The Five Basic Steps To Organizing a Union

Although every workplace is different and the needs of workers vary, there are some basic steps involved in winning a union voice on the job. Here's how it happens.

This small group starts to privately discuss workplace issues, what is involved in organizing a union, and making plans to contact an IBEW organizer. When you're ready, contact us and a IBEW representative will meet with the small group to answer your questions and help you develop a comprehensive organizing plan.

Step 1: Build an Organizing Committee

Leaders are identified and an organizing committee representing all major departments and shifts, reflecting the racial, ethnic and gender diversity in the workforce is established. Organizing committee training begins immediately. Committee members must be prepared to work hard to educate themselves and their coworkers about the union and to warn and educate coworkers about the impending management antiunion campaign. The organizing committee must be educated about workers' right to organize and must understand the IBEW's policies and principals of democracy and rank and file participation.

Also at this step basic information about the workplace must be gathered including:

1- workplace structure: departments, work areas, jobs, shifts

2 - employee information: name, address, phone, shift, job title, and department for each worker (employee list)

3 - employer information: other locations, parent company, product(s), customers, union history

Step 2: Adopt An Issues Program

The committee develops a program of employee demands (the improvements you are organizing to achieve) and a strategy for the union election campaign. A plan for highlighting these issues in the workplace is carried out through various organizing campaign activities.

Step 3: Sign Up Majority on Union Cards

Your coworkers are asked to sign authorization cards and support the organizing effort. The goal is to sign up a sizable majority (65% is the absolute minimum). This "card campaign" should proceed quickly once begun and is necessary to hold a representation election.

Step 4: Win the Union Election

The signed cards are used (and required) to petition the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election. It will take the labor board a few weeks to determine who is eligible to vote and schedule the election. The union campaign must continue and intensify during the wait. If the union wins, the employer must recognize and bargain with the union. Winning a union election not only requires a strong,  diverse organizing committee and a solid issues program, but there must also be a plan to fight the employer's antiunion campaign.

Step 5: Negotiate a Contract

The organizing campaign does not let up after an election victory. The real goal of the campaign, a union contract (the document the union and the employer negotiate and sign, covering everything from wages to how disputes will be handled), is still to be achieved. Workers must be mobilized to support the union's contract demands (decided by you and your coworkers) and pressure the employer to meet them.

Organize! Make It Your Union!

The IBEW is proud of our democratic tradition: IBEW members run their own local unions – and there's no other union where this is a truer statement. But you don't "go it alone" either. The IBEW will be with you every step of the way – helping with everything from organizing to negotiating your first contract.

Will we still be there after you win your first contract? Absolutely! While we want and encourage our locals to make their own decisions on issues of local importance, the resources of the International will always be there when you need them.