A unique class on corporate research for union planning and organizing will be held on Thursday.
The class, “Building Worker Power! Corporate Research Class,” offers attendees a way to examine the structures of companies for effective labor organizing. Ric Urrutia, teacher of the class and co-host of We Rise Fighting! — a labor podcast, has spent 20 years instructing on the topic. Urrutia comes from a heavy background in union organizing as a researcher, organizer, representative and steward. He earned a master’s from the University of Massachusetts in labor studies where he utilized his knowledge to help unions.
“What that means is, it’s researching corporations. It’s finding their weaknesses, it’s finding their jugulars, it’s finding their soft underbellies,” Urrutia said.
Urrutia’s courses have taught people how to research corporations, government agencies and elected officials on the soft underbellies of corporations and political power structures. Previously, in union activities in Wisconsin such as the United Auto Workers strike in Racine during 2023.
Research is paramount to understanding how a union can be more effective, Urrutia said. He recalled a previous position as the union rep for a meat packing plant. Around 3000 employees worked at the plant where leadership did not give adequate notice for organizing a contract campaign. Urrutia was given two weeks, but that wasn’t enough time to have meaningful discussions with other union reps. Urrutia decided to focus on the company’s figurative “jugular.”
On the kill floor of the meat packing plant, only six workers actually carried out the work. If those six went on strike, the whole plant would screech to a halt.
The type of planning and realization of the power of workers is what Urrutia hopes to teach attendees of the class. He draws more parallels to the bottle necking power that workers have for collective bargaining with the railway and port strikes in 2022 and 2024 respectively.
“When 45,000 port workers go on strike and cost the economy $5 billion a day or rattle it somehow, that’s a jugular,” Urrutia said. “That’s the sort of the thing that we want to be looking at.”
The issue now is more important than ever for Urrutia. He points to the necessity for research with increased anti-union sentiment in Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin, a large battle in courts is currently underway for Act 10 — a 2011 act that stripped collective bargaining rights for public sector employees. Efforts have finally made some headway after decades of attempts to repeal it.
Building Worker Power! Corporate Research Class will be held Thursday, Feb. 20, 6-8 p.m. at the Labor Temple, 1602 S Park St. It is free to attend; no registration is required.
