For the Construction Industry

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This workshop teaches practiced, effective strategies to keep low-road contractors who cheat to compete from winning contracts for public works projects, including how to advocate to public agencies and encourage the use of high-quality contractors. These state-of-the-art strategies keep signatory contractors competitive and create jobs for union members.

Change the public conversation about prevailing wages from unions protecting their members to protecting middle class jobs, honest businesses and the community’s economic health, as well as promoting quality, accountability and safety in the construction of public works. Learn effective techniques to promote prevailing wage projects before government bodies and public agencies, to deal with attacks on prevailing wages, and to promote policies that protect the middle class.

Much has been learned in recent years about the most effective strategies for unions and signatory contractors to use in helping establish federal prevailing rates that allow union contractors to compete for work and protect decent wage rates. This training is available for union representatives, joint labor-management groups, and (with the participation of local unions) for staff employed by signatory contractors. It can be delivered in single craft or multi-craft settings. Workshops can be customized to your needs, to accommodate different timeframes, audience sizes, crafts, locations, and organizations. This training will benefit your organization for years to come. 

What can people to promote constructive and respectful behavior in the workplace?  This workshop provides a state-of-the-art approach to preventing harassment and bullying. The interactive class provides training for workers who observe harassment or bullying of others and want to be a positive influence. This is union solidarity and worker-to-worker support at its best. The course can be customized to meet legal requirements for mandatory harassment prevention training.

This workshop teaches union and joint labor-management staff how to access public records from state and federal agencies, deal with agency refusals to provide such records, and deal with unreasonable delays in responding to requests, including when to seek the help of an attorney. 

This workshop enables union and joint labor-management representatives to make effective use of open meeting laws to become part of the conversation and decision-making process of public agencies.

 This class will vastly improve the persuasive abilities of participants. It can be structured around any persuasive goals and strategies associated with that workforce –  for example, speaking to city councils, school boards , legislative committees, and other public agencies, or advocacy in a grievance or bargaining environment. Topics covered include principles of persuasion (including power dynamics and political persuasion), developing and delivering persuasive arguments, how to cope with nerves, recognizing resistance, re-thinking the weakest aspects of your argument, and public speaking skills. Like all ALSET training, the class includes a chance to practice the skills learned and receive feedback. 

Many union leaders and staff have responsibility for public speaking, but have not had much opportunity to learn the skills associated with this role. This class covers preparing your presentation, common pitfalls, how to have maximum impact, voice and body language, and other aspects of public speaking. Like all ALSET training, the class includes a chance to practice the skills learned and receive feedback.

This class focuses on using personal stories to persuade, as well as reframing issues, values and arguments to appeal to various types of audiences (for example, business owners, conservative or liberal politicians, public agencies, etc.) Like public speaking, dealing with bureaucracies is a crucial advocacy skill that is rarely taught. Participants will learn a set of valuable skills in dealing with bureaucracies and have a chance to practice  and receive feedback on this skill. Participants will be given an option of preparing an actual presentation based on issues they are currently facing on the job.