Building Coalitions

Sue Ledbetter, Union Cities Director

With the odds heavily stacked against workers trying to form unions, successful organizing requires community mobilization. To balance the runaway power of corporations in our communities unions need to bring natural allies into the struggle. To overcome the fierce resistance of employers, we need more active participants on our side.

 Wichita and the surrounding area has a very limited tradition of community organizing and mobilization. Our community does have congregations, political leaders, organizations and people of good will- people who care about the quality of life for working families in our community, who can be brought into the fold if we invite them.

 There are many ways to reach out to the community and begin identifying those allies and The Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation, AFL-CIO has made coalition building one of its primary goals under our Union Cities plan.

 Coalition building is not a magic bullet but it is one important element of a comprehensive organizing strategy. It should be a component that we build into our organizing plan. We don’t want to wait for a crisis.

 The ultimate goal of Union Cities is to build the capacity to involve the entire community in the effort to stand up to employers that violate workers’ rights to organize and to hold politicians accountable to working families. 

 Building meaningful relationships in the community is a long-term process. We need to treat each project and issue as a building block that will lead to permanent lasting relationships.

 Relationships with community groups must be truly reciprocal. “To have a friend you must be a friend.” We need to learn and understand the interest of organizations in our community, and we need to support them. Just as their participation in our struggles can enhance their organizations’ leadership and visibility, our involvement in their causes can enhance ours.

 Coalition building is all about recruiting allies and that takes time, particularly when you’re reaching out to organizations unfamiliar with unions and what unions do.

 Coalition building is rewarding work and can be the most challenging work. It takes tolerance, patience, and strategies. Strategies like learning how to frame our message in a way that will appeal to other groups and the community and the focus need to shift to workers not the union. Learn to avoid union jargon. Most people have little knowledge of unions, and they don’t automatically make the connection between unions and real improvements in the lives of working families. 

 Coalition building is a slow and sometimes tedious process but we have been working over the last few months trying to build long term relationships with other groups and individuals in the community. We have two newly formed coalitions working on specific issues: A Living Wage and a Globalization Coalition.

 We are currently asking unions to sign on as sponsoring organization on the Living Wage and we will be visiting many of our unions and asking members to sign a “Living Wage” petition. One of our goals is to begin talking about a Living Wage during upcoming city elections in April 2001. 

 We are in the discussion phase about forming a 501-C3 and grant funding for a full-fledged “Living Wage” campaign.  We have formed a Steering Committee, Speakers Bureau and a Research Committee. Current organizations include Center of Hope, College Hill United Methodist Church, Friends of Jesus Community, Green Shockers, InterGroup Council of Senior Citizens’ Clubs, Mennonite Church of the Servant, National Organization for Women, Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 171, Service Employees Union Local 513, Sisters of Adorers of the Blood of Christ, Sisters of St. Joseph, Sunflower Community Action, WSU School of Social Work, The Peace and Social Justice Center and the Wichita/Hutchinson AFL-CIO.