Provisionally approved 6/26/02

STRATEGIC ANALYSIS FOR WORKER ORGANIZATIONS

Level  IV

RATIONALE:  One of the major challenges facing the labor movement is to prepare for a future filled with various threats and opportunities.  This future requires a democratic process for making difficult choices that must win support at all levels of the union or other worker organization, and perhaps from allies and from the media as well.  In the past few decades many of these unions and organizations—their leaders, members, and supporters—have faced difficult problems by learning from their experience and sharing it with others.  This knowledge has become important to the workers’ movement as it develops strategic, pro-active approach to present situations and to future possibilities.  In order to plan intelligently and democratically for the future, and to make the critical choices about how to deploy scarce resources, worker advocates and representatives should learn how other groups have engaged in thoughtful, participatory planning and decision making.  This competency allows a student to learn from those experiences and to engage in demonstrating how to contribute to a process of making strategic choices as a participant in a proactive worker organization.


COMPETENCY:  Can analyze the development and current situations of different types of unions and worker organizations, evaluate their strategic resources and options and develop a proposal for how to identify and make strategic choices to strengthen and/or change the organization.


CRITERIA:

1.      Analyze three contemporary case studies of how different unions and worker organizations were expanded and/or strengthened and/or made more inclusive or how they became smaller and/or weaker and/or less inclusive.

2.      Identify how these organizations, their leaders and members, set short term goals for gaining or renewing a collective bargaining agreement and how tactics and strategies were chosen to meet those goals.

3.      Identify how these organizations, their leaders and members, set long-term goals to improve their situation (in one or more of the three ways suggested above in Criterion 1) and evaluate how and why choices were made that affected this outcome.

4.      Apply the learning above (addressed in Criteria 2 and 3) to a particular situation or case study in which a union or worker organization (its leaders, members, and supporters) needs to assess its capacity for change and anticipate issues, trends, crises, opportunities, resources, etc. that will probably affect its future status.

5.      Create a checklist with which to evaluate the actual and potential strength and sustainability of a worker organization (based on benchmarks derived from the experience of other strong, durable organizations) and then use this checklist to identify the questions that need to be answered in order for the leaders and members of an organization to assess their capacity for change.

6.      Design a research proposal that would help the organization gain information on future trends, problems, and opportunities. 

7.      Identify and assess the strategic options or choices available in the situation under study.


PORTFOLIO LINKS: You are expected to use the Level III Communications Portfolio writing standards as guidelines for the essays required by this competency.  At a minimum, writing should demonstrate Level II Communications Portfolio standards.

STANDARDS:

1.      For Criterion 1, the student should examine as least three case studies of labor organization development.  The examination should include:  (a) an analysis of union strength and the effectiveness it has demonstrated in using its strengths; and (b) at least two perspectives or approaches (which may include one or two formal models or theories of strategic decision making) to understand how and why these organizations changed.

One of these organizations can be one the students belongs to or has belonged to.

2.      For Criterion 4, the demonstration project should include a plan for information gathering, a plan for research, and a summary of what the student has learned from the case studies and perspectives, and how that learning applies to the particular case or situation chosen.  The demonstration should also involve an identification of options available to an organization, and an assessment of those options.  The student should record a response to the recommended choices from one or two experienced individuals who can evaluate the recommendations based on some personal knowledge of how these kinds of organizations function in different environments.


EXAMPLES OF DEMONSTRATION:

1.      Prior Learning:  A student works for at least 12 weeks with a local union or worker organization with whom she or he has an ongoing relationships (e.g. as a member) to analyze and make recommendations about that organization’s approach to strategic choice or its strategic options in a specific area.   With the help of an advisor/evaluator, the student will select three cases studies of other similar locals or organizations whose experiences might inform her or his analysis of the organization’s choices. 

2.      Independent Learning: A student attends a workshop or training session offered for trade unionists interested in strategic planning, bargaining, and/or research and applies the lessons learned to the competency criteria above.

3.      Course:  A student completes a CPCS course in which the instructor provides a syllabus of case studies and approaches to strategic decision making along with a series of exercises that meet the criteria above.

4.      Field Project:  team of CPCS students and faculty conduct a project with a local union or worker organization that has requested assistance with strategic choices.  The students and faculty draw on three cases studies of other similar locals or organizations whose experiences might inform their analysis of the organization’s strategic choice process and options. 

From this analysis, they create a checklist of criteria on which to evaluate organization’s strength and sustainability. The group will use this checklist to identify the questions that need to be answered for the organization’s leaders and members to assess their own capacity for change.  In addition, the CPCS students and faculty design a research proposal that would help the organization gain information on future trends, problems and opportunities, and a plan for gathering this information.  Finally, they work with the organization’s leaders and members to identify available options in a particular area of concern, as well as an assessment of those options.