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Labor educator Lynn Feekin, of the University of Oregon Labor Center, prepared these group-discussion exercises to help staffers at a large public sector local learn how to identify, educate, and mentor new leaders. Your group should be able to modify them for your own use.

The first exercises are about mentoring members who are learning to be leaders. They are followed by four more exercises on finding and working with new leaders.

Challenges in Mentoring
A. You are in a worksite meeting that your leader is running. She was responsible for recruitment and there are three people there. She does a terrible job facilitating: talks too much, forgets to ask for volunteers for an action (when you remind her, she does a half-hearted job), and makes jokes about all the leftover pizza. After the meeting, she rushes out, saying that she’s got to make a phone call before her lunch break is over.

How do you handle this situation?

B. When Becky agreed to be part of the Leadership Academy, you were thrilled. She is young, dynamic, unafraid of management and has won the respect of many other workers in the department. Unfortunately, you are having a terrible time scheduling time to work with her. She is a single mom, and her workload seems particularly heavy at this time. You’ve heard from someone else in the office that she has recently started dating someone. You reached her by phone last night and she agreed to meet for lunch today. She told you, “I’m trying to make a decision about this leadership academy stuff.” When you asked for more information, she said she’d explain at lunch.

How would you prepare for your lunch?

C. Your assignment covers a huge geographical area, and your three leaders for the Leadership Academy are spread out all over it. One works in your town but lives 35 miles away, and the other two are over 100 miles away. All of them are relatively new in their union activism. One joined the political action committee early last year; one was elected steward a year ago and was active in phonebanking on ballot measures; the third is a new vice-president, whom you had never seen until she was elected last October. You know you will have to work with them by phone and e-mail as well as face-to-face.

How often would you want to meet one-on-one with them? How often on the phone? How often via e-mail? Which of these communication options would you use in the following situations? Why?

Identifying goals and initial skills to work on
Planning an agenda for a meeting he will run
Finding out how the meeting went
Letting them know that they dropped the ball on a commitment
Celebrating a worksite victory
Figuring out how she can attend a union training
Coaching him on how to do one-on-one recruitment conversations

D. Your leader has been doing a great job in the worksite. She’s organized around an issue and won. She got 15 people to come to the last worksite meeting and did a dynamite job facilitating the discussion around some employer policy changes--11 of the workers said that they would participate in some kind of action. But the steward was out sick that day, and now is trying to undermine the activity. The steward has a good following among members, and you don’t want to jeopardize that.

How do you handle this?

E. All three of your leaders have big activities next week. They want your help in planning them and want you to be there. One is running her first worksite meeting on Tuesday; another has lined up two friends and the three of them want to start talking to fair-share payers [those who are required by the contract to pay dues but who have not joined the union]; the third is helping coordinate a rally on Wednesday for union and community members to greet some folks from the Bush administration and protest their poor worker rights record. Unfortunately, it’s a crazy week for you. You have bargaining on Monday and a staff meeting on Friday, and you had promised your spouse that you would take Wednesday (your anniversary) off so that you could visit the nearby hot springs and go out to dinner.

What do you do?

F. Your leader is very enthusiastic about building power at the workplace. She believes that is where the union’s focus should be, and she has won the respect of her members and management by winning some recent issues. However, she is opposed to the union’s activities in politics and strongly resists participating in any political activity. This has put a damper on your ability to get volunteers for phonebanks or any support for electoral work. She also doesn’t think that doing coalition work in the community is relevant. She wants to restrict her Leadership Development activity to building power in the workplace.

How do you deal with this?

CASE STUDIES: Finding and Working with New Leaders

Case A
You are the organizer for workers at one of the university campuses. This campus has 550 members and 160 fair-share payers. Unfortunately, the two people who have held key elected leadership positions in the union during the past five years are not effective leaders.

Neither of them has any significant base of followers in the unit. One of them is actively disliked by fellow workers for his tendency to talk big and shoot from the hip but then fail to follow through. He carries the nickname “Wrecking Ball,” a word-play on his name, Rechinthal. His know-it-all attitude combined with his do-nothing practice has driven almost everyone away from active involvement in the union (and he complains about apathy).

