Bargaining for the Common Good

Over 10,000 workers have come together for an unprecedented week of actions across Minnesota to answer the question “What Could We Win Together?”

This inspiring common good campaign for Dignified Work, Good Schools, Stable Housing, and a Livable Planet is the result of a wave of historic unity between community organizations and labor unseen in recent memory.

Learn the issues, get inspired and support the Minnesota Week of Action. Get ready – across the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Week of Action is about to begin from 3/2 to 3/8

As contracts expire all over the state, Minnesota community and labor organizations are coming together for key policy fights and common good demands including reducing racial and gendered pay gaps, better mental health support in schools, community-owned social housing, corporations paying their fair share for climate impact, and more.

This is common good bargaining in action. Join us in supporting the week of actions and all common good demands.  Find out how below:

Dive deep into the issues with SEIU 26 WinTogether2024
Join the Week of Action and find an event Near You Schedule of Events
Donate to the Week of Action fund

This week of action is represented by multiple organizations including SEIU 26, CTUL, Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia, SEIU 284, MFT 59, SPFE, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, Laborers Local 363,  ATU Local 1005 and more.

Bargaining for the Common Good stands in solidarity with everyone hitting the streets for the week of action.

The post Support the Minnesota Week of Action first appeared on Bargaining for the Common Good.

Bargaining for the common good is an innovative way of building community-labor alignments to jointly shape bargaining campaigns that advance the mutual interests of workers and communities alike. At their heart, these campaigns seek to confront structural inequalities—not simply to agree on a union contract. A bargaining-for-the-common-good approach starts with teachers unions, students, and local community groups working together to develop and articulate a set of demands that serve the interests of students, workers, and the communities where they live and work. Importantly, all stakeholders should have an equal voice in proposing and developing common good proposals.

Some possible demands could be emissions reduction targets, energy efficiency investments, solar panel installations, and the creation of resilience hubs at public universities, colleges, and preK–12 schools. Other demands include divestment of public pensions and endowments from fossil fuel companies and reinvestment of those funds into socially responsible investments, as the AFT has resolved to do nationally.61 Expansion of public transportation options, including the free provision of mass transit to students or employees, and monetary or other incentives for workers who walk, bike, or use public transportation to commute to and from school are also possible demands. Public school teachers can also fight for climate justice to become a core part of the public school curriculum, as the Chicago Teachers Union has been doing, and for green energy CTE programs to be available to all high school students.

Hitting on many of these demands, UTLA, in partnership with students and several community organizations, developed and successfully negotiated a memorandum of understanding (as part of its contract bargaining) titled “Healthy, Green Public Schools.”62 The memorandum, Arlene Inouye (then UTLA’s bargaining co-chair and secretary, now retired) told me, includes climate literacy curricula; a green jobs study; a green school plan, including conversion to union-made electric buses and union-installed renewable energy systems; and clean water, free from lead and other toxins. Reflecting on the process and proposals that came from it, Arlene said, “it’s been very important that we continue to grow the coalition and continue to expand our common good demands…. We’re finding different angles to keep pushing the envelope.”63

Read Full Article at AFT.org

The post Common Good for the Good of the Planet| “Pursuing a Just Transition in the Education Sector” first appeared on Bargaining for the Common Good.

Teachers in Massachusetts are standing together like never before in the states’ “largest strike yet.” Educators are hitting the picket line to demand better resources for students and their families.

At BCG, we fully support NTA’s demands for a strong, healthy learning environment for their students and better working conditions for educators. Expanded mental health support for students, living wages for education support professionals, improved parental leave, fair health care costs, and preservation of guaranteed prep time benefits educators, students and their families.

Across the country, from California to Portland, to Chicago to Massachusetts and more, we have seen how common good demands like these from educators affect the entire community for the better.
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Stand behind Massachusetts educators

➡️ Support the NTA Strike Fund
➡️Send statements of support directly to NTA. Email jamierinaldi [at] gmail [dot] com (CC: MPage [at] Massteachers [dot] org)
➡️ NTA bargaining updates

Visit NTA online
 

Featured image photo credit: Working-Mass

The post Massachusetts Largest Strike YET is for The Common Good! first appeared on Bargaining for the Common Good.

This January, Bargaining for the Common Good welcomed over 500 attendees to hear an inspiring and on time message on forming real alignments and building collective power. from Greg Nammacher (SEIU Local 26) Jennifer Arnold (Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia) Veronica Mendez Moore (CTUL) Marcia Howard (Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Educational Support Professionals), JaNaé Bates (ISAIAH) and Phillip Cryan (SEIU MN and IA).

To learn more about Common Good Bargaining in Minnesota, read “Aligning for Power: A Case Study of Bargaining for the Common Good in Minnesota” from The Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and The Working Poor.

Organizations representing over 30,000 in Minnesota are gearing up for an unprecedented week of action in March 2024. Support and uplift them by contributing to the Week of Action Strike Fund 

Bargaining for The Common Good is a joint project between The Center for Innovation in Worker Organization, Action Center on Race and the Economy and Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor

If you attended the webinar or are interested in getting involved, please help us continue these important conversations by filling out this brief survey. Include your name and email address if you would like us to follow up with you.

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The post BCG “Community & Labor Escalations” Webinar a Huge Success! first appeared on Bargaining for the Common Good.