Campaign Organizing
ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR UNIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Campaigns are all about power. Understanding the power relationships that shape our world and learning how to better create our own power is at the heart of effective campaign planning.
Today we are facing the resurgent drive of global capital to maximize its power and profits at the expense of working people and planet earth. To turn the tide, renewal of the labour movement and building more powerful social movements are the order of the day. Improving our ability to plan and wage effective campaigns is essential to accomplishing this.
CAMPAIGN PLANNING HANDBOOK
The Campaign Planning Handbook goes beyond providing useful tools for planning and organizing. For example, it challenges us to reflect on the status quo within our unions to identify internal factors which are obstacles to success. It challenges us to reflect on the union’s relationship with the employer, what that relationship says about our view of power and how that relationship impacts our willingness and ability to engage and empower members.
Readers from both unions and social movements may find the Power Mapping Exercise (pages 17 - 26) to be a good introduction to the strategic underpinnings of the handbook. It explores fundamental changes, deep union renewal initiatives, which may be necessary in order to become more powerful and effective.
Similarly, readers may find that the section titled Implementing a Campaign Plan (pages 12 - 13) provides insight into the rigorous practice of Plan/Act/ Evaluate which the authors have found is necessary to win.
Although the Handbook has a low profile, it is widely used. It has been translated into French and both traditional and modern Chinese.
A WORD ABOUT STRIKES
Too often, campaign planning methods are not used to build powerful collective bargaining campaigns. (Let’s remember that a strike is a tactic, not a strategy.) This Campaign Planning Handbook was originally drafted as a planning guide for collective bargaining campaigns and has been successfully used for that purpose.
ACHIEVING A STATE OF READINESS: PREPARING LOCAL UNIONS FOR POWERFUL CAMPAIGNS
When the Campaign Planning Handbook went into circulation, it quickly became apparent that many locals had not reached a level of preparedness to plan and wage a campaign. Achieving a State of Readiness was written to address this common problem.
When Achieving a State of Readiness was translated into French, the translator suggested a new title: Doter nos syndicats d’une capacité de proaction. Roughly translated this means: Give our unions the capacity to be proactive. This choice of title reflects the fact that these materials are about much more than campaigns.
CONTACT US
The authors welcome your questions and comments and anything you wish to share about using the Handbook.
