the coalition. It was because she was seen as a person’ by the unions and had ‘union experience as a community organiser before working in the union movement that gave the union confidence to get involved right at the start: I think what is significant about Sydney Alliance is that that the impetus came from the trade union movement to set it up. What [the Director] did was she focussed first and foremost on getting the funding from the peak council, Unions New South Wales, so that we had seed funding for 12 months…and unions at that stage really got it. (Trade union leader involved in SA) Similarly in Seattle, the Director of the Alliance had been a life-long union member and worked for 13 years organising with farmers who were facing foreclosure, before forming, first the Spokane Alliance, and then the Sound Alliance and it was these experiences that assisted in building credibility with union leaders. Also noted earlier was the way in which the Sound Alliance recognised it needed to adapt its language and training so as not to alienate union members who tend to have a different organisational culture and way of behaving to that of faith or NGO organisations and because of his past experience, the Director was able to adapt to this audience and design training to fit the needs of particular unions: All of our best experiences with the unions are in places where the primary leaders have gone through, ideally the week-long training. And they’ve taken time to really see, and think about how they can––to think about how it’s different and how they can use it to best benefit their organisation. And then they come back and they’re very strategic about how to use our organising methods. (Director of Sound Alliance) Even so, this did not always work and some unions were not interested or did not take part in the training and only stayed in membership for a short while: They don’t quite get it because they haven't really been involved…they came in with this perception…and they’re willing to give it a try, but they default to previous experience. And for almost all of the unions, ours is a way of organising they’ve never been involved in. They’ve been involved in coalitions around a particular issue, or for a coalition where they can, among themselves, just decide on an issue, at a real top leadership level…(Director of Sound Alliance)
the coalition. It was because she was seen as a ‘union person’ by the unions and had experience as a community organiser before working in the union movement that gave the union confidence to get involved right at the start: I think what is significant about Sydney Alliance is that that the impetus came from the trade union movement to set it up. What [the Director] did was she focussed first and foremost on getting the funding from the peak council, Unions New South Wales, so that we had seed funding for 12 months…and unions at that stage really got it. (Trade union leader involved in SA) Similarly in Seattle, the Director of the Alliance had been a life-long union member and worked for 13 years organising with farmers who were facing foreclosure, before forming, first the Spokane Alliance, and then the Sound Alliance and it was these experiences that assisted in building credibility with union leaders. Also noted earlier was the way in which the Sound Alliance recognised it needed to adapt its language and training so as not to alienate union members who tend to have a different organisational culture and way of behaving to that of faith or NGO organisations and because of his past experience, the Director was able to adapt to this audience and design training to fit the needs of particular unions: All of our best experiences with the unions are in places where the primary leaders have gone through, ideally the week-long training. And they’ve taken time to really see, and think about how they can––to think about how it’s different and how they can use it to best benefit their organisation. And then they come back and they’re very strategic about how to use our organising methods. (Director of Sound Alliance) Even so, this did not always work and some unions were not interested or did not take part in the training and only stayed in membership for a short while: They don’t quite get it because they haven't really been involved…they came in with this perception…and they’re willing to give it a try, but they default to previous experience. And for almost all of the unions, ours is a way of organising they’ve never been involved in. They’ve been involved in coalitions around a particular issue, or for a coalition where they can, among themselves, just decide on an issue, at a real top leadership level…(Director of Sound Alliance)
ILERA_2013_Organising_Symposium.docx