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• 1 2016-04-21T11:19:29-07:00 Organizing National and International Meetings 5 plain 2016-05-04T14:18:49-07:00 Of course, unions had meetings at the local level regularly, and district-level meetings would also have occurred frequently. National and international meetings, though, were large events that took a great deal of planning and forethought. The document provided at the bottom of this page shows the bulletin sent to each of the local unions of the UMWA about attendance of the thirtieth annual Constitutional Convention of the United Mine Workers of America. The convention is set up to allow the workers to meet and discuss matters of funding and policy for the entirety of the international organization. It would also allow local unions to meet and interact, possibly discussing things that have worked for one local union and giving ideas to other local unions about how they could better reach their goals in the future.
  
  This document has nineteen sections, starting with section two because these numbers are a subset of the organization's constitution. Sections two through fourteen deal with setting up the rules on who will attend the conference; in sum, each local union that is in good standing will elect a certain number of delegates based on the number of members of that local union. Section fifteen lays out a punishment of removal from office for any local leader that fails to post this bulletin, and sixteen simply lays out the procedure for changing the delegate that a local union wants to send. Seventeen through nineteen provide the stipulations for turning in a matter to be discussed at the convention, whether resolution, amendment, or grievance. Finally, the twentieth section provides the details of how many delegates the international organization will pay for based on a local union's membership.
  
  This document displays the forethought that must go into organizing such a large meeting. The organizers of the event have created this document to streamline the process and provide local unions with a quick and easy guide for what they need to do to prepare for this meeting. Each union must send a member, and any union that does not will be charged a fine, according to section four. The international organization is enforcing local participation, because of the union's reliance on democracy. A democracy needs voters, but the leadership of the UMWA recognizes that this convention is asking workers to take time off of work to help run the organization; therefore, incentives need to be given for participation.
  
  Of course, in addition to the ways that the leadership is promoting their democratic ideal, this is also showing a method of the spread of information within the organization. Not only is this bulletin itself showing the ways that the organization shares knowledge with its membership --in this case through a bulletin which has a severe punishment if not posted-- but also in the meeting itself. The delegates are expected to participate in the convention and bring the news back to their local unions on the results. By having a delegate or multiple delegates from each local union, the topics discussed at the international meeting will be spread throughout the country with minimal effort. In particular, it also allows for each local union to be able to prioritize the information that they want to know. Their delegate will bring back all of the information he can, and all of the results of any issue voted on will likely be published somewhere, but in the end the delegate is able to easily and directly share with all of his local union brothers the information that is most relevant to their situation, whether that is a specific change in funding, precedent-setting decision on an issue between an employer and a worker, or a policy decision that affects their local union in a large way.