2. What is a Narrative?
The union narrative is the story people hear about who we are and what we do.
Our story has largely been defined by others, in a way that damages our ability to move workers’ interests forward.
A narrative is a story, the union story we deliver that helps people to understand who we are from our perspective.

3. Changing the Narrative
Through this project, we aim to change the narrative so people see unions for what they really are – workers standing together.
This new narrative will position us “on offense” so we can be more effective for workers.
In order to move forward, we need to change the narrative so people see unions for what they really are. Will help us not always be on defense, trying to fight for what little we have.

4. Methods
The California Labor Coalition worked with nationally-known neuroscience and political expert Dr. Drew Westen to:
Conduct research on the public’s attitudes toward unions now
Develop the messages that move voters to where they could be
A coalition of CA unions got together to work with Drew Weston of Emory University in Atlanta. Has worked with national unions & Dem political candidates. His specialty is helping ID words & phrases that make a connection with people around issues.
Differs from our traditional approach in which we try to figure out campaign by campaign what people think about that issue and move them on that issue only. We need to generally move people overall on how they think about unions as we move from campaign to campaign.

5. Research Findings
The opposition branding of unions has been effective.
BUT, we have an opening to re-brand unions.
Our new messages beat even the toughest opposition arguments.
We can move people by repeating the new messages that stick.

6. Your Opportunity Together with your union, you are:
Among the first to use our new, groundbreaking messages and tools.
Pivotal to the success of our new union narrative.
Working together with the whole labor movement, you can help change the way people think about unions and move the worker agenda forward.
We’re here today to do something that hasn’t been done before: use this research.
We’re talking about incorporating this research and messages into every aspect of our daily lives, every kind of communication we do as unions.

7. Drawing on our research, our new narrative:
Rebrands unions as “working people standing together.”
This phrase resonates with people who have negative views of unions or think they are irrelevant.
Refocuses voter concern where it should be: on corporations and CEOs.
Voters understand the inequality resulting from CEOs who negotiate their own compensation but won’t let workers do the same.
Puts a human face on workers.
The “spell” of the right is broken when we paint pictures of real people, help voters identify with them, and evoke gratitude for what they do.
May want to put the sub-bullets in the script but not on the slide
We see all the time that people may not hate unions, but think they don’t have a place any more. By talking about working people standing together we create a new image in the mind of whomever we’re talking to – our neighbor, someone in the grocery store, etc.
Refocusing voter concern on CEO’s is a powerful populist notion that most of public shares regardless of their party or ideology.
We already put a human face on workers, but we have to take a step further to break the spell of the right by being even more successful in painting a picture of who these people are, and evoking gratitude for what they do.
“Workers standing together” -- This phrase resonates with people who have negative views of unions or think they are irrelevant. It works, even when tested against the BEST messages of our opposition.
Populism -- Voters respond to the the inequality resulting from CEOs who negotiate their own compensation but won’t let workers do the same.
Human face -- The “spell” of the right is broken when we paint pictures of real people, help voters identify with them, and evoke gratitude for what they do.

8. Our New Narrative
1. Rebrands unions as “working people standing together.” “The great American middle class didn’t just happen. In our grandparents’ generation, workers stood together in their unions to create the 40-hour work week, vacations, and wages that were the envy of the world.”
Our new narrative draws on the findings of our research.
How does this make you feel? What do you think about when you hear this?

9. Our New Narrative
2. Refocuses public’s concern where it should be: on corporations and CEOs. “Before we cut another dime from the wages and benefits of working people in California, we need to talk about the 15 million dollar retirement packages for CEOs, who don’t believe in letting their workers negotiate for retirement but do a pretty good job negotiating for their own.”
This comes directly from the research and tests well against the very best messages of our opponents.
What does this message make us feel? What emotions do we have when we hear this?

10. Our New Narrative
3. Puts a human face on workers “The sanitation workers who pick up our trash and the people who come to our homes at 3 a.m.
when the water lines burst are no different from the rest of us. One in 10 has lost their jobs and the rest are struggling to get by like everyone else.”
Finally, here’s an example of putting the human face on union workers. We need to take the extra step to create a vivid image of who these workers are and how they help the average person in their daily lives – evoking gratitude.
We’ll take more time to think about how we do that in each of our industries later in the training.

11. WORKING PEOPLE STANDING TOGETHER.
Our New Frame
WORKING PEOPLE STANDING TOGETHER.
We talked about framing & frames earlier and gave some examples.
Our new frame is: working people standing together. That’s where we always need to start when we talk about workers and unions. Now we’re going through a longer narrative to talk about who we really are.

