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Build a Stewards Council from the Bottom Up

By Paul Krehbiel - Labor Notes, July 2006

Want a stronger union at work? Consider building a stewards council.

I was a rank-and-file worker at a company with a good steward structure years ago, so I knew something about how it worked. After I began working as a union representative for Service Employees (SEIU) Local 660, I was assigned to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. I saw immediately that the union there was weak.

With only five stewards for 1,700 workers, demoralization was high. Many members complained that the union did nothing, and they wanted out. The only solution was to build the union at the facility. . .

. . .Soon, word was out that the union was alive and growing.Workers in other areas asked to become stewards. We asked them to help on a project and then brought them aboard.

Within a year and a half, we had 35 stewards and the union was winning some victories. Things were far from perfect, but management knew that the union was there. 

Read the entire article here:  http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2006/07/articles/c.html