How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers

by Mark Brenner, Jenny Brown, Jane Slaughter

How to Jump-Start Your Union tells how activists in the Chicago Teachers Union transformed their union and gave members hope. Readers will learn how to run for office, work with their communities, build stewards networks, train new leaders, run a contract campaign, and strike.

Genres: Nonfiction, Labor, Politics, Teaching, Social Justice

Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Andy]

Invaluable lessons for organizing educators and the community.

[Dane]

good stuff

[Cait]

read with a socialist educators' book club. lots of helpful tips!

[grace garmire]

Good book if you want to know what union activism is like. It's not especially fun but it's honest about how organizing realistically goes and is a great story of a modern union success.

[10thumbs]

A terrific & highly recommended look at the years-long work member activists put into revitalizing their union and fighting back against the corporate takeover of public education in Chicago — including the work that ultimately led to the historic Chicago teachers strike in 2012.

The folks at Labor Notes (who wrote this book, including (full disclosure) a close friend) do a great job laying out what the members and leaders did to rebuild their union — in a way that other unions can follow and adapt. Especially useful are the explorations of CTU's leadership development, use of study, and work with and alongside community organizations.

[Melissa Sanchez]

I read this more to understand the CTU and not to organize my own union, but it gave a good account of the years leading up to the 2012 teachers strike in Chicago and the specific actions taken by the union's radical leadership to work with community organizations and fight school closings, etc.

[Emma]

Appreciated the more nuts-and-bolts "how to" approach.