12. Our New Narrative
In our grandparents generation, working people stood together in their unions to create the 40-hour work week, paid vacations and good, American, wages.
Sitting across from employers at the negotiating table, they made American companies the envy of the world and built our middle class, brick by brick.
After defining the frame as working people standing together, we refocus concern…

13. Our New Narrative
But now that middle-class is being systematically dismantled by:
Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists outsourcing our jobs and slashing wages and health care to get bigger bonuses for themselves (private sector)
Big corporations and CEOs demanding more corporate tax breaks even if it means teachers who challenge our kids and firefighters who put their lives on the line lose their jobs (public sector)
Here we’ve refocused the problem on CEOs and corporations and also took the opportunity to put the human face on workers, both telling who they are and evoking gratitude for what they do: challenging kids or putting lives on the line.

14. Our New Narrative
With no one sitting across from them at the table negotiating for working families, CEOs walk away with bigger bonuses and workers walk away wondering how they’ll feed their families.
Today, the only thing that stands in the way of the CEOs and corporate lobbyists is what stood in their way in our grandparent’s generation: working people standing together.
Now we’ve come full circle back to reinforcing our frame about who we are, what we do and what we stand for.

15. Our new narrative
That’s why workers and their unions are innovating to keep California competitive by retraining workers for new industries, partnering with small businesses to keep jobs here at home, and fighting alongside parents for smaller class sizes so teachers can teach and students can learn.
Here we take the final step of presenting our audience with the last part of the narrative – showing what union’s role is in today’s economy and the future.

16. Using our New Narrative
Our new narrative messages are worth repeating! See how our strong messages can be used to:
Reframe the attacks on workers
Position workers on offense
Again, we’ve tested these messages and they beat the opposition’s messages – by quite a bit! But we have to use them over and over.

17. Reframe
1. Unions might have made sense in our grandparents generation, but now we have laws to protect workers.
Working people are losing ground in today’s economy because CEOs are outsourcing our jobs and slashing our wages to give themselves bigger bonuses. They’re systematically dismantling our middle class, and the only thing that stands in their way is workers standing together.
Here are some examples of how the messages we’re going through today work in different situations.
Most of us have heard this message at one point or another.

18. Go on Offense
My paycheck doesn’t go as far as it used to and feeding my family means watching every penny. It’s too bad our town is losing its character as all the mom-and-pop stores are closing up, but the big box stores make it a whole lot easier to stretch a dollar.
Working people are losing ground in today’s economy because CEOs are outsourcing our jobs and slashing our wages to give themselves bigger bonuses. They’re systematically dismantling our middle class, and the only thing that stands in their way is workers standing together.
Here’s another way to use the very same words and phrases in a very different situation. Here we can go on offense to show how unions can actually help someone with a problem they’ve identified using the exact same message as we used in the last example.

19. Reframe
2. Unions are killing our economy by making American companies less competitive.
Companies are sitting on record profits and CEOs are hauling down $15 million bonuses. That’s what happens when no one is sitting across from them at the table negotiating for working people.
We’ve all heard this kind of an argument – maybe from your right-wing uncle. Here’s how you can respond to him.

20. Go on Offense
I keep hearing on the news that the economy is improving, but where are the jobs?! My sister has a degree and tons of experience and she’s been out of work for 2 years. I’m worried things will never get better.
Companies are sitting on record profits and CEOs are hauling down $15 million bonuses. That’s what happens when no one is sitting across from them at the table negotiating for working people.
Again, we don’t know exactly what this person feels or thinks about unions, but here we take the opportunity to go on offense and show her how unions sitting across the table from CEOs will help her sister & everyone else.

21. Reframe
3. Public sector unions use their political clout to buy politicians so they can get gold-plated retirements and perks those of us in the private sector will never see.
The problem isn’t that the teachers who challenge and educate our kids can count on $25,000 a year in retirement, it’s that the rest of us can’t.
Everyone here has probably seen this argument quite a bit. We’re going to reframe it.

22. Go on Offense
Our parents and grandparents never expected to get rich but at least they knew after working for 30 years they’d have the security of a decent pension. With the way the economy is now, only government workers have any security. I’ll probably never be able to retire.
The problem isn’t that the teachers who challenge and educate our kids can count on $25,000 a year in retirement, it’s that the rest of us can’t.
Now we might have someone else come up to us with this kind of an argument. Again, we’re taking the opportunity to go on offense with retirement security.
The main points to remember are that is all about taking every opportunity to use the new narrative, practicing it and remember our three key components of the narrative:
Workers standing together
Refocusing the blame on corporations & CEOs
Putting a human face on workers & evoking gratitude

23. Match the word to the definition
1. Frame
A. The story being told
2. Message
B. Describing an issue from our perspective
3. Narrative
C. The specific words & phrases to communicate your point