NPEU Members for a Democratic Union believes that members should determine the strategic direction of our union, and that staff should support members in carrying it out. We recognize that paid staff play a vital role in our movement. And staff are also workers; living our values means affording NPEU staff the same agency and dignity we seek on the job. 

 

That said, we also know that it’s easy to slip into a pattern whereby staff, not members, end up in the driver’s seat. Staff work for the union all day, while members have day jobs to which they must attend. It can be easy for folks to start thinking of the union as those who can spend the most time on union work, and in many cases, those people are the staff who are paid to do said work. But a top-down, corporate model of unionism is bad for everyone: for members, who it disempowers; for staff, who it overburdens; and for the labor movement, which it undermines.

 

Rank-and-file members must be empowered to engage with and collectively steer their union. This is how we build scalable, sustainable power. We are inspired by testimony from union staffers who believe in democratic unionism and have found ways to promote a member-led model on the job. 

 

We specifically propose the following:
 

• We believe that all workers deserve a union. To that end, we would amend NPEU’s constitution to state that, should NPEU’s non-managerial staff wish to form their own union, NPEU’s Board will voluntarily recognize said union.
   

• We also believe that members, not staff, should determine the union’s strategic direction and leadership. Elections are an essential vehicle by which the rank-and-file make their preferences known. We would amend NPEU’s constitution to prohibit staff electioneering and to draw a clearer line between NPEU employees and NPEU members.
   

• Staff deserve a transparent chain of command and a mechanism for making complaints and resolving issues. We propose amending NPEU’s constitution to clarify this and enshrine certain rights for staff on the job. This clarification should also note that members, not staff, should be leading bargaining. 
   

• Under no circumstances should NPEU staff (in their official capacities) engage in one-on-one sidebars or other private conversations with management, nor should they liaise directly with management in any other way without the express knowledge and consent of the relevant member committee.
   

• A worker-to-worker organizing model requires that we democratize skills to build capacity. The ultra-professionalization of organizing obscures something that should be accessible to all, undermining our goals as a labor movement. We believe in giving members access to the same training a staff person would get, and in demystifying labor law and organizing techniques. We welcome staff support in facilitating this.