How to Jump-Start Your Union (New!)

Our union, the BCAHE, is one of our greatest sources of strength for improving not only our pay, but also our working conditions and students’ learning conditions at BC. Because the BCAHE represents our collective power, we can accomplish much more as a union than as isolated individuals. With our next contract bargain coming up later this year, we will discuss ideas and strategies for how ALL BCAHE members can organize and work together to achieve our union’s full potential to improve BC. 

To help in this discussion, we’ll be reading How to Jump-Start Your Union, which describes how rank-and-file members of the Chicago Teachers Union “engaged thousands of members to tackle problems on the job and to build a network that became the backbone of their 2012 citywide strike. Find out how they worked with their communities, trained new leaders, and ran a contract campaign that became a model for unions across the country.” 

Topics discussed will include: 

• Increasing democracy and participation within the union 
• Bargaining for the common good to benefit students and communities 
• Resisting defunding of education and racist school closings 
• Preparing for the CTU’s 2012 strike where they won increases in pay, layoff rights, rehire rights, recruitment of Black and Latino teachers, a reduction in the role of test scores on teacher evaluations, and more 

Most importantly, we’ll discuss how the CTU’s story relates to the BCAHE and what we can learn from their example to jump-start our own union and transform BC in ways that are most relevant for us, our students, and our community. Estimated total hours of discussion will be 5 hours (five 1-hour sessions on Zoom). Feel free to join these important discussions even if you’re unable to read the book! 

Remote synchronous sessions 

Please reach out to Tyler Saxon, Social Science, with questions.

Last Updated August 14, 2023