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Member-Run
Unionism
Putting Out
A Union
Newsletter
Submitted by Stephen Seymour,
past president and steward for the
Barnstable Municipal Employees Association,
in Barnstable, Massachusetts
My union wanted to put out a newsletter for two reasons. First to provide our
membership with information from our board of directors meetings. Secondly to have our own
paper to exchange ideas. We have been putting out a monthly newsletter since last August
and the response has exceeded our expectations. Additionally as newsletter editor I
personally have received much satisfaction from the effort.
Our newsletter is our own voice where we can publish what we want. I cover events of
interest and report on them in the newsletter. For instance, there was a health care forum
concerning changes at our local hospital. I was able to go and take good notes, write a
summary and a critique that provided my fellow employees with information that the
corporate owned local paper did not cover. Information about alternative health care
systems to the inefficient, profit orientated, health insurance offered by some of the
ever more powerful HMO’s.
Our board of directors had been looking for a way to inform our membership of issues
discussed and decisions made at our monthly board meetings. Our membership is scattered,
working out of different Town buildings. Occasionally an individual steward would put some
of the information in writing and pass it onto his coworkers in his work area. Well we
thought, why not do that once and get it out to all our members? We now have and it has
made us a tighter knit group. Workers know what we are working on and they become involved
ion the issues.
As a side benefit we provide a classified section where employees can buy and sell
their personal surplus items. I sold a practice drum set that had been in my attic for
years to a mother whose son was dying for one. We both got a good deal. The people who
have run ads have been very satisfied with the results and appreciative to the union for
providing the outlet.
We do a double sided 11 by 17 sheet of paper folded in half to provide four 8 ½ X 11
pages. Lately we have been inserting a double sided 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper to give us 6
pages. The insert this last month had a list of officers and stewards and a description of
the grievance procedure one side. On the flip side was a grievance form we had generated a
few years ago. The newsletter takes me about five hours to put together. Generally I ask
someone else to read it over to proofread it. Many hands help in the mailing.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Some tricks of the trade we have learned are:
• Get other people to help with the mailing. Plenty of people
offer and it goes quickly and can be fun with many hands doing the folding, stamping, and
mailing.
• Write about things you are interested in anyway. For example I
was attending the health care forum anyway. Writing for the newsletter helped me to
organize my thoughts and therefore understand the information.
• I also review books that might be of interest to the membership.
Books like Downsize This by Michael Moore or The Overworked American, by
Juliet Schor. By reviewing the book I get some alternative information to the membership
while at the same time I increase my understanding of the book by writing about it.
• The other members of the board of directors often want to convey
messages to the membership also. Encourage them and help them organize it if you need to.
It cuts down on my work and provides a wider range of opinions.
• Don’t worry too much if there are mistakes in spelling,
grammar or appearance from time to time. I have never heard a negative comment about such
things. My coworkers appreciate the effort and realize that I don’t always have the
time to make it perfect. They want the information anyway even with the occasional
blemish. Incidentally I type it on a computer, but it doesn’t have to be.
• Have some one who is not already bogged down with day to day
union business be the editor of the newsletter. Often the president or the chief stewards
and other main officers are too busy to have the time necessary to put out the newsletter.
• We started out putting the newsletter in envelopes but we ended
up just folding it in half, putting a small sticker to keep it folded and mailing it that
way. It is quicker and easier and it works.
• When I am getting on the soapbox and expressing my own opinion
on an issue, I let the readers know by placing it under the heading of an editorial.
Last, but not at all least, I get a lot of satisfaction from
putting out the newsletter. It is very empowering to have a vehicle to voice your own
opinions. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have fellow employees come up to me
and say how much they appreciate the newsletter.
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