Understanding the Strategic Plan

 

 

In the last year AFT-Oregon has seen many leadership changes, both in its locals and staff. Additionally, the organization has faced and foresees many challenges to overcome such as the corporatization of our education system, and anti-worker ballots.

 

AFT-Oregon and its members, will not be successful remaining stagnate. We must act and prepare for the changing labor landscape.

The strategic plan, once developed, will be pivotal in guiding AFT-Oregon through these challenging times and help our union not remain the same, but flourish, while also setting goals and measureable benchmarks for AFT-Oregon.

 

We began this process by briefly surveying and examining input from our membership and outside communities. We asked them questions such as: What is AFT-Oregon doing well and not doing well? What role does AFT-Oregon play in education and in the workforce? How can AFT-Oregon better engage its membership and what does AFT-Oregon need to do in order to grow?

 

Through our survey we learned what some of the perceived core functions of AFT-Oregon are: supporting and servicing locals, providing resources to locals, providing educational and training opportunities, building connections and solidarity among locals, building strong leaders and members, and providing a political voice and influencing education policy.

 

However, in order for AFT-Oregon to successfully perform its core functions there are a few obstacles we need to overcome as an organization. Some of these challenges are: Right-to-Work and potential loss of fair share, uniting locals with different identities and perspectives and interests, low membership numbers, apathetic membership, need for more inclusive leadership, and aligning staffing with needs of AFT-Oregon and its organizational goals.

Additionally, AFT-Oregon will need to be aware of the changing public education landscape. Issues such as: lack of funding, tuition increases, corporatization and privatization in higher education, and the impacts of testing on classified units will alter the strategic plan.

 

Clearly there is a lot of work to be done, and in order to do it AFT-Oregon has established a design committee whose mission is to further study our membership and our external perceptions of our union. Some topics the design team will be studying internally are: AFT-Oregon’s governance structure, budget, staffing, technology, communications, education and training programs, and inclusion. Some external topics the design team is studying are: current trends in education, the views of outside educational stake holders, and assessing media coverage and the media’s relationship with AFT-Oregon.

 

Once further data has been collected from these groups the design team will present their findings and begin laying out goals and benchmarks for AFT-Oregon to pursue in the future.

 

This is an exciting yearlong project which will be finalized November 2015 at the Presidents’ conference.

 

Please contact the AFT-Oregon state office if you want to learn more about the strategic plan.

 

 

Design Team Meeting

 

Convention presentation and data gathering from focus groups

 

Scan committees continue data gathering and study findings

 

Design Team Meeting - Share findings and develop preliminary goals. Survey membership and outside organizations.

 

Design Team Meeting - Begin drafting final report

 

Design Team Meeting - Approve final report

 

Present final plan at Presidents’ conference