Educational Classes Registration Form - 2024

Click here or below to view YouTube video of November retirement seminar featuring a Social Security expert.

Seminar on Social Security during 751 Retirement Seminar November 2021 - Good info for all members

Retirement Seminar
Third Wednesday of every month (No Seminar for December)
(NOTE: We are updating the information due to Fidelity change)

10 AM Click Here to Register Third Wednesday of the month

4 PM Click Here to Register Third Wednesday of the month

For assistance directly, call 206 764-0350 Health and Benefits office.

YouTube Video of presentation here W/SS Expert 1st half

Classes can be taken in any order and are open to all members and retirees

Class Descriptions

Classes can be taken in any order and are open to all members and retirees
Unit 1 - History and a Stewards Role
Unit 2 - The Contract
Unit 3 - Grievances and Representation
Unit 4 - Communication and Mobilization

Advanced 1: Labor, the Economy, and Addressing Income Inequality
Advanced 2: Understanding the Anti-Union Movement and Building a 21st Century Workers’ Movement
Rights at Work 
Advanced 4: NEW - Success Stories: Lessons from Recent Wins 
Advanced 5: Negotiations and Solidarity Successes

IAM 751 Class Descriptions
Each of the classes below runs for three hours and is open to stewards and members. 
Basic Steward Training Series 

Unit 1: The Role of the Steward 
In this introductory class, stewards and members will learn a bit of labor history. We will then focus on the duties of a steward, the legal rights of stewards, and the role of stewards as the face of the union and a leader in the workplace. Specific areas of legal rights that are covered include Weingarten & the right to representation, the Duty of Fair Representation, and the steward’s protected status. Participants will also learn how to advise fellow workers, how to take effective notes, and best practices for communicating with members so that they are part of the problem-solving process. 
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Unit 2: The Contract
In this class stewards and members will begin to work more closely with the existing contract. Participants will work together to understand contract language that addresses problem areas for 751 members, for example, overtime, leaves of absence, and layoff and recall. Participants will practice explaining contract rights in plain English. The class will also introduce the process of grievance investigation, using the step one grievance process, and identifying types of grievances. 
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Unit 3: Grievances and Representation

Stewards and members will leave this class able to identify when a workplace issue is a contract violation, and therefore grievable. The role of stewards in the grievance procedure will be reviewed as well as how to investigate a worker’s issue or complaint. Participants will practice investigating and presenting a grievance to management. Emphasis is put on problem solving.
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Unit 4: Communication and Mobilization
This class focuses on the steward as a leader in the workplace. The emphasis is on communication skills, answering common questions from members, and how to get members engaged in the process of building union power rather than expecting Stewards and Business Representatives to solve problems for them. The class offers you the opportunity to think about your strengths as a leader and how you might identify leadership potential in others.
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Advanced Training

Advanced 1: Labor, the Economy, and Addressing Income Inequality

We are again living in the time of the Robber Barons. The rich have gotten much richer and the poor have gotten poorer. While the middle class shrinks, wealth inequality is reaching dizzying heights, affecting all working people. Union workers and all workers are under attack.

Join special guests from Washington Labor Center, Emily Slater and Adair Dammann  for an engaging discussion on political and economic inequality, their origins and, crucially, the ways in which workers have fought back and won to reclaim our fair share.

We will delve into US labor history and IAM 751's local history, and discuss economics from the worker perspective, including the 2007 economic crisis and its lasting impact on working families. Presentations will explain the skyrocketing costs of housing and healthcare, the student loans & household debt crisis, the consumer price index, and increase in gross income inequality. As a group we will tie the past to the present, in order to illuminate ways forward in our present time. 

We'll look closely at the union difference in wages, benefits, safety, and working conditions. We know unions make a difference in our lives as union members, but this presentation and discussion will explore how labor organizing has broader impacts and deep ties to other social movements such as the fight for civil rights.

Get the facts and discuss tools to build your union power, fight back against wealth inequality and win!
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Advanced 2: Attacks on Unions and Workers

Focus:  The goal of Unit 2 is to help members frame their own experience in contemporary forces driving changes and to put the changes they have experiences into the context of larger trends.  

Learning Objectives:  

·       To understand the expansion and contraction of union density   

·       To grasp the various contemporary fronts to unions and workers  

·       To understand the new ways unions and workers are responding to their challenging landscape.  

This class will examine the ways in which unions have been weakened in the U.S. in the last 40 years, including specific struggles for IAM 751. It will look at attacks on unions as well as examples of how workers are responding. The class will also offer participants the opportunity to think critically about ways unions haven’t responded to changing economics and how we may need to re-imagine the labor movement for the 21st century.
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Know Your Rights at Work
In this class, stewards and members will get basic information about the rights all workers have under the law and how being in a union strengthens those rights. Participants will use the Washington State Workers Rights Manual in this class, and your collective bargaining agreement. Participants will also learn about direct action and how to use direct action tactics to solve problems on the shop floor. This is a class about building union power!
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Advanced Unit 4: Campaign Planning  

Focus: This class centers on modern campaigns and modern campaign planning in the labor movement and provides an overview of methods and theories behind these campaigns to better understand the future of our movement. 

Learning Objectives:  

• Participants learn about, analyze, and draw lessons from a case study of successful campaign 
• Participants learn strategic planning skills and practice their planning skills in groups 

• Participants will learn the difference between strategy and tactic and how to categorize tactics appropriately 

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Advanced 5: Mentorship Matters

The Mentorship Matters™ on-the-job mentoring program teaches communication skills that make the workplace more effective and more efficient.   This seminar, tailored for the Machinist Institute, will highlight critical components of the complete program. Participants will be introduced to practical tools used for effective communication, tailored for the skilled trades, in order to promote productivity, safety, and quality.   

Participants will learn effective communication strategies, active listening, proactive learning, giving and receiving feedback, and more.  Effective communication is key to successful workplaces.
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