Building a strategic and powerful union through a data-driven campaign

Learn more about the campaign we are running and how it can be used to build a stronger union

When we see images of unions holding massive rallies, events and strikes it is easy to get inspired and wonder: why can't we do that? Let's go!

Chicago's 2012 Strike (Photo by John Gress/Corbis via Getty Images)

What is even more impressive is that when you talk to those involved in organizing at those unions, they will tell you that they knew exactly who was present at those rallies, picket lines and actions and who was not.

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Teachers Unions that inspire us through their willingness to fight for the students, schools and members were not always unions that just had wide ranging activism. They built their way there. Labor Notes documents the process for how Chicago built the capacity to take massive collective action in their book How to Jumpstart Your Union.

There are a few key pieces to how they first began when running for office:

• Persistent list making

• Structure tests & numbers tracking

• one-to-one conversations

• and getting out to schools

The List

The Union's foundation is the list. You start with the basic information: Members, school, role, contact. But you don't have to stop there - you can gather other important information from issues they care about, contact points with the campaign, measuring levels of activism and support.

We are using a database called Airtable that allows us to run analysis such as what percentage of contacts do we have in each ward, what issues are we noticing are coming up in each school cluster, where are our supporters, who are our campaign volunteers, who do we have more work to do to reach out to and make sure are included in our discussions and more.

We then meet regularly as a campaign with a data and strategy committee to go through the data, track how it has moved and determine where to focus our time and effort. We decide what schools to target for a visit, if we don't have any voters identified in a school we go through our list of contacts and decide who to reach out to, we look to see what issues are coming to the forefront based on our conversations to drive our communications and more.

Looking to the future

While this is useful for elections, it is also building our capacity to run and manage a complicated list for the union which will allow us to operate more strategically and ensure that all our schools are actively involved and connected to the union.

Structure Tests and Numbers Tracking: Do you get the WTU Morning Brew?

As we are building our lists we have to test to make sure that our information is useable - allowing us to communicate to members in ways that make sure we are ready for the big event. Right now the event is the election itself and making sure our supporters are ready and able to vote for the slate.

To prepare for getting out the vote we are running a structure test to determine if our supporters are getting the WTU Morning Brew.

How it works

1. We are contacting our supporters each week to see if they get the WTU Brew and asking them to fill out a short survey. .

2. We track the % of those who respond as well as how they respond - paying close attention to the style of the contact, the timing and the response rate. For those who say yes, they will no longer get this particular stress test. For those who say no or are unsure we follow up providing information on how to remedy the situation as well as following up directly with the union.

3. We will continue to contact those who have not provided the information, moving to other forms of communication and seeing which form works on whom.

What this test tells us

This structure test is deceptively simple, but provides a lot of important information:

• We can see if our communications are reaching our supporters and what times, methods and messages work best. We will also see what does not work, allowing us to better use our time and resources.

• We will know who among our supporters is ready to vote and who needs to have issues potentially ironed out.

• We can see how deep our reach is and how responsive our supporters are to our calls to action, which will be crucial for the get out the vote efforts once voting starts.

Looking to the future

Structure tests are meant to escalate. Once you have completed one, you then move to the next and build up your members ability to take action and communicate. Each time tracking participation rates and using that information to strengthen any area where you are weak.

One-to-One conversations

Any campaign - be it for the contract, to end IMPACT or to fight for our students against Federal attacks - will require us to know who is ready to act and who is not. We can then reach members through one-to-one conversations where we find out what's going on and find out and help connect them to the union - are they just not getting the communication? Do they have concerns? Is there something they need to take part - like childcare? Do they just not feel the union is doing enough for them? This is what we need to know so that we can build a union that meets our members needs so that our members can participate and take action if and when necessary to win our demands.

Our campaign has a system so that members can reach out directly to us, and we are doing the same in return. We are hosting district-wide listening sessions and following up with those with 1-1 call times so that we can hear directly from as many members as possible what is going on, what they want to see from their union and finding how they can get involved. This information is used to further update the list and continue to build the data that our campaign and union needs to be successful.

Want to have a 1-1 conversation with Laura Fuchs? Click the button and schedule a time to talk!

Click this button to schedule a one-to-one with Presidential Candidate Laura Fuchs

Visiting Schools

We have already developed a list of volunteers, and are always looking for more, who are serving as points of contact for the campaign throughout our schools. We are distributing flyers, setting up candidate meet and greets and trying to be present to meet members face to face. As the candidate for WTU President, Laura Fuchs is taking extra time to make sure that she visits as many schools as possible. If we don't have a volunteer on site, she is going to the school directly herself to try and talk to members and distribute information.