When we talk about growing the UWUA, we naturally think about organizing new employers and bringing workers at nonunion workplaces into our ranks. That work is essential, and we are building the capacity to do more of it.
But there is another opportunity that may be much closer to home.
Look around your own workplace.
Are there employees working for the same company who aren’t represented by the UWUA? Maybe they’re in customer service, engineering, dispatch, IT, warehouse operations or another department. Maybe you’ve always thought of them as management, even though they don’t supervise anyone.
Could they benefit from the wages, benefits, job protections and voice that come with union representation?
If the answer is yes, we should be talking to them.
One tool that can help is what’s known as an Armour-Globe election. Put simply, an Armour-Globe election gives a group of previously unrepresented workers an opportunity to vote to join our existing bargaining unit and come under the same collective bargaining agreement.
Armour-Globe isn’t the answer in every workplace; it’s another tool in our organizing toolbox. Where it fits, it offers an important advantage: instead of creating another small island of representation, we can bring workers together into a larger bargaining unit and build from the strength we’ve already established.
That’s important because union density is union power.
Every worker we organize at an employer strengthens our hand. More members mean more resources, more leverage at the bargaining table and more power in a contract campaign. When more of the workforce stands together, the employer must deal with a stronger union.
That’s why I think of this as one of our most immediate opportunities for growth.
We already know the employer. We have members inside the workplace who understand the jobs and know the people. And we have a union contract that demonstrates what collective bargaining can deliver. In many cases, the workers we’re talking about already work alongside our members every day.
Some of our locals are showing what’s possible.
At Peoples Natural Gas in Pittsburgh, Local 612 has added more than 100 workers since 2023 through an aggressive effort to expand representation throughout the company. It has organized dispatch and trace-and-trackability employees and brought credit and collections workers into its ranks. The local is now using Armour-Globe for the first time to organize an automation group, part of its larger goal of moving toward wall-to-wall representation.
Local 424 is pursuing the same kind of internal growth at Elizabethtown Gas. Over the past year, the local added dispatchers, damage prevention technicians and construction operations employees. All three groups now have MOUs and are working under the Local 424 collective bargaining agreement.
These opportunities won’t always involve 100 workers. Sometimes it may be 10 or 15 people in a department. But multiply those groups across our locals and employers and the numbers can become significant.
We don’t yet know the full potential. But I believe organizing our existing workplaces more fully could add substantially to our membership. More importantly, it would build our power where it matters most — on the shop floor and at the bargaining table.
This is part of building our organizing capacity. It doesn’t replace traditional organizing. We need to continue reaching workers at nonunion employers and expanding into new workplaces. But we shouldn’t overlook people right under our noses.
So I’m asking every local leader — and every member — to do something simple: look around.
Who works beside you but isn’t represented? Are there groups that interact with our members every day but remain outside the bargaining unit? Who has been overlooked because everyone has simply assumed their job couldn’t be union? Who sees what our members have achieved through collective bargaining and might want the same voice and protection?
Don’t assume they aren’t eligible. And don’t assume they aren’t interested.
You don’t have to figure out the legal questions yourself. If you see an opportunity, contact your national representative. Our organizing and legal teams can determine whether an Armour-Globe election or another approach makes sense and help your local take the next steps.
Our UWUA Constitution calls on us to organize the unorganized so workers can enjoy better wages, benefits and working conditions — and to bargain strong contracts so our collective voices are heard. Those goals go hand in hand.
Growing our union doesn’t always mean looking somewhere new.
Sometimes it starts by looking across the shop, down the hall or into the next department and asking a simple question:
Aren’t we stronger together?