MULTI-TRADE ORGANIZING VOLUNTEER EDUCATION (MOVE)

Organizing is the most critical challenge facing the Building Trades. It is the key to increasing membership, market share, bargaining strength and political influence. More importantly, it is the right thing to do. Organizing is a fight for justice and dignity on the job—for safety, fair wages, health care, and secure pensions. By organizing and bringing workers into our unions we can improve their lives—and ours.

Although our building trades unions have done an admirable job of organizing in recent years, union density—the percentage of construction workers represented by unions—continues to decline. It is imperative that we stop that decline, and strengthen our unions by organizing more effectively. To do that, we must provide our organizers with the necessary tools. The Multi-trade Organizing Volunteer Education (MOVE) program is one of those tools.

In addition to continuing the message of its predecessor, COMET, the MOVE program stresses a multi-trade approach to organizing and actively enlists the participation of our members. In addition, MOVE addresses the changing demographics of the construction workforce, and uses history to remind us of our own heritage of organizing immigrant workers.

The central message of the MOVE program is simple yet profound; the principles of solidarity must apply to our organizing work. MOVE envisions a day when, for example, rank and file union plumbers will extend an organizing message to non-union electricians working on the same job site, while at the same time union electricians will reach out to non-union plumbers on another site. It is this level of involvement by our members, and this type of reciprocal organizing that the MOVE program promotes, and which we must realize if we are to be successful.

The MOVE program is an important tool for rebuilding union power, but nothing is more important than the dedication and commitment you bring to your work as an organizer and MOVE instructor. By using the MOVE program to show our members that we are all in this together and so must help one another, and by enlisting their active participation, you are building the foundation for our success.

COMET

The Construction Organizing Membership Education Training (COMET) program made every union member an organizer. Through COMET, members learned the value of organizing to grow and strengthen the union, and learned how to talk to nonunion workers about becoming part of the union.

The construction industry is one of the nation's largest employers, with about 5 million workers. Skilled trades workers such as Roofers and Waterproofers fare better with the dignity and voice on the job gained through union membership. Roofers and Waterproofers members know this first-hand, and are the best at relaying the benefits of belonging to the union.

COMET gave union members the tools, but the energy and drive to organize comes from within each Roofers and Waterproofers member.

The new MOVE program addresses the changing demographics of the construction workforce, and uses history to remind us of our own heritage of organizing immigrant workers and is an important tool for rebuilding union power.