I don’t blog much about work as I try and keep it separate. But as most labor organizers can tell you, you sign up for the movement, not the job. Working long hours, going without a day off for weeks, is the fate of many labor organizers working on an intense campaign. You can end up in any part of the country at any time without an end in sight.

Typically, most labor organizers are organizing new members into the union. That’s what the goal is for the Change to Win Coalition. Our focus across the country is to pour resources into organizing new members. But sometimes, it’s about maintaining union strength in an industry. Sometimes unions, instead of trying to organize the unorganized try and raid other locals for their members, an unfortunate practice that leaves me scratching my head at best.

For example, in Vancouver, a Public Sector local, not unlike my own, is raiding a Hotel Workers union, Local 40, for their members. Raiding the Hotel Workers has far ranging impacts and could weaken industry strength on the West Coast which would ultimately have national implications.

So that’s where Kelly Casey Dugan comes in. For the last two and a half months, she has been working seven days a week, typically 12-14 hours a day, getting a day off every once in a blue moon, up in Vancouver, Canada. For those of you who don’t know Kelly, she worked as a Community Organizer for UNITE HERE Local 2 since the lock-out in 2004 and organized many of us to do delegations to hotels, and even get arrested with Hotel Workers. She also has served as the Vice-President of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.


Kelly with a member leader, Randall

In early May, Kelly traveled to a city she had never been to, lived out of a college dorm, and has been working her butt off ever since. It has been an uphill battle and it’s fair to say it will be a close vote. The raiding Local has done despicable tactics to try and persuade the members to join their local. It’s a mail-in ballot but voting ends in 10 days and the vote has been going for the last two weeks. Every day, she and other organizers go out and knock on the members doors until 9PM at night. Their day isn’t over yet though. They have to meet and give reports on their work in order to track how the campaign is going and strategize about next steps. Their days are long and incredibly exhausting.

It’s fair to say that it is also incredibly rewarding to work with member leaders and develop their leadership skills. During the course of the campaign, each organizer is constantly bringing in new members to take on leadership roles in the campaign. Members often go out at night after a long shift at work to door knock with the organizers.

To say this is God’s work is an understatement. The organizers are incredibly dedicated and selfless. But more importantly, they are part of a movement that we hope will sweep the country of organizing the unorganized and building industry strength. The decision by the Change to Win Coaliton to leave the AFL-CIO was incredibly risky, but the main thrust was just this: to organize. But the folks that make that happen are sacrificing a lot. While I was in Vancouver, I met a woman named Katherine who hadn’t seen her family in months as she had come on much earlier in the campain.


Katherine with a member leader she works with named Antoine

Will labor focusing on organizing work? I hope so. I think the future of progressive politics in the United States is intricately linked to the strength of labor and when our membership declines in numbers, we decline in power.

So if you get a chance, give Kelly some props. She and the other organizers who she works with deserve much gratitude. Our economy on the West Coast is connected. What happens there, matters here too. It is insanely difficult, stressful, and challenging work. So join with me in giving a shout out to Kelly for all the work she is doing up in Vancouver on behalf of all of us, for the movement, for our future. You may think this is cheesy, but it isn’t just her, and it isn’t just in Vancouver. Organizers are moving this program across the country, going to right-to-work states where the big fight is, giving up their lives and their families and friends in order to make a difference. Damn.

P.S. I also want to do a shout out to Anand Singh from Local 2 who moved up there last month to help with a contract fight with one of the hotels. For obvious reasons, the local needs support in other areas while they wage this fight. They are lucky to have you.