Cancel Meetings, Go Digital!
President Rangel and President Elect Lopez along with our Trustees have decided to postpone the March Executive Board and General Membership meeting until further notice. We do not take these important temporary steps lightly. We have a profound responsibility for the health and well-being of our staff, you our members and your families and wish all the best as we join together to try to help stop the spread of the pandemic.
After careful consideration and in order to be responsible participants in the global health challenge created by the coronavirus, the Dallas AFL-CIO has made the decision to move to remote operations from our homes beginning Monday, March 16. At this time, we expect to work remotely for two weeks.
We will continue to conduct all business and will attend all meetings by phone. We remain available to serve you and all working families in Texas throughout this global crisis. You can continue to reach out to us as follows:
- v Mark York - Cell 817-689-3365 - DallasAFLCIO@gmail.com
- v Jason Tomlinson – Office Manager - Cell 817-475-1756 - Jtomlinson.dallasaflcio@gmail.com
- v Kara Sheehan – Texas New Era/JWJ – Community Engagement - Cell 314-750-4673 -kara@texasnewera.org
- v Gene Lantz – Communications Director- Cell: 214-538-3329 - Genelantz19@gmail.com
Go Digital!
As physical meetings become too risky, the progressive movement must rely on electronic communications. If you want to help, or if you want to learn how to help, please sign up for our Digital Organizing Committee by clicking here. AFter you sign up, forward the link to others.
We need much better communications, but we have made some progress:
The Dallas AFL-CIO Web Site includes the latest labor news from our nation, our state, and our Central Labor Council. It also has sections that can be used to educate and activate us.
The Dallas AFL-CIO Facebook pageis our main day-to-day, hour-to-hour outreach. We currently have almost 2,000 "likes." You can help strengthen this platform by going to the page, clicking on the three dots ***, and then clicking on "invite friends."
Labor is also active on Twitter and Instagram.
Meet Germ-Free
Unionism generally means getting together, but the Covid-19 pandemic makes "In Real Life" (IRL) meetings risky. Fortunately, on-line meetings can do virtually anything that that you could do IRL.
There are several services that can be used. Some of them are cheap and others are free. Participants just click on a link and they're "in" the meeting. Communication is visual and audible. The audio can be captioned for clarity.
In addition to being germ-free, on-line meetings have some advantages over IRL meetings. For example, people can use chat so there's no possibility of verbal misunderstandings. Instead of xeroxing a bunch of papers and handing them out, they can be scanned and emailed. Or, documents can be put into an accessible folder for everyone to look at whenever they get around to it.
Instead of standing in front of a live audience and holding up a poster, on-line communicators can "share screen" to show anything on their own computer to the entire on-line audience.
With some services, it is possible to record the entire meeting so that it can be seen by every invitee, even the ones who failed to show up!
The downside of all digital communications is that we have to be in contact with one another. Intereested activists will begin training at 10AM Sunday, March 15. Send your info to Dallas labor's Digital Organizing Committee and let's get started! --genelantz.dallasaflcioi@gmail.com
