View and download the BTU Building Rep Handbook
How to Be a Great Building Rep
- Be knowledgeable. How do you do that? Regular attendance at membership and Building Rep meetings is crucial. In addition, study the contract, read the Boston Union Teacher newspaper, the weekly e-Bulletin, as well as all emails and mailings you receive. As the school year progresses, the Field Representatives will send reminders of organizational task that arise seasonally. If you have questions, do not hesitate to follow up with the elected leadership and/or BTU staff.
- Be an Educator/Communicator It's not enough to be knowledgeable. Try different ways to communicate what you know to the members. When you hear interesting ideas from a member, or you hear many memberss are concerned about a particular issue, communicate that knowledge back to the BTU leadership and staff so we can act on it. Communication is a two way street and you are a crucial link.
- Lead by positive example If you tell the members to go to the monthly membership meeting — but you don’t go yourself — the message you send is that membership meetings may not be that important after all.
- Be an organizer. Know they people in your building you can count on to get out the word on important issues to create an active union network. Don't just go through the motions of distributing and posting materials. Enlist the help of others whenever possible.
- Make signing up new members a priority. Remeber, membership is still important, even with the agency fee. The BTU must depend on membership —and not just the agency fee—which is a political creation subject to withdrawal following another political decision. Should that happen, the BTU must be able to maintain itself without a loss of members, income, or strength. And that takes organization! In addition to your own outreach efforts, find people in your building with a close personal or working relationship to new staff to talk with them about the relevance and importance of union membership.
- Learn to Be a Problem-Solver. You will find yourself involved in monioring day-to-day school activities, keeping members informed about how union policy impacts their working lives, participating on the Faculty Senate, meetiing with the building administration to iron out school problems, and, of course, handling Step One grievances. You will gain skills in all these areas through practice and experience. But know that you can always seek out assistance from the Union staff and leadership to help you improve your effectiveness.
- Be a Friend – Although this may sound a bit trite, it is important. The BTU is nothing more or less than a collection of all of us sharing our common hopes and aspirations. Alone and isolated we are just employees. Together, we are the Boston Teachers Union.
