking possibilities for all of us out there to be helping each other transform our unions and as Scott said earlier like we democratize our unions we actually get real democracy not just in our unions um it's it's really exciting and I'm really grateful for all of you uh for and for being able to do the work with y'all okay yeah okay thank you again to our wonderful panelists um and to everyone who joined um I'm gonna wait a few seconds before closing the chat because I see people are sharing contact uh information but thank you again to everyone who joined uh we did record this so we'll be sending out the recording uh to everyone and uh again uh so uh you know if everyone wants exchange contact information tonight wasn't able to do so please email me and I'll try to put you in touch with the right person um okay all right good night and hope to see you again for the next uh caucus uh development webinar yes thanks y'all good night bye thanks you guys good night okay leaving the chat open slightly longer by by request everyone should feel free to hop