What is a Union?
What is a Union? A conversation with union members about the basics of union organizing.
- Cora Bergantinos-Crespo, geneticist, president of Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW Local 4100
- Michelle Gonzalez, registered nurse & NYSNA organizer
- Robert Hughes, union steward of Unite Here Local 23 & co-chair of Central Indiana DSA
We’re going back to the basics with What is a Union? We’ll work to get everyone on the same page with the nuts and bolts of unions today. Why should I join a union? What does union membership entail? The focus of this panel is to examine how militant workers and union staff navigate their unions, and to define some common language like dues, arbitration, collective bargaining, authorization cards, concerted activity, boycotts, lockouts, strikes, etc.
We hope to give new DSA members and folks who are new to the labor movement a solid basis of understanding how unions function today. We can also explore the possibility of building more militant unions, creating space for more discourse and political education amongst members, and agitating for more worker struggle against capital in the future.