12th District Conference

Fundamentals of Communication: Controlling the Narrative in the Digital Space
Basic foundation of communications, focusing on laying the foundation for being successful at communications and controlling the narrative on any issue. It is about building your audience before you need it, the words you use, and knowing the difference between your issue and your message, etc.

A step up from Fundamentals. This focuses on how important it is for the union to be operating digitally, with social media, website, digital targeting, and Alt. Going through the tools, and then working through how the tools are more effective when used as part of an overall coherent strategy.

Your Union as a Brand: Maximizing Tech and Data to Win for Fire Fighters
This class gets leaders thinking about using their union as a brand in the community. Gives union leaders ideas on how to capitalize on the fire fighter brand and how to use that to their advantage in the community. A supercharged class on tech, data collecting, digital targeting and brand/audience building. Learning how to weaponize that data to win in the next election and/or campaign.

Artificial Intelligence for Union Leaders
This class is focused on identifying Al and how it affects your role as a union leader. Focusing on labor battles over Al and a robust discussion about Al threats to the fire service and union jobs.

How the Media Works for You.. And How It Doesn’t
This class focuses on the fact that communications will happen no matter what, and that as leaders you need to understand the media environment, along with how algorithms work, to properly message the issue to the public and your brainwashed members.

Increasing Membership Participation
The strength of a local depends on the active involvement of its members. Whether it’s a committee meeting, political campaign, or public relations effort, your members make the difference between success and failure. This workshop provides methods to increase member participation and build an effective union.

Recruiting and Developing Leaders (4 hours)
This is a 4-hour workshop (Sessions 5-6). Your Local relies on the strength of its members. Between dwindling active participation and your Local’s organizational history retiring with past union leaders, it becomes harder to run an effective union. New leaders become involved when they understand the Local’s core values and find a calling for their talents and passions. This class will provide current Local leadership with a framework on how and why they should recruit and develop new leaders, strategies for reaching out across different generations, a brief overview of labor history to help new members understand the value of their membership, and a plan for mentoring rising leaders to carry your Local into the next generation.

Internal Union Organizing
For a local to be most effective in achieving its goals, it must have the majority of the fire department (or EMS organization) as members. A united membership has more resources at its disposal and more bargaining power. In this workshop, you will determine the key reasons for lack of affiliation within your local and develop strategies to increase your membership.

Preparing for Negotiations: Collective Bargaining
The collective bargaining process allows you to negotiate for wages, benefits and other conditions of employment. To be successful at the bargaining table, you must thoroughly research and develop your strategy. In this workshop, you will learn how to set realistic goals for your membership and collect the data needed to support your case.

Fundamentals of Costing Contract Proposals
Wages represent a significant portion of contract negotiations, but to successfully negotiate improvements to compensation, affiliate leaders must thoroughly understand their contracts and the true economic cost of their current agreements. Before presenting management with proposed improvements at the negotiation table, affiliate leaders need to have a firm grasp of how the improvements they seek will impact the totality of a contract’s costs. This workshop will introduce students to the key concepts required to conduct a successful contract costing exercise and the fundamental processes of costing base salary, fringe benefits and proposed increases for a multi-year contract.

Negotiating Healthcare Benefits
As the cost of healthcare continues to rise, employers may attempt to offset these increases by reducing benefits, raising employee contributions or switching to more restrictive health plans. This workshop reviews other strategies available that may help departments maintain their existing level of insurance in a manner that benefits both the employees and management.

Conducting Negotiations: Collective Bargaining
Actively negotiating a contract is one of the most important functions IAFF affiliate leadership can perform for members and is the key ingredient in fire fighter–employer relations. In this workshop, you will learn how to create ground rules that benefit unions, participate in mock negotiation sessions and learn how to apply bargaining techniques.

Understanding Union Leadership
This workshop will address many facets of being a union officer, including the responsibilities associated with each role. This workshop will also address how to be a union advocate, using the skills of the executive board, and how to organize members and increase their participation to build a stronger local.

Local Union Administration
Designed to help affiliate leaders achieve goals for their locals, this course teaches the skills necessary to be effective in any role as a union officer. Information is provided on the duties of each local union officer, as well as the responsibilities of the executive board and other committees in the local. It will also acquaint participants with the various services and assistance available from the IAFF..

Budgeting for Local Unions
Budgeting is an essential function for those who safeguard local union assets. In this workshop, you will learn the art of planning your local’s income and expenditures. Topics discussed will include preparing, adopting and amending your budget, as well as common income and expenditure categories that should be part of your plan.

Building Coalitions
A coalition is a group of individuals or organizations that work together to achieve common goals and solve problems. A coalition can be formal or informal in structure depending on its purpose. Due to its size and scope, a coalition can accomplish significantly more than an individual organization. This workshop will teach you how to build coalitions and use them to achieve your goals.