1st District Conference

Local Union Governance
Through its constitution and by-laws, your local establishes its basic organization, including the duties and responsibilities of your local union officers, executive board and committees, as well as the various procedures that govern different types of meetings. Your local’s constitution and by-laws should provide the precepts necessary for governing your members. It should meet their needs, as well as be flexible for reasonable and future change. In this module, you will learn the important aspects of your local’s constitution and by-laws and be given tools to understand how this document influences your role as a union leader and how to properly govern your local based on this important text.

Duty of Fair Representation
As an affiliate leader, you may be subject to a legal standard, known as duty of fair representation (DFR), that governs how you represent your members in contract negotiations, grievances, and other labor matters. In this workshop, you will study relevant case law to learn what is required of you, how the courts have applied this standard to unions, the consequences of violating the standard, and best practices to avoid DFR lawsuits.

Discipline: Your Rights and Responsibilities as Union Officers
This workshop will provide union leaders with an overview of their rights and responsibilities during the employment disciplinary process. Union leaders will learn how to best represent their members in accordance with their contract, civil service laws, and the Weingarten, Loudermill and Garrity decisions. This workshop is applicable to affiliate leaders in both collective bargaining and non-collective bargaining environments.

Introduction to Grievances
The manner in which you process grievances will determine how quickly they are resolved and how your members will perceive you. A good understanding of the grievance process will better enable you to enforce the collective bargaining agreement and avoid costly arbitration hearings. In this workshop, you will learn how to evaluate and file a grievance, reduce your chances of receiving a DFR claim, and develop effective grievance strategies. This workshop is ideal for local union officers and grievance committee members who have limited experience with grievances.

Municipal Financial Analysis
This workshop is designed to educate affiliate leaders about municipal financial analysis (FMA). In order to ensure proper staffing and reasonable wage and benefit increases, a local must know the basic financial condition of its government, as well as what monies are available to fund its needs. Municipal financial analysis is a service provided by the IAFF that examines a jurisdiction’s financial records and determines its financial condition. The value of the analysis is dependent on affiliate leaders effectively understanding the key indicators of a government’s financial condition and knowing how to use the information appropriately.

Negotiating Strategies for Tough Economic Times
We are a union regardless of the status of the economy. Therefore, when we are in tough economic times, we may adjust our mission but not change our vision to continually advance. These challenges may be in the form of decreased tax revenues, cuts in state aid to local government, or cuts in other sources of revenue. The reductions in revenue that result in municipal budget cuts have affected IAFF locals by influencing wages, benefits, or operational resources. This workshop will provide an understanding of how fiscal crises impact the negotiation process, as well as providing insight on how to address wages, benefits, working conditions, and staffing issues in tough times. The workshop will specifically address the above outlined issues for locals with collective bargaining agreements or a formal negotiation process.

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.

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.

Ethics for Union Leaders
Most IAFF leaders are public employees and have fiduciary responsibilities to their membership. Due to the nature of your position, you are subject to higher ethical standards than the average member or employee. These standards must be upheld in order to maintain the trust of your members and run an effective local. Failure to do so can result in loss of credibility, loss of union position, or even criminal charges. This workshop will cover the principles of ethics, the requirements of public employees, and strategies for making ethical decisions. You will use these strategies to analyze scenarios and case studies.

IAFF Union Leadership: Leading Organizational Change
How Can I Help Our Union Become More Effective? This workshop will provide tools to help affiliate leaders become more effective as IAFF locals continue to evolve to meet the serious challenges facing our union and our members in the 21st century. During the workshop, participants will learn how to assess and to prioritize union resources and leverage and how to engage in strategic planning to establish and achieve effective organizational goals.

IAFF Union Leadership: Union Culture, Communications, and Coalition Building
During the workshop, you will identify and learn how to effectively model union values while communicating with the membership, building an effective culture of union solidarity, and creating and working with coalitions to achieve local IAFF political and legislative goals.