This week, a group of National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) leaders, including national business representatives, National Executive Council (NEC) officers, headquarters staff, organizers, benefits providers, and council representatives, gathered at the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center in Hollywood, MD, to forge NFFE’s membership building plan for 2019.
The meeting, facilitated by NFFE National President Randy Erwin and Organizer Bridget Fitzgerald, gave leaders from around the country an opportunity to share their experiences and to suggest campaigns and strategies that would lead to growth for NFFE in the coming year and beyond. The gathering also gave leaders an opportunity to propose ideas for new resources and programming that would help make improvements in all areas of the union, but ultimately result in membership gains.
Some of the clear takeaways included: the desire for more NFFE visibility items like shirts, hats, stickers, sweatshirts, and reusable insulated water bottles; the need for more steward and officer training, particularly training that could be delivered in various places across the country; and the desire for additional communications tools, such as new social media platforms, updated organizing supplies, and frequent materials for updating union bulletin boards.
Another key component of the planning session was picking specific strategies for how NFFE will build membership in 2019. Some of those plans include: increasing the number of Locals participating in NFFE’s organizing donation program; increasing the number organizing events, such as “lunch-and-learns” and other recruitment activities, the union will conduct in 2019; identifying specific Locals and Councils to target for membership gains; increasing the frequency with which NFFE locals partner with benefits providers; and devising ways to make maximum use of new employee orientations.
Now, just a couple days removed from the planning session, implementation of NFFE’s new organizing plan is already underway. Committees have been assigned to tackle many of these projects and action from NFFE’s NEC taken yesterday authorized many of these programs.
“I am extremely proud of what NFFE leaders accomplished this week with the development of this new organizing plan,” said President Erwin after the planning had completed. “We had a very constructive discussion and that resulted in the development of a great work product. I’m fired up about going out and organizing, and I know others are as well. We are ready to hit the ground running in 2019.”