The last year has been a tumultuous one for the American Labor movement and for the Association for Union Democracy. A divisive presidential election, a near industry wide strike by the ILA, and for AUD, a loss of a years long headquarters and office space. In spite of the disruption of our big move last year, AUD has endeavored not only to continue with the work its done for years but to embark on new ventures to further the cause of union democracy;
-The AUD board of directors and other union democracy allies are currently working on revamping and updating that cornerstone of union democracy literature, Democratic Rights for Union Members, written by AUD founder Herman Benson. The book’s subtitle is A Guide To Internal Union Democracy and it is indeed a distillation of years of work within the labor movement by Herman Benson and a manual for union members nationwide to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). Chapter by Chapter, Democratic Rights for Union Members goes through the LMRDA, explaining its relevance to union reformers and how its component parts (coupled with legal precedence adjudicated in the courts) can be used to enforce and even expand their democratic rights as union members. Since its publication, the field of labor law has changed and legal scholars within AUD’s orbit are now utilizing their wealth of knowledge about those shifts to upgrade the guidance within it. The end result will be an indispensable guidebook”…through the law’s bureaucratic maze” (to paraphrase Herman Benson himself)
-In the interest of rank and file education and upholding transparency in the Labor movement, AUD is also sharing information about the frequency of major union conventions in the United States. AUD hopes that it can be used as a resource for union activists, reformers, and researchers to be aware of the democratic structures of the U.S. labor movement and how often they occur. This data can be used to strategize and coordinate reform efforts as well as a way to analyze the movement’s democratic structures as a whole.
-AUD has officially launched our Instagram and Bluesky pages. We will be posting educational content, organizational updates about AUD’s current projects, and information about the world of union democracy in general. Increasingly, social media is playing a larger role in the world of organized labor, both in the dissemination of news information and as a sounding board for rank and file opinion; we intend to play a role in that cyberspacial conversation holding high the banner of giving, in Clyde Summers words, “…workers not only increased material comforts but also a voice in the decisions that affect their working lives.” AUD has long kept in contact with the public through its website and Facebook page and now will continue with that mission via these two widely utilized social media platforms.
-To keep up with our increased work load, AUD has also hired two new employees, Josh Soffler and Zane Mazakian. Both bring invaluable help to the organization, picking up the slack from our already hard working staff. Both have devoted their time to such essential tasks as contributing articles to AUD’s newsletters, counseling union members contacting AUD by phone or email, record keeping for all contacts AUD makes with trade unionists seeking to exercise their democratic rights, and bookkeeping the organizations’ finances.
To continue our work and stay timely and comprehensive in our counsel for union members, we need your help. Just as important as the logistical necessities of running a functional office is insuring the continuity of our service and funding the staff (new and otherwise) to provide it. AUD establishes and maintains contacts with legions of workers seeking to exercise their democratic rights of union members, doing our very best to help them achieve that goal. We at AUD are the one non-profit that provides this service. So won’t you please make a tax-deductible contribution and help further the mission of a transparent, responsive, and democratic unionism?
