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Powerful Locals

About Powerful Locals

Powerful Locals is the process by which our locals become informed, engaged, and activate their membership. It is the process by which locals become powerful - on their campuses, in their communities, in Washington state. A local with an informed, engaged, activated membership is powerful.

These things do not happen in a vacuum. There are quantifiable steps, processes and knowledge that go into making a local powerful; they range from internal governance and data management to leader identification and political activity, as well as the regular tasks of a local, like grievances and contract management.

At AFT Washington the term Powerful Locals is used to refer to two things. The first is the Powerful Locals Assessment Tool, which you can find on this page, and the second is the Powerful Locals leadership training that happens every summer, also on this page. We start advertising the training in early summer - watch your email for more information.

The leadership of AFT Washington is committed to supporting all our locals in efforts to inform, engage, and activate their membership. We know from experience and research that to accomplish this goal, we need to work in ways that continually move potential members to members, members to activists, and activists to leaders. We can do this through understanding their needs and addressing their issues, so that our members see the power of the union, are drawn to it, and realize that the union’s power comes from their commitment and involvement. The members are the union.

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