The other person, Emilee Grace, got involved in the union 12 years ago by being a good volunteer and has continued to volunteer her way up the union ladder. She helps set up for all the meetings and events; she is the delegate to the central labor council and holds a position at the District level. She turns out for every union event but hasn’t ever brought anyone along. She’s planning to retire in three years. People like her, but they don’t trust her to stand strong against management. You like her, too, and you have appreciated her help in the past, but you know she’s no leader.

The local has a sprinkling of stewards in different departments but overall, the campus feels dead. You would like to develop more leaders in order to strengthen the union.

1. How would you go about identifying new potential leaders? If you find a couple of people that you think have potential, what could you ask them to do?

2. Let’s say that you find Margaret, a steward who seems good and who has the respect of her co-workers in the department. She has expressed interest in working on the campaign to save the tax plan. She is a single mom, though, so her time is quite limited. She knows and likes Emilee and thinks she could learn a lot from her about the union. How could you help Margaret?

3. When Rechninthal and Emilee hear that you’ve been setting up meetings with workers, they are very upset. “Any meetings on campus need to go through me,” Rechinthal tells you. “Please let me know whenever you’re on campus, and I’ll arrange the meeting.” Emilee agrees. What do you say?

4. After two months of intensive work on the campus, you have identified four new leaders that you think could really turn the campus around. Unfortunately, one of them, Chris, is in Rechinthal’s department and fears that if he gets active, Rechinthal will see him as a challenger. What can you, as a staffer, say to Chris?

Case B
You are the organizer for two municipal contracts and one private non-profit. You have only been an organizer for a year and have never bargained a contract on your own. The contracts for the non-profit and one municipality are both up this coming year. You just found out that Michael, the chief steward at the other city you represent, is going to retire next June.

You want to identify the right people to form a strong Contract Action Team and a good negotiating committee at each site that will be bargaining. You do not have much of a leadership base at either of these worksites:

*Turnover at the non-profit is horrendous. Management there is harsh and capricious in its enforcement of rules. The workers, who are relatively low-paid and generally struggle to keep their own lives together, have never felt like they could challenge management’s authority.

*The municipal unit is small (77) and workers are spread out geographically and across many diverse job classifications. In general the unit has a good working relationship with the city managers and elected officials. You have one person that you have relied on to handle any problems that come up. She seems competent in grievance handling and dealing with worksite problems, and the workers respect her for her skills. But she never participates in other union activities and opposes the union’s political activism. She has heard about the Leadership Academy and asks you about it.

You also want to find the right replacement for Michael. He has been seen as The Union for the workers at this city. In fact, you don’t really know any of the other workers there, except for a couple who were part of a third step grievance that you won a couple months ago. Michael has been a good leader in the worksite, getting signatures on petitions when you ask him and making sure all his co-workers are registered to vote.

1. How will you begin to build leadership for the upcoming negotiations at the non-profit? What about at the city?

2. Let’s say you are able to galvanize workers at the non-profit around a worker being unfairly disciplined. What would you do that would help you identify and recruit new leaders?

3. How do you handle the query about the Leadership Academy?

4. How do you begin the search for a new chief steward, especially when there aren’t other front-line stewards?

Case C
You are an organizer for home care workers. Since the workers were recently organized, there have been continual efforts to identify and recruit good leaders. But it is challenging, primarily because there is no worksite.

You would like to make one-on-one contact with 50 percent of the workers in your assignment over the next six months (1,100 workers), either by phone or in person. About a third of your members live within a 30-mile radius; another third between 30 and 50 miles out; and the final third over 50 miles away, some as far as 150 miles.

On average, about 40 people turn out for the regular meetings, and a total of 177 have come to some event over the past six months. Sixty-eight workers have attended a safety and health training session. You have one strong and two pretty strong leaders from your area. Your goal is to identify two new potential leaders a month.

