America's unions are taking the lead in launching a host of labor-community High Road Regional Partnerships for good jobs and strong communities. Local unions are coming together under the umbrella of their Central Labor Councils and State Labor Federations and