By Randy Korgan

We have successfully completed the first round of eight volunteer Teamster organizing training sessions.

Our topics: House-calls/One -on-One, Identifying Leaders, Building a Committee, Building a Majority, Company Campaign, Conquering Fear, My Union is not for Sale and Moving to Action, were addressed over the past year with over-whelming support and success. Some participants have been able to attend all but a couple of the trainings and are looking forward to graduating.

"I am looking forward to graduating... thank you for helping me on this new pathway in the future" said Steve, a rank-and-file from Local 399. James from Local 63 said " Wow! You have to do all this work to help workers organize and it doesn't guarantee a win. I have a whole new respect."

The last year has also brought training to the organizers as well. “My communication skills have improved in every aspect from talking to my co-workers, non-union workers, talking in front of a group, talking to management and even my family" says an organizer. Another organizer said “it inspires me to see a member get up in front of his peers, do a role play and use the tools he or she learned over the previous trainings."

Some organizers are learning techniques and strategies from their peers along with sharpening their skills. Bringing organizers together sharing ideas, concerns and campaigns always has positive effects.

The program is based on training, mobilization and coordination, with long term planning and goals in mind. The first eighteen months are training with the understanding that at this point we start to drop campaigns into the program, mobilizing the members that have attended. There is nothing like a real campaign that will bring the training for individuals to the point of accomplishment. Participants are being prepared so they don’t make mistakes on the house call itself. Better to do it in a controlled environment. With the amount of participants that have attended multiple sessions, we will be able to house-call en masse very shortly.

The last training August 20 was on Moving to Action and was held at the JC in the organizing war room. Most of the participants had attended previous trainings and it showed when they were challenged by the role playing. Some hit the nail right on the head, making the organizers very proud. This next year will lead us into our next phase, a second round of trainings, “large and small campaigns” as we will be focusing on strategic campaigns in our industries. The next training is October 15 at 9 a.m. at a location to be determined.