One of the nation's largest unions is attempting to rally support among members in an effort to head off defections during the Trump era.
The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents roughly 1.3 million employees in the grocery and retail industry, circulated a memo to local leaders in March announcing that it will hold regional meetings to rally union workers behind the union. The memo acknowledged that "our members and non-members struggle to see and hear" the benefits of organized labor and that the meetings, particularly in right to work states, must showcase the union's value to workers.
"The challenges we face are real, and they extend beyond politics and communications," the memo, written by International President Marc Perrone, says. "We must prove our value to all our members and non-members alike."
The UFCW said that it will share data and tools collected by the national organization to help local leaders reach new workers. The union outlined an aggressive growth plan for 2017, saying that it expects the local union to generate at least two new organizing campaigns per quarter and aim at "increasing new members by 2-3 percent through bargaining." The bargaining strategy would allow the union to avoid costly secret ballot election campaigns and instead use contract negotiations with companies to broaden the base of eligible workers to boost membership.
Union membership has fallen to historic lows. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that unions lost 240,000 members in 2016 and that only 10.7 percent of workers belonged to labor organizations—down from 11.1 percent in 2015. Just 6.4 percent of private sector employees pay union dues or fees, a 30 percent drop from 2000.
The UFCW has steadily dropped members over the past 15 years, but has avoided the dramatic membership decline in other sectors, such as trucking and manufacturing. Membership in the 21st Century peaked at 1.385 million in 2001. In 2016, the union had 1.25 million dues paying members, a 9 percent drop from 2000.
The union also hopes to boost its reach into existing members, urging local leaders to increase "the percentage of member cell phone numbers they have by 10% in 2017." It also hopes to raise the union profile in the community by staging at least three philanthropic events in 2017. Perrone hopes that the outreach efforts could help the union get ahead in retention efforts if President Trump follows through on his campaign pledge to pass a federal right to work law, which would prohibit companies from making union membership a condition of employment. Twenty-eight states have such laws after Kentucky and Missouri adopted right to work in 2017.
"Considering recent political events, including a renewed push for [Right to Work For Less] at the national level, it is demonstrably clear that we must organize harder, bargain better, and communicate our importance to our members and the community—now more than ever," the memo says. "If our goal is to get stronger, and it must be, we must be willing to push each other to seize the opportunities ahead of us."
The UFCW did not return request for comment.