James Bain

How to Become an Effective Union Official James Bain

I have amassed 129 years of actual union officials' experience and history from people who actually walked the walk and talked the talk. There is no classroom theory in this book, which may or may not work. The information you'll learn in this book are based on tried and true union practices and actions passed on from one generation to the next. You'll learn how to proceed in a contract negotiations, gathering information, formulating it into a coherent legal form, organizing your negotiators, and how to extract your needs from management. The instructions on this subject are utterly imperative for any union official, novice or experienced. You'll learn the collective bargaining procedure, the Union's most powerful weapon. You'll learn what a grievance is, how to investigate it, how to classify it and how to properly write it without leaving yourself exposed to legal jeopardy. You'll learn classic and tactical methods for dealing with management, beginning with the floor foreman up to and including the plant manager. You will be amazed at the insight and imagination utilized by experienced union officials in order to deal with a stubborn and resistant management. You'll learn about government agencies involved in the field of union / business relations. You'll learn how to manipulate these agencies, forming a coalition in which to focus power against management. You'll learn how to maneuver the shop floor, building trust with the membership, respect from the management personnel and disarming membership enemies, which you will always have. It's important you know how to deal with them. This manual is not all inclusive, as that's not reality, but I wish I would have had something like this when I began my union official career. It would have saved me many painful mistakes, catapulted my standing within the union hierarchy and most of all ... Benefited my membership, the hard working men and women I represented.