Jesse Scheckner
As campaigns ramp up activity ahead of the General Election, staff members of a progressive field organization operating across five U.S. states are unionizing.
For Our Future, now active in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, announced Thursday that roughly 150 of its workers are immediately eligible to be in a union. That number should grow “significantly” in the coming months, the group said, as the Nov. 8 election nears.
By Election Day in 2020, For Our Future employed more than 1,000 field staff nationwide, the group said.
Sky Gallegos, executive director of For Our Future, said the organization voluntarily recognized the union and that it is “stronger and more productive” with a unionized field staff.
“As an organization that fights every day for workers, pro-worker candidates and shared economic prosperity, it is imperative that we live our values within our own organization,” she said in a statement.
The seeds of organization-wide unionization were planted in the fall of 2021, when workers from For Our Future Wisconsin banded together for collective bargaining purposes.
From there, they worked with For Our Future staff and management to expand their bargaining agreement — represented by the Madison-based local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — to include field staff from the remaining four states.
“IBEW Local 2304 is proud to represent frontline workers at For Our Future,” said Nate Rasmussen, president and business manager of IBEW Local 2304.
“These workers are well-educated on the values of having a union and engaged fully throughout the organizing process. I am proud of what our bargaining unit workers were able to accomplish with (For Our Future) management throughout the course of negotiating and ratifying a first contract, (and) IBEW looks forward to building on the mutually beneficial partnership.”
For Our Future Florida has referred to itself as the Sunshine State’s largest permanent progressive field program. During the 2020 election cycle, it claimed by October to have generated more than 4.6 million calls and 2.7 million texts as part of a collaboration with Michael Bloomberg’s $100 million investment in the state.
