Local Action Project: Boosting member engagement, local activism

lthough sunny Lake George beckoned outside, the third-year NYSUT Local Action Project team members didn’t notice. They were busy putting their last LAP week to good use, fine-tuning plans to keep the work they started years ago ongoing in the months and years ahead.

“Internal communication is a big concern for us,” said Michelle Greenough, Fredonia Teachers Association president, explaining that LAP-derived initiatives like their local’s “kindness carts,” which volunteers use to deliver snacks and drinks to classroom teachers, help by providing opportunities for one-on-one conversations with members. The carts also spread goodwill and attract members who don’t usually get involved, Greenough continued.

“We’re starting a campaign to reduce class sizes, so as we took the cart around, we asked how larger class sizes are impacting them.”

The Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College launched a professional development series for members. The TA of Cheektowaga Sloan, an informal buddy mentoring program for new hires. The East Syracuse Minoa Teaching Assistants Association worked to revamp their “successful failure” — a push for professional development that’s relevant to the actual work they do. Efforts to discuss programming changes with administrators over the past year weren’t well received.

“We plan to collect data with feedback from members who took the professional development so we have hard data about what didn’t work,” said Tammy Hughes, ESMTAA president.

Launched in 1997, LAP helps locals build strength by fostering greater member involvement and forging stronger community bonds. “In this world that we work in, every day is a new challenge so when they come here, it’s a great opportunity to focus on some of the bigger projects that they want to accomplish,” said Ron Gross, NYSUT second vice president, whose office coordinates the LAP initiative. “Whether it’s member engagement, a contract campaign, or a school board campaign, LAP gives them an opportunity to dig deep on an issue that matters to their members.”

“I really do think LAP was the catalyst for our expansion,” said Corning TA President David Rich. “It’s really given us a foundation for our campaigns.” The Corning TA is in its second year of LAP. Having rolled out numerous successful member and community engagement events this past year, the local is now turning its focus to developing a cellphone policy, based on concerns its members brought forward, and a Get Out the Vote campaign, Rich said.

Participants hailed from throughout New York state and cut across NYSUT’s diverse membership including the second-year Rensselaer, Columbia, Greene BOCES Special Support Services Federation in the Hudson Valley and the first-year Buffalo Teachers Federation in Western New York. Workshop topics ranged from member engagement and mobilization to political action, internal organizing and campaign planning.

“Fifty percent of our members are new teachers who have five or less years of experience, and lots of our union leaders have retired,” said Natalie McKay, Schoharie TA president, explaining why her first-year local decided to participate in LAP. After seeing long-standing projects fall by the wayside, they knew they had to take steps to reinvigorate their membership. “We’re starting from the ground up to rebuild our union ranks … we need to have a systematic way to identify new leaders and involve newer members.”

Learn more about NYSUT’s LAP program at LocalActionProject.org.