Candidate Post: Mobilizing In An Uncertain Future - Stephen Nakrosis

The strength of our union lies in the solidarity of our membership. The union’s leadership must be able to motivate our members to step up and work to advance our shared interests. The health and longevity of IAPE 1096 depends on it.

The ongoing pandemic has made it much harder to generate interest and response from our members. When we worked together in our offices, union stewards and officers could speak to members personally, pass out materials and keep people informed and involved.

But those days are behind us. We can no longer rely on the old methods to organize and mobilize. Since the pandemic, it has become harder and harder to find members willing to serve. Witness this latest election – our union was unable to find anyone willing to step up and serve as Canada or Midwest location directors; or as classification directors for technology or administrative/advertising.

As we look to the future, we have to discover new and better ways to generate interest in the activities of IAPE. We can no longer simply rely on mass emails asking members to volunteer. Rather, leadership must reach out directly to our members, wherever they are, and personally invite them to serve.

If I am fortunate enough to be elected president of IAPE, I intend to contact every member of the union individually and listen to what they have to say. I want to hear their concerns, problems and questions. I intend to maintain an open door policy and listen to any member willing to speak with me. As I wrote in an earlier post, it won’t be an easy task, and it won’t happen overnight. But it is important that all members of the union know they have the president’s ear when they need it.

Our union can always use more volunteers to serve as stewards, to work on committees and to remind members that IAPE is there for them. I’ll take the time to personally discuss with any member how you can best help IAPE as we continue to fight for better wages and a better workplace.

Everyone will be invited to serve. There will be no factions, there will be no favoritism, there will only be workers moving forward in unison to further the union cause.

I want to see new and better communications between leadership and members. Each worker should have a dedicated member of a communications team and be able to reach out to them with questions, ideas or problems. This communications team member would also communicate directly with the member to pass along information from our leadership.

With so many working from home, with our office lives uprooted, it only makes sense to expand our communications activities to be sure we are reaching all our members wherever they may be.

I also plan to communicate closely with the company’s inclusive resource groups so we can work together to address the concerns of members. As I said before, whenever a member expresses a concern or brings up a problem in any forum, our leaders need to hear and respond to it. Sometimes the union may take the lead, sometimes we may work in support, but we will always work together.

Once again, I ask that you please cast your vote for me, Stephen Nakrosis, as president of IAPE.

Feel free to contact me at votesteveiape@gmail.com.