March 7, 2013. Registration required.
This one-day conference is motivated by a provocative question: What happens when workers begin to act like unions without petitioning for an election? Under the NLRA workers have legal rights to participate in “concerted activity” and to form unions or labor organizations of any size that employers have a “duty to bargain” with.
Informed by the idea that the NLRA sought to encourage worker self-help activities, this conference will examine how workers are organizing “minority unions,” gaining experience, developing leadership, and adopting new non-traditional union forms of representation. The conference will feature workers and organizers from five on-going new-model campaigns:
- Warehouse Workers for Justice
- The Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC)
- FIGHT FOR 15 — Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago
- Making Change at Walmart and Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart)
- ARISE Chicago/USW Car Wash Workers
The conference will be keynoted by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and the foremost expert on minority unionism, Labor Law Professor Charles Morris.
For more information, including a registration form, see the attached flyer for New Models of Worker Representation Conference, Chicago.
Presented by the University of Illinois Labor Education Program, in partnership with Chicago Working-Class Studies, the Illinois AFL-CIO, the Chicago Federation of Labor and the UIC Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety Education and Research Center.
