Chicago mentoring circle participants

Chicago, IL – CLUW Chicago Chapter President Katie Jordan learned about “mentoring circles” at CLUW’s National Executive Board Spring education conference. What particularly intrigued her was that in addition to providing valuable information, mentoring circles can be an effective tool to pull in members, as well as attract new ones.

Katie went to work soon after she returned home to create a chapter mentoring circle event – which took place on the evening of Nov. 10th.

The subject of the first circle was “What Works for Women at Work.” It began with all 25 participants viewing an 11-minute video produced by Stanford University’s Clayman Institute that identifies patterns of gender bias and teaches strategies to overcome them and succeed at work.  The group then broke into four “circles” to discuss the video.  A chapter member led each circle – using a Discussion Guide that was specially created for the topic. 

To prepare circle leaders to facilitate the circles, Katie followed through on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation offer at the Spring meeting, that was to match CLUW chapters wanting to undertake mentoring circles with an FMCS staff person in their respective area  -- to teach circle leaders facilitation skills prior to the first circle event. FMCS Commissioner Rosa Tiscareno did just that in Chicago.

Participants at the Nov. 10 event ate and socialized before and after the program.  They liked it so much that they are ‎planning the second mentoring circle event early in the New Year.

Participants noted that mentoring circles would be worthwhile for other CLUW chapters, local union women’s committees, churches, youth groups and chapters of other constituency groups.

Jeanne Cameron (Il Alliance for Retied Americans) observed, "This would be useful for IL ARA inter-generational work.”

A few days after the event, a workshop based on the Chicago experience, was held at the CLUW Women's Leadership Skills Conference in Las Vegas.  Responses there were also enthusiastic, including the following comments:

"Excellent workshop. Content was informative and inspirational; liked presentation and passion of presenters. Great job."  Bob Wilkerson, IFPTE

"AFSCME International's Women's Leadership Academy has a formal mentoring program; AFSCME 13 is in the process of developing a professional mentoring program for staff and it is offering a ‘How to develop a local mentoring women's committee’ at its 2017 statewide women's conference.” Carla Insinga, AFSCME DC13, CLUW National VP

Special note: Carolyn Jacobson, [email protected], 202.508.6901, has prepared a packet of materials for chapters (or individual members) wanting to start a mentoring circle. It includes a template flier, a draft cover memo to send with the flier to the CLC, FMCS contact information, an overview of mentoring circles, a check-list to prepare for the event and additional resources. Contact her if you want to receive this packet.
 

Holiday Eating Without Regrets

(Editor's note: Starting in January of this year, we have been posting each month a column from our women's health ally, HealthyWomen. Each column we feature is written by HealthyWomen and appears on their website that month. The selected column relates back to preferences of respondants to our women's health survey of labor union women (conducted by CLUW) in the fall of 2015.  As we have noted on the top of each posting -- we also have archived each post, which you can find on the top of the homepage under "HealthyWomen."
 

Our agreement with HealthyWomen was to run these monthly posts for one year, which means this is the last column we will post -- unless we hear from you that you would like for us to continue these posts. You can email us with this request at: [email protected], with this subject line: HealthyWomen).

From rich, golden eggnog to densely moist sweet potato pie, tempting food treats seem to be everywhere during the holiday season. No wonder many of us believe that, at this time of year, loading on lots of extra weight is inevitable.

Yet the average person gains only about one pound from November to January (those who are overweight gain more). The real problem: weight you add during the holidays tends to remain with you months later, accounting for more than half of annual gain.

The solution isn't to diet your way through the festive season. "It's important not to feel like you've deprived yourself. But there's a fine line between enjoying and overdoing," says Bethany Thayer, M.S., R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and a dietitian for Health Alliance Plan, the medical insurance arm of Henry Ford Health System, in Detroit.
 
Make your strategy simply to hold your weight steady. You can achieve that goal with help from your senses of taste, feel and smell.  Read more here.

l-r: LizMcElroy, Connie Leak, Terry O'Neill, Rachel Lyons and Judy Beard

CLUW’s Conference: ” Where Do We Go From Here: The Path Continues” had been in formation for months but who knew what to expect after the recent election results? We were thrilled when 225 conference attendees and subject matter experts arrived in Las Vegas for 3 days (November 14-16) of empowerment, hands on education, skills building, election analysis, grappling with issues confronting women and making plans for the future. 

The opening plenary started with a welcome from President Connie Leak followed by a warm greeting from Rusty McAllister, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Nevada State AFL-CIO who informed us that there were about 525 full time staff in Nevada from labor and about ½ million doors were knocked to get out the vote. To address the “2016 Elections and Mobilizing for the Future” we heard from a trio who are well versed in the issues of labor and working women: Liz McElroy, Deputy Political Department Director, AFL-CIO; Rachel Lyons, Sr. Government Affairs Mgr., National Partnership for Women & Families and Terry O’Neill, President, National Organization for Women. Liz confirmed that while union members voted for Hillary it was not in the numbers that were needed.  Clinton received 8 1/2 million less votes than Obama and ‘we underestimated the role that sexism played in the election’. However, there were successes in the Senate: Kamala Harris-CA, Tammy Duckworth- IL, Maggie Hassan, NH and Catherine Cortez Masto- NV.  Rachel continued by acknowledging that the momentum for issue based work for working families: equal pay, paid family leave and combatting pregnancy discrimination remain strong and our stalwarts: Representatives DeLauro and Pelosi and Senator Gillibrand will be there to take up the torch. She went on to say that we have made progress on paid leave in the states and will continue to battle in that arena. Terry took the podium and expressed her apologies for the 53% of white women that voted for Trump but congratulated the 94% of Black women who voted for Hillary and supported her platform.  She reminded us that Hillary was a pro-choice feminist who garnered over 2 million more of the popular vote over Trump. She brought the house to their feet with a rousing “No, we won’t go back!” Read more here.

Some of the young people who attended the Conference.

On 11/15/16 conference attendees participated in the CLUW Mannequin Challenge.

President Connie Leak reports to the delegates (pictured along with some of the National Officers Council)

One hundred and twenty CLUW activists from throughout the country met at the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel only days after the 2016 election to plan, strategize and mobilize for the year ahead. President Connie Leak in her report to the delegates acknowledged that she had hoped the election results would have been different, but that did not change our resolve.  “As women we know what it means to struggle and no matter what the future may bring we will work to make life better for working women. That is our mission. That is what we will do.”  She received a standing ovation when she asked the crowd if they were “with her”.

Part of this strategy involves growing CLUW and 2 new chapters received charters at the meeting – see photos for more information. Debra Berko, Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Nevada CLC brought greetings and updated us on election victories in her state.  See information here.

Twenty-three committees met to map out plans for the future in areas such as electoral organizing (recognizing the importance of senate races in 2018), community partnership, legislative/political action (fighting right to work legislation in the states) and immigration and its impact on women and families, for example.  Read more here.

Maggie Cook (Pres. Of LA CLUW Chapter) seated accepts charter for CLUW of Orange County chapter. Behind her are Pres. Leak, Treasurer Judy Beard and Renee James.

Together, the Labor Coalition for Community Action, which includes the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Pride at Work, rises in solidarity with Native Americans and our allies in protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and defending Native lands from exploitation by corporations and the U.S. government. We advocate for a progressive labor movement rooted in dignity and respect of all peoples, including Native Americans and their families. See full press release here.