Local 881 UFCW Internship
Domicle: Targeted Legislative Districts Across Illinois
Application: Fill out the following form and send a cover letter and resume to internships@local881ufcw.org
Position Summary:
Local 881 UFCW represents 34,000 members employed in retail food and drug stores throughout Illinois and Northwest Indiana, as well as a professional division comprised of health and nursing home workers, barbers and cosmetologists, and workers in other retail and service industries. Among the companies under contract with Local 881 are Jewel Food Stores, Osco Drug, Mariano’s Fresh Market, CVS Pharmacy, Kroger, Schnucks, Dierbergs, and many smaller chains and independent stores, as well as nursing homes and other business establishments. Local 881 is among the largest affiliates of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
The goal of Local 881 UFCW’s Legislative and Political division is to advocate on behalf of our 34,000 members at the local, state, and federal level. We do so both at the ballot box through our political work and in the seats of various governments through direct lobbying of elected officials.
Our political program will begin in earnest heading into the fall where we will embed in Tier 1 races throughout Chicagoland, Southern Illinois, and in the Metro East region in Southwestern Illinois to help endorsed candidates.
We will have a communications component for this position, helping our various legislative and political projects promote their message across multiple digital platforms, while also utilizing the latest analytical and big-data analysis of voter information to effectively engage and advocate on behalf of Local 881 members.
Supervision: Reports to Legislative and Political Director
Supervisory Responsibilities: N/A
Duties and Responsibilities:
• Help with voter registration efforts of our members
• Attend political events on behalf of Local 881 leadership
• Lead staff canvasses and phonebanks for Tier 1 legislative and local races on behalf of the labor-to-labor effort led by the Illinois AFL-CIO and Local 881
• Help develop content for digital platforms that help promote our legislative priorities and endorsed candidates
• Assist with creation of specialized communication and correspondence activities
• Data entry and management of voter database
• Conduct research for legislative and political projects
• Cost-benefit modeling of existing UFCW membership engagement programs
• Assist with daily office activities as assigned
• Performs other duties as required or assigned which are reasonably related to the duties enumerated above
Specific Skills:
• Access to a laptop
• Access to a personal car
• Reliable and detailed oriented, excellent organizational aptitude
• Positive “can-do” attitude and strong overall work ethic
• Work well with others in a team environment
• Ability to multi-task and focus a time-sensitive environment
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Policy Intern Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this internship, you will have learned:
• Best practices in policy research and data management
• The importance of engaging and communicating with progressive stakeholders, fellow unions, and elected officials to advance legislative and political priorities
• How to run a modern and effective field campaign both inside a candidate’s program and externally from an IE and Labor-to-Labor effort led by Local 881 UFCW
• How the modern labor movement fights for its members and working families both through legislation and political campaigns
• The history of Local 881 UFCW and the labor movement ‘s advocacy on behalf of workers in Illinois and the Midwest
• Specific functions of a modern private sector union by working with individual Local 881 UFCW departments. This would be accomplished by once a week having each department’s staff present on their duties and procedures, and then work with the interns in a shadowing program for that day.
o Union Representative and Field Staff
o Organizing
o Communications
o Collective Bargaining
o Data Processing and Membership Management
Fill out the following form (this link (https://goo.gl/forms/wrEGP3LY1YPMhaTE2) and send a cover letter and resume to internships@local881ufcw.org