UNITE HERE Union

Union, Organizing, Worker Rights, Activism

UNITE HERE is a labor union that represents 300,000 workers across Canada and the United States whose members work in the hotel, gaming, food services, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries.

The Challenge

UNITE HERE was looking to modernize the system infrastructure supporting its overall union operations. Their antiquated membership management system was 20 years old and was no longer able to grow with the organization.

Solution

UNITE HERE selected Bursting Silver as a key consulting partner to work closely with them to implement iMIS, their chosen technology platform. Bursting Silver worked closely with UNITE HERE to map their business processes, configuring the core solution and developing multiple unique, yet uniform, local solutions. Over several planned phases, Bursting Silver delivered a modern membership system and organizing solution that met their unique needs. The solution was branded ‘Se Puede’. The ‘Se Puede’ Membership System was phase one of the initiative and the scope included:
  • Complex billing and checkoff automation
  • Uniform per capita calculation and submission
  • A decision-making interface to update membership information from Bargaining Unit Lists and other mass information sources
  • Enhanced functional security and more
Subsequently, the ‘Se Puede’ Organizing System was developed to provide timely and high quality data for the use by their organizers on the ground. Additionally, the system needed to be available in  both English and Spanish and be accessible for users  a varying level of comfort with technology.  

Results

 On the membership side, UNITE HERE solved several administration pain points and successfully improved key elements of their system ecosystem that will grow with the organization. This allowed UNITE HERE to successfully retire their antiquated membership administration system for a uniform enterprise solution. On the organizing side, UNITE HERE organizers have increased confidence in their data. .  M. Staff spend less time pulling lists and gathering forms and more time with their members. Bursting Silver also worked with UNITE HERE in terms of the rollout and change management, by designing a rapid rollout strategy. The strategy was grounded in the following key principles – standardization, invest in training and a focus on change management. As a result, UNITE HERE and Bursting Silver have successfully implemented the ‘Se Puede’ system to 28 locals in a period of 5 months.

Next Steps

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