Close to 30 Guild leaders got together this past weekend for the New Local Officers Seminar (NLOS), which hadn’t been held since 2019. The seminar was created in 1982 to train local officers recently elected to their positions.
Over four days, participants learned and shared their experiences on leadership, organizing, bargaining, representation and communications. They dove into the role of local leaders, discussed burnout and learned more about the Guild’s Learn, Do, Teach framework to build capacity. The seminar covered the role of stewards, contract and rights enforcement and an overview of bargaining processes. Attendees also joined sessions on how to build an organizing structure and union communications.
Participants collaborate on a group exercise.
Seated: Venice Buhain, president of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild; Annie Sciacca, president of the Pacific Media Workers Guild; Lisa Wright, vice president of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild; Drew Amidei, secretary of the United Media Guild. Standing: Amy Beth Bennett, vice president of media at CWA 3108.
In addition to the sessions, leaders watched the movie Pride (2014) and wrapped the weekend by playing NewsGuild-CWA Jeopardy with winners receiving union swag.
At the end of the seminar, participants listed what they were planning on implementing in their unit or local based on what they learned over the weekend.
“Moving forward, we’re gonna make a hard ask of [members] and really see who’s gonna come through and then work with them and develop them as leaders, which is something I’m really excited to do with some of our members,” said Rose Androwich of the Kenosha-Racine News Guild.
“We’re doing a million trainings for stewards and our contract action team and our bargaining team but I’ve never thought about also maybe just doing a leadership training and saying, this is actually what it means to be a leader,” said Celia Monroe, the chief steward of the Hachette Workers Coalition, which won their union this summer.
“My goal, I think, is going to keep team building and connecting with people as humans, because it’s at the core of what we’re doing,” said Maria Montero Silva of the Albany News Guild.
Does the NLOS sound like something you might be interested in? It’ll be back again in 2027!