Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part III: Involving and Empowering our Members

For the 4C’s to be a strong union, our members must be more involved and empowered.

Transparency and communication will help, but even more is needed. We must ASK members to be more involved, and we must provide incentives for member involvement.

AFT chapter chairs are elected, just as ours are, but they are also compensated. Our Delegate Assembly members are elected, and they too should receive some form of compensation. (It is worth noting that many colleges do not have full complements of Delegates and that our Delegate Assembly meetings are only half-full much of the time. Too often, entire colleges are not represented.)

Our members must identify with our union and believe union involvement benefits everyone. Currently, all too many of our members identify with management. This is understandable, as management doles out promotions, merit awards, etc. What does our union provide? To many members, the benefits of union membership are simply too intangible.

The New Leadership Slate will make the benefits of union membership more tangible. We’ll provide scholarships for our members’ children, just as the AFT does. We have the money; we only need the will. We’ll provide union cards for our members, so members can take advantage of the discounts and special offers available to card-carrying union members. We’ll provide emblems of union membership for people to wear.

We’ll demonstrate pride, purpose, and strength.

Our members must be sufficiently empowered to scrutinize the actions of our leaders. We must make certain we never again endure what we are now enduring. We’ll propose statewide officer term limits, we’ll propose other revisions to the 4C’s Constitution to keep members empowered, and we’ll work to ensure our leaders never forget the interests of our members.

Working together, we’ll do better.

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part IV: Working With Our Allies