What is Union Summer?
Union Summer is an educational internship in which participants are introduced to the labor movement through union organizing campaigns. It will begin with a weeklong orientation and training, which will be held June 17-21. After the orientation, interns will work in teams on union organizing campaigns across the country. Interns will play an important role in helping build support for workers trying to gain a voice in their workplaces and in their communities.
The work interns will be doing could include:
Recent Union Summer Activities
Georgia Union Summer interns joined a coalition led by the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) in an international day of action to pressure Walmart and Gap to stop the use of unsafe factories that have killed more than 1,800 workers in Bangladesh since 2005. To date, the two corporate giants have refused to sign on to a legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh that would go a long way toward making workers in Bangladesh. The photos below are before a Gap store in Atlanta.
Internship Requirements
Union Summer interns should be dedicated to social and economic justice and have a specific desire to learn about the labor movement. It is NOT necessary to have union experience or knowledge of the labor movement to be accepted as a Union Summer intern, but such a background is a plus in the application process.
Union Summer interns must be:
- Flexible,
- Adaptable in the face of new challenges and experiences,
- Able to work in teams and have excellent communications skills,
- Open to working with people of different races, ethnic backgrounds, religions and sexual orientations,
- Willing to immerse themselves in an intensive, learning-by-doing experience, and
- Able to work sometimes long and irregular hours.
A sense of humor is also a definite asset.
APPLICATION
Application deadline was April 30.
Interns will receive a stipend of $350 per week, minus taxes. Union Summer does not provide a housing allowance. Accepted applicants must have housing in cities where Union Summer sites have been designated, which are:
- Atlanta, GA
- Austin, TX
- Los Angeles, CA
- Mobile, AL
- Portland, OR
- Washington, DC
The AFL-CIO Union Summer program is designed to introduce young activists to the labor movement through union organizing campaigns and to encourage them to think about careers as union organizers and researchers. The Union Summer program is committed to achieving diversity among interns which reflects, as closely as possible, the diversity of the workforce with which we are working.
The above interests and qualities should be demonstrated clearly in the written Union Summer application and in the interview process.
