Featured

Hector, I will miss you, compañero
Thursday night we lost a long-time friend and colleague, Hector Figueroa, who passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 57. Hector was the President of SEIU Local 32BJ representing janitors, doormen, and airport workers in NYC and across the ... read more

How to make change inevitable
We hear often that organizational change is a drag and takes a long time. We may even have experienced change that drawn out and painful, resulting in only modest moves. But then there are other times when change is energizing and ... read more

The 80% Equation: how the open shop turns the traditional union formula on its head
We shouldn't be surprised that an historic moment in the U.S. labor movement didn’t make much of a splash. It wasn’t even the biggest news coming out of the Supreme Court that day . The marches that followed focused on family separation and ... read more

Should I stay or should I go?
What will public sector union members do when they have a choice? #janus #openshop #letsgetready You’re at your cousin’s wedding reception and you are having an okay time. The cake has been cut and a few people are dancing. Some people leave ... read more

Distributed leadership gets support with the launch of a new coaching cohort
This year, a group of fifteen organizing leaders from economic and racial justice organizations across the country will launch the CIWO/APG Ignite Coaching Cohort on Distributed Leadership. The Coaching Cohort is a pilot program being sponsored by the Alvarez Porter Group and the ... read more

Can Public Employee Unions Save the Labor Movement?
Imagine this: hundreds and even thousands of conversations happening all over the country. People in pairs, small groups, big halls. Whispers growing into chatters growing into a cacophony of excitement and possibility. Listen as the talk leads to action which ... read more

Leading Movement Staff in Tumultuous Times
In moments of great threat and great possibility tensions can be heightened. The pressure to adapt to change, tighten belts and take effective action exacerbates issues that may have been dormant. If you are experiencing this just know it is part ... read more

Unstoppable, joyous, exhausted
Bob Lawson b. 1944 in Midland, Texas In 1966, Bob went to Chicago to work with JOIN (originally an SDS community organizing project building a multi-racial movement of the poor) and organized a group called Uptown Goodfellows and later they started an organization in Chicago called Rising ... read more

Toxic Employee Behaviors and What to Do About Them
Do you have a co-worker who brings down the morale of the team? Does your office sometimes feel like a battleground of "us" vs. "them"? Are you tired of trying to please people who fault everything you do? If you answered yes to ... read more

Throw out the Praise Sandwich and other ways to improve your feedback
I was having coffee with Laura, a middle school teacher, when she told me she couldn’t remember a time when her administrator had pointed out something she had done well. She only ever heard from him when she made a mistake. “I ... read more