1. How do you decide where to start with the one-on-one’s (who to talk to)?

2. You are severely limited by not being able to see how these home care workers interact with each other on a regular basis. What would you be looking for in that one-on-one conversation that would lead you to think someone was a leader? How would you test for leadership?

3. Let’s say Joanna has proven herself as a leader in the last few months by getting several other home care workers to turn out to the class on infectious disease and by getting most of the workers in her geographic area to participate in the contract ratification activities. You believe she has real potential and would like to have her run the next union meeting that will be held in her area. How do you provide the follow-up and support to this newly identified leader who is 150 miles away from your office?

4. Theresa, who was involved in both the political initiative and the organizing drive, calls you twice a week asking about upcoming meetings. She has told you she wants to be a steward and asks for your advice on what she should do. She attended the grievance handling class, but it wasn’t very relevant to home care work. She counts herself as one of the “Founding Fifty.” You believe Theresa is lonely and more interested in a social connection than in building real power. How do you deal with her?

5. You are finding some great potential leaders. At the end of your second month, you have six people that you think could be very good leaders in the home care unit. But they all are very inexperienced and will need a lot of guidance and support. None of them is at a point where they could do the Leadership Academy. But it’s getting pretty complicated with your time. You’re still trying to do 20+ one-on-one calls or face-to-face meetings each week. And you want and need to work with the six leaders you’ve already identified. What do you do?

Case D
Your assignment is primarily based 100 miles from your home, covering mainly rural areas. You represent workers at the area offices for three state units, one private non-profit, and a small water district. The union was able to beat back a decertification at the water district two years ago, and the new leadership that surfaced then has proven to be generally good. You still have 30 percent fair-share payers, but the rest of the workers are pretty active in the union. The non-profit is challenging because as social workers, they don’t want to be confrontational.

The three state units are a disaster. Two elected leaders from one office resigned their positions in protest of the state contract settlement. They weren’t very good leaders anyway, but it does leave gaps that need to be filled, and their disgruntlement has made it difficult to get people to step up. You have four grievances in just that one office that are moving through the steps.

There are only ten workers at the office of the second department, and they are all pretty conservative. They get along with each other, but they allow the boss to violate the contract all the time, in order to preserve the “friendly atmosphere.” They definitely don’t want to stir up trouble--this is the best paying job at this skill level for 50 miles around.

In the third state office, you just had your key leader tell you that she needs to back off from the union for a while. Misty is pregnant and says that, along with a two-year-old, she just won’t have much time. Besides, she says, she was getting too burned out. She was on the bargaining board and chair of the political action committee, and she was the only person in her building who ever mobilized the others to do anything. She also feels the political scene is pretty bleak, from the President on down to the local yokels.

You try to make it to each office at least every two weeks.

1. When you arrive at the first office, you start to walk through the worksite but you are swamped by people asking about the grievances, and by people asking what will happen now, since the two leadership positions have gone unfilled. How do you handle these two interruptions of your walk-through?

2. How do you handle the situation with Misty?

3. Let’s say Misty agrees to help you get a good turnout to a worksite meeting next week, and you hope to get a discussion going about some issues they’re facing in their jobs, and possibly identify a couple of potential leaders from that. (Misty has given you her assessment of who would be best.)

As you get ready to drive there the next week , you see that the state coordinator for this state unit has sent stickers to all organizers, saying there will be a state-wide action in ten days. You raise the topic in the worksite meeting, and everyone tells you it’s not really a problem where they work. Do you do the sticker action? If yes, how do you pitch it? If no, what do you do?

4. What would you be listening for in the meeting, to help you identify a good leader?

5. What if, as a result of the meeting, you have three people who you think might be good leaders? You ask each of them to hand out a flyer and talk to workers in their areas on the issue they chose to mobilize on. Two of the three do a great job, covering 80 percent of their work areas. The third does about a quarter of the workers in her area. What do you say to the two? What do you say to the one who didn’t deliver?