PEP Online – July 2026

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.

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.

Recruiting and Developing Leaders (4 hours)
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.

Social Media
Using social media to communicate with members and the community has become commonplace for affiliate leaders. This module will help affiliate leaders recognize several social media tools that are common in today’s society and learn how to use them safely and effectively to strengthen their local’s social media presence. It will also help leaders understand several guidelines for proper use and how to communicate effectively with their local and the community.

Internal Local Communications
The most important audience for our communications is our local union membership. Lack of communication within a union can seriously weaken unity in purpose and reduce the effectiveness of our efforts. This workshop shows how to move from fighting back challenges to taking charge of the message in communications to our membership.