Workplace maps, worker lists and assessments identify where workers are located, how to gain access to them and ways to track the workers’ level of involvement.
Mapping identifies where workers are located. To create a map, first draw a physical layout of where the workers are. Include information about the location of management offices, briefing rooms, staff rooms, customer areas, hotels, cafeterias, lounges, parking and transport areas and rest areas – anywhere we might find workers. Add relevant information about additional non-union and union, subcontracted, and informal workers in your workplace areas. Add any relevant workplaces in other regions and countries. Draw your map on whatever scale is useful. It can be focused on your workplace, company or industry and can include regional, national, or international operations.
We need to keep lists of workers regularly updated. We need to know how to reach them, who knows whom and whom workers rely on if there is a problem. It is usually easier to collect names and contact details in the beginning of an organising campaign, as the employer may start pressuring workers to not interact with union supporters.
In order to gather information, the best source of information is the workers themselves. You might visit workers, workplaces and places workers gather. Look for workplace emergency preparedness lists of workers with contact information, search the Internet, and ask other unions, community organisations, or regulatory agencies. Ask the employer directly for information if it will not endanger your work. The section Participatory Action Research will help you as well.
Begin with a list of those workers that you know about.
Decide what information you want to include on your list:
☐ Names
☐ Contact details (work and home)
☐ Attendance at union events and actions
☐ Type of work they do
☐ Length of time at the workplace or industry
☐ Why they do this work
☐ Direct employer, contractor, self-employed and do they have others working for them?
☐ Work shift
☐ What other workers do they know and communicate with?
☐ Collective agreements or contracts coverage
☐ Physical work locations
☐ Social media use
☐ Age
☐ Gender
☐ Social and community interests
☐ Problems/concerns
☐ Union membership
☐ Attendance at key events
☐ Leadership or delegate positions
☐ Assessment of union involvement
☐ Workplace and community problems they are facing
☐ Any obvious units of organisation (e.g. by street, by parking area, petrol station, church, catchment area, product sale collection or production, social groupings, transport…)
☐ When and where is the best place to meet?
☐ Involvement with other unions or other social organisations
☐ …
How will you keep the list? On the computer, individual cards, chart paper…?
Discuss how can you build on your list? Can you access workers at the worksite, in the community, at transit stops, social media? Who else might have contact with workers
You may want to include an assessment of each worker’s level of union involvement on your list of workers. These assessments are not based on judgements, but on worker’s actions. Base the assessments on what workers do, rather than what they say about the union. Do not include gossip. You will not want to keep anything on your lists that you do not want other workers to see or hear about. Remember to always be respectful and keep confidential information confidential.
You can give each worker a number so that you can quickly see and analyse your level of support for the union campaign. Below is an example of how number assessments can be used.
Assessments will change. Workers will increase and decrease their involvement in the union as the organising campaign moves forward. Assessments need to be constantly updated.
Assessments help us keep our focus on undecided and unknown workers. Because we are likely to be talking most often to union supporters, we may feel that we are stronger than we are. Keeping accurate numbers and assessments will help us know where and how strong the collective is and when we have reached our benchmarks. Assessments will help us decide when there are a sufficient number of workers involved to begin to take collective action publicly.
If you do your number assessments regularly, you will be able to see how workers are becoming more or less involved both individually and collectively.
At first, worker assessments might seem overwhelming. Start by simply recording the information that you have. Worker assessments have been proven in practice to be critical to all organising campaigns large and small. Without a worker assessment system, we are guessing at levels of worker involvement based on the workers we last spoke to. Decisions about which tactics to use when are best when based on accurate and detailed assessments.
Below is an example from flight attendants organising in Argentina:
Discuss whether you will use worker assessment numbers and, if so, what your assessment system will look like.