EWOC helps people organize their workplaces

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America's Work Force Union Podcast AWF Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee EWOC

Guest Name:

Eric Blanc

Guest Website:

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee

Guest Social Media:

Facebook

Twitter

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Supportive Documents:

Eric Blanc, Assistant Professor, Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC).

Blanc, who researches new workplace organizing, digital labor activism, strikes and working-class politics, is also an EWOC trainer. He explained that EWOC is a partnership between the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE).

EWOC, he said, was created during the pandemic to help union workers find personal protective equipment and develop workplace safety protocols. When the pandemic ended, EWOC became a grassroots organizing program to support workers who wanted to organize their workplace.

Blanc said many Local Unions do not have the staff to support new organizing campaigns. He noted this is where EWOC can help. Within 72 hours of contacting the organization, an EWOC representative reaches out to that worker and walks them through the organizing steps. He then explained those steps and how they train workers to organize successfully.

Over the past four years, over 1,000 EWOC volunteers have helped more than 5,000 people who reached out to them. In 2023, EWOC was involved in 23 campaigns that led to the unionization of roughly 7,000 workers. Blanc said both Local and International Unions have contacted EWOC to implement their model within their union. He also said anyone who wants to become an EWOC volunteer can reach out through their website.

For more EWOC, please listen to the show above.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

EWOC helps people organize their workplaces

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