I strongly believe that organizations that want to survive and grow must be willing and able to respond to change. We as a Union must be ready to adapt to new circumstances, and to make necessary changes to strengthen our organization and be wise enough to recognize what already works.

This is why I implemented the Strategic Planning committee as part of my three-year plan in 2007. This March marked our combined fourth and fifth strategic planning retreat at the National Labor College in Silver Springs, Maryland.

The term may sound vague, but strategic planning covers a wide range of issues that affect all of us, and it has provided me with a succinct description of what our organization should look like once all plans are actualized. Twenty-seven local Presidents from across all divisions, international staff members and our dedicated and exceptional facilitator, attorney Mark Richard, participated in this March’s retreat.

We collaborated on issues like how to monitor federal economic stimulus funding and transit authority recipients, member organizing techniques, providing information on green jobs and working towards the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, among others. One plan for the future is to work towards the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration bill, which was just passed by the House in late May. I hope that our work on the FAA bill will help lead to its complete passage with our needs and ideas incorporated.

Over the last few years I’ve been pleased to see an increase in activism within our various sub-groups responsible for different areas of strategic planning. This team work has helped to identify areas that have required some major shifts within the union and to recommend successful ways to make necessary changes. As a result, we have accomplished over 82 percent of the recommended changes that came out of our previous sessions. I feel confident that our plans formed during the March session will have an equal or even better success rate.

Thank you to all participants who took the time to assess our organization in our internal planning sessions.

Based on the success of the last three years my plan is to continue our internal planning sessions twice a year and to add external strategic goals to our agenda in the next few months. External planning is necessary to deal with the rapidly changing global economy and its current impact on public and private sectors.

On the issue of change, you are currently holding one of our most tangible forms of recent change, the redesign of the Express. You may have noticed the updated look (and hopefully you like it too). This July you will find that our website, twu.org, also has a new and improved look. You will find a more usable and aesthetically pleasing site that will provide more current information, intriguing multimedia and increased interactivity.

I am excited about the changes that will come from our most recent strategic planning session and look forward to continuing to work with members and officers from all locals to ensure a bright future for TWU.