Posts Tagged: training

The AFL-CIO Bonnie Ladin Union Skills (BLUS) Training Program offers week-long intensive courses for union leaders, staff and activists that combine in-class instruction with discussions of real world experiences shared by a diverse group of participants. The main training areas include:

• Union administration;
• Collective bargaining (private and public sector);
• Organizing (internal and external);
• Arbitration and grievance handling;
• Communications and media; and
• Best financial practices.

The BLUS courses are taught by a corps of experienced instructors to help participants to better serve their union and community brothers and sisters. The BLUS experience brings rising union and community ally leaders together in a spirit of mutual development and camaraderie. Most courses are held at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute (CCMIT), located in Linthicum Heights, Md.

Visit the BLUS page for the 2016 course schedule and for course registration.

Some of the participants in the training pose with their completion certificates.

This past Saturday, UFCW Local 1189, the UFCW Occupational Safety and Health Department and the Greater Minnesota Workers’ Center hosted a workers’ rights training session for unorganized poultry workers in St. Cloud, Minn. The training was focused on giving unorganized workers tools to stand up for a safe workplaces and helping them build common ground with workers of different cultural backgrounds. More than 70 workers from a variety of plants came out for the training, which was simultaneously conducted in English, Spanish and Somali.

“I am really glad I came to this training with the Somali people,” said one Spanish-speaking worker during the comment portion of the training. “I tried to get my friends to come with me but they were too afraid. I am not afraid. I know we can work together to change our workplace and make it better for everyone.”