Summer School courses and workshops are held Saturday 8:30-11:30am and 2:00-5:00pm, and on Sunday from 9:45am-12:45pm. You may choose to enroll in a Core Course, which spans all three class sessions, or choose three different workshops instead.

Core courses:

• Effective Grievance Representation: Filing grievances isn’t only about how well you argue your case. It’s also about learning how to represent a fellow member when they’re in a vulnerable situation, and organizing members to build support for a fair resolution. Participants in this class will learn how to build an effective grievance case and how you can also win by creatively exercising pressure outside the grievance process. This class will also address topics stewards frequently face, including how to deal with bully bosses and how to manage conflicts between members.
• Preparing for arbitration: Taking a grievance to arbitration requires a higher level of both documentation and legal preparation than a normal grievance hearing.  In some unions, only lawyers do this work, which makes it much more expensive and limits the number of cases a union can afford to arbitrate.  This class is designed to train non-lawyers in how to prepare a case for arbitration, so that we can win more cases and spend less dues money doing it.

Workshops:

Saturday, 8:30-11:30am:

1. Bargaining for social justice: Collective bargaining is becoming an increasingly important tool for addressing issues faced by women, LGBTQ workers, immigrants and people of color, as well as tackling broader disparities in the community. In this workshop we’ll review examples from around the state and across the country where unions who have centered racial and social justice issues in bargaining and made concrete gains as a result. (1A)
2. Telling our story: Using new media tools to strengthen our campaigns and build our unions: Social media and digital tools offer a host of new ways to build solidarity and participation among our members, and to build support among the broader public. This workshop is designed for beginners – learn how to make use of the new media! (1B)
3. Building effective labor-community coalitions: One of the most powerful tools that unions have is building effective coalitions with community partners who can exert pressure on employers to do the right thing.  This workshop will show how to identify the most useful community partners and how to build effective and long-lasting partnerships. (1C)

Saturday, 2:00-5:00pm:

1. Stopping sexual harassment in the workplace: Even when we have good contract language and the law on our side, sexual harassment remains a problem in many workplaces. This workshop will provide concrete tools and tactics union members can use to stop harassment and build a culture of solidarity on the job. (2A)
2. Promoting green jobs and tackling climate change through our unions: This workshop will review how unions across Oregon are addressing climate change through organizing, collective bargaining and political action. Whether its addressing extreme weather and wildfires, to ensuring that new solar, wind and other renewable energy projects are built union, this workshop will review how union activists in a diverse number of industries are addressing climate change on the job and in the community.  (2B)
3. Public sector budgets and navigating the threat of layoffs: Public sector employers across the state are claiming that they have no money, and threatening cutbacks and layoffs.  This workshop will show how to get at the truth of how much money local cities, counties and school districts really have, and will also address best practices for responding to threats of furloughs or layoffs. (2C)

Sunday, 9:45am-12:45pm:

1. Organizing around workplace health and safety: By law, Oregon workers have a wide range of health and safety protections on the job – including new rights guaranteeing access to fresh water, shade and limits on working in hot weather.  But just having a right on paper doesn’t necessarily do that much.  Learn from successful examples of how to organize to make sure that these and other protections are enforced and we’re all working in safe conditions. (3A)
2. Defending immigrant co-workers: Immigrant workers—both documented and undocumented—are under attack. This workshop will address why immigration is a union issue and we will hear what unions across Oregon are already doing to promote solidarity and defend our immigrant co-workers. (3B)
3. Labor law – recent changes and union strategies for response: The Trump administration has made several dramatic changes to how the National Labor Relations Board interprets and applies labor law.  In this workshop, we will explore what’s changed and how this affects organizing and bargaining conditions in our workplaces.  We will also explore union strategies for winning organizing and bargaining campaigns without relying on the NLRB – including sectoral bargaining, state-level actions, or using the power of our pension funds to convince employers to act fairly. (3C)