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Sunday
January 9 2005 2:42 PM ET DETROIT, MICHIGAN (RLUO) - As the creator and Webmaster of Resources for Labor Union Organizing web site (union-organizing.com), I have received six e-mails these past few weeks asking simply, "How do I form or join a union?" These e-mails were all quite similar: Whom do I contact? Where do I turn to for help? Many Labor to Find the Message That is why I designed my own informational labor union web site several years ago because I was "in their shoes." I had no clue where to begin, who to call, or what union to choose. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, but I simply opened up the Yellow Pages phone directory and found a labor union near our workplace that had a toll free number. Thinking that any local union with a number toll free must have a lot on the ball, I called and we eventually obtained our first union contract after no small, considerable battle. As the labor union organizer assigned to us later commented, "You guys really organized yourselves." And, yes, we did. No one came looking for us. No one ever "targeted" us to become union. We chose and fought a heck of a battle to become union members. However, if my web site receives six cries for help in a matter of a few weeks, then how many other souls out there are crying out for help? I believe the e-mails I have received are just the "tip of the iceberg." Solving the Lack of Information The answer is plain and simple: marketing. While Corporate America has well earned a considerable amount of disdain for its public abuses, greed, and mistreatment, Corporate America does one thing right and very well: marketing their message of their product or service to the public. As a young child growing up, I often sat on the front porch with my grandfather and heard him speak with almost religious fervor of his Boiler Makers Union. That made a lifelong and lasting impression on me. It would not be until I became an adult that I understood that fervor when we a joined a union. However, I didn't need anyone to "market the message" to me because my grandfather (and father) were loyal trade unionists. They branded the message into my psyche as a young child. However, we live in a society that has grown up with marketing. Radio, television, and newspapers ads tell us where to find the best clothes, the best cars, and if we buy all the right products, even the best spouse. Labor Unions Have Many Ways to Market the Message With the onset of the Internet, the world has truly become much smaller. Not only is marketing happening in America, Corporate America is marketing globally and, I might add, taking our jobs with it. Labor Unions must market themselves and their message as well. When is the last time you saw a commercial for a labor union? When is the last time you saw a newspaper advertisement for a labor union? What about a radio advertisement? Occasionally, maybe. Even the smallest union local in the country can afford a classified ad placed in the "Help Wanted" section screaming: "Why should you leave your job, it is management that is failing. Call your Local Union at . . ." Decline of Union Membership That, I believe, is why union membership is declining in this country. Today's generation doesn't have my vivid memories of family who knew what it meant to have to work for a dollar an hour with no type of benefits until they formed and joined unions. People today forget that it is labor unions that have given us the five-day workweek, holidays, overtime pay, increased wages, etc. Yet, these valued benefits are seeping away from the American worker day-by-day. Their demise is sometimes hardly noticeable, yet, constantly eroding. I have seen labor unions this past year spend millions and millions of dollars on political campaigns, but to no avail. In my opinion, those millions of dollars would have been much better spent on what? Marketing labor unions to Americans and global workers as well. We need to act. People are NOT getting the message folks. Branding the Message Corporate America is also successful at "branding" the message into the public psyche: commercials that when first heard we couldn't stand and we ignored. But, then, after seeing the commercial for the fiftieth time, we decided to go out and give it a try. Labor Unions must begin to use these tools that are so much a part of today's society. If we plan on winning new members, we must use new tools: marketing and branding the message of hope. Labor's Message: A Quiet Silence The Internet has become an important part of our lives and especially to those who have "grown up" with the Internet. Yet, while many labor unions do have online web sites, many are just showcases so that labor leaders can say they are online. While many of these labor union sites that I have visited are excellent, they tend to showcase their union's goals for their own members who already know that these web sites exist. It is the majority of Americans and citizens around the world who need the message so desperately, yet still languish in the mire of silence. They will seldom knock on labor's door because they don't even know where the door exists. The message and information must be marketed to them and branded into their memories as my grandfather's words did to me. But that was a different time. Today's words must reach out differently. Labor Unions Must Change In some ways it is heartbreaking to think that so many unheard voices are out there not knowing where to turn. SEIU's President Andy Stern recently has called upon the AFL-CIO to make considerable changes because the old ways just are not working. And he's right. Labor needs to change and join the new millennium. We need to reach non-union members through marketing and branding the importance of the union message of democracy in the workplace, of freedom and of hope. We need to fund computer labs at every local in this country to train members on the use of the Internet. Many workers forty years old and older have computers, but their children have to send an e-mail for them. That's sad. Especially when we consider the millions of dollars spent by unions on political campaigns when the money could have been spent to increase membership and help so many by reaching out to them. Let's start 2005 with brand new ideas: let's market the importance of unions to Americans and to the world. The avenues of marketing and branding await you: the Internet, radio, television, Cable TV, billboards and newspapers. And don't just market your message just once, but send out the message over and over until it is so branded in the minds of people they won't have to e-mail me and ask me where to turn for help to become union. They will know your labor union as well as the best brand of tennis shoes. Let the labor movement resolve to leave no voice left unheard.
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