Off-campus programming can be customized for local unions as they confront the challenges of changing workplace environments. Classes are offered to locals for a fee of $200 per day plus the cost of materials.
See a list of some popular topics (Click here or go below)

A special programming option is also offered to Central Labor Councils.....
(click here for information on this option))

The programs below are offered to Iowa unionists on a regular basis. If your local would like to sponsor one of these, or any other program, please contact us:
Labor Center
The University of Iowa
100 Oakdale Campus
Room #M210 OH
Iowa City, IA 52242-5000
Tel. [319] 335-4144
Fax: [319] 335-4464
or e-mail: labor-center@uiowa.edu 

Building solidarity in your union

• Targeting solidarity issues and problems
• Combating racism, sexism, or any other divisions in the local

Child Labor

• The problem of child labor
• Child labor, trade and international worker rights
• Trade union efforts to combat child labor (for more on the child labor public education project, (click here)

Collective Bargaining

• The legal framework of collective bargaining
• Developing a bargaining strategy
• Negotiating skills: writing contract language, costing proposals and table techniques
• Mobilizing the membership around contract negotiations
• Benefits: health insurance, disability and pensions/retirement

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Common Sense Economics

• How economic policy affects workers
• The changing structure of the economy
• International trade and globalization
• Union responses to growing corporate power

Communication Skills for Unionists

• Tips on public speaking
• Effective union newsletters
• Parliamentary procedure and effective meetings
• Developing good media relations
• Creating a local union public relations program

Disability issues

• ADA overview and current law
• Grieving / arbitrating disability cases
• Negotiating reasonable accommodations

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Ergonomics for Unionists

• Recognizing repetitive motion risk factors
• Developing an ergonomics program
• Negotiating effective monitoring and control
• For more information on the Labor Center's Ergonomics Education Program for Construction Trades, click here.

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Family and Medical Leave Act:    
      What are our rights?

6 KEY PROBLEM AREAS -- and more… for stewards, officers, and members who want to use FMLA or help members who need leave

• "How sick is sick? Recognizing health conditions covered by FMLA
• We are family!" What the FMLA has to say about it
• Hoops and barriers: Why it seems that FMLA has made things worse
• Notifying and proving: How the employer's notice and certification requirements affect your rights to get leave
• Vacation and sick leaves vs FMLA: Employer rights and employee needs
• Migraines, bad backs and other chronic pains: Rights of the afflicted

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Fighting Sexual Harassment

• Using union values to fight harassment
• Recent federal and state case law
• Contract language issues
• Educating your members

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High Performance, Team Concept,
   Total Quality Management

UNIONS AND NEW WORK SYSTEMS-- What are our options?

5 key areas for stewards, officers, and members confronting team concept in the workplace

• A "new paradigm" for unions? Understanding the models of workplace change
• Unions and teams: Recognizing threats and opportunities
• Our goals / their goals: The same or still different?
• Developing a union approach to team concept and new work systems: Structure; planning; communications; member involvement
• Taking our union into the teams: Can we strengthen our union in a team concept workplace?

Immigration

• Immigration policy
• Immigrants and organizing
• Union values and immigration

Globalization and human rights

• The impact of global economic and trade policies on workers, unions and society
• International worker rights and labor standards
• Union strategies for action
• Cross-border solidarity and strategies

Labor and employment law

• Overview of laws affecting workers and unions
• How the law affects organizing, bargaining, and contract enforcement
• Laws on wages, discrimination, unemployment, and work-related injury compensation

Labor history

• Our union values—what are they and where do they come from?
• Labor history: the big picture
• Labor in crisis: time line exercise on picket lines and critical strikes
• The development of collective bargaining—the difference it has made in workers’ lives
• Race and gender issues in labor history—division of workers: a strategy that sometimes backfires
• What does our history teach us about the present and future?

Labor history – doing your own

• Tips on how a local union can begin to capture its own history
• How to do an oral history with current members and retirees
• Resources from the Iowa Labor History Oral Project

Labor-Management Committees: Developing a stronger union role

• Types of joint committees: particular issues
• Formal and informal structures
• Union rights in joint committees: Caucusing, agenda-setting, voicing opinions
• Building a stronger union presence on a joint committee
  >membership information and involvement
  >making sure the union agenda items get a hearing
  >preparing for committee meetings
  >using non-verbal pressures and signals

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Mobilizing the Membership

• Internal organizing techniques
• Organizing around "hot" issues in your workplace
• Building pro-active union leadership and a “culture of organizing”

Negotiating Pay Systems

• New forms of compensation
• Pay systems and New Work Systems
• Productivity gainsharing programs
• Pay for knowledge
• Bargaining strategies

New Directions in Bargaining

• Overview of win-win, interest-based and/or mutual gains bargaining
• Preparing your committee for new bargaining processes
• Understanding the risks and opportunities
• Key points to build union strategies

New member education

• What does it mean to be a union member?
• Union values and history
• Why unions matter and how to become active

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Organizing

• Why organize?
• Planning a local organizing campaign
• Organizing strategies and techniques
• Organizing, politics and the law
• Recruiting a volunteer organizing committee
• Steps in the campaign
• Bargaining to organize (neutrality agreements, for example)

Policy Issues for Unions Key issues for unions, such as:

• Civil/human rights
• Corporate accountability
• Economic development
• Education
• "Free trade" and globalization
• Health care
• Living wage
• Social security
• Taxes
  (click here for recent class agenda)

Political action and citizenship skills

• Increasing members’ awareness and involvement
• Skills and strategies
• Current issues

Privacy in the Workplace

• Workplace searches and monitoring
• Confidentiality of medical records
• Drug and alcohol testing
• Contractual and statutory protections

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Privatization, outsourcing and contracting out

• What is privatization/contracting out?
• Implications for workers, unions, communities
• Union strategies and mobilization

Public Sector Union Issues

• Rights of union activists under PERB
• Bargaining under the PERA
• Building Community Coalitions
• Defending public services

Social Security

• How Social Security works
• How Social Security keeps the elderly out of poverty
• How privatization and other reform proposals could affect workers

Stewards' School

• Legal rights of union stewards
• Investigating and interviewing
• What do arbitrators look for in a grievance?
• Communication skills in the grievance process
• Organizing at the workplace

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Strategic Planning for the Local Union

• Planning for our local's future: What are unions doing? How can planning help us?
• What do unions do? What should our local be doing? (Check mission statement in constitution and bylaws)
• What would we like to see happen here to better accomplish that mission?
• Looking at the situation of the local: its strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats it faces. In view of what we want for our local, what are the obstacles we face and the advantages we enjoy?
• Developing long-term goals: Prioritize goals: what should be done first, second, third?
• Action Plan: What specific steps need to be done to achieve first goal; what support is needed, who will do it; timetable; success criteria; monitoring mechanism. What is the first step, and who will do it???

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Union Newsletters

• How to start a newsletter
• Easy tips for design and layout
• What must go in?
• What should go in?

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Workers' Compensation

• Understanding Iowa workers' compensation law
• Calculating weekly benefits
• Helping members pursue alternate medical care
• Responses to workers' compensation issues

Workplace Safety and Health

• Safety and Health and Right to Know laws
• Strengthening your local's health and safety committee
• Mobilizing members around safety and health issues
• Filing OSHA complaints
• Investigating problems and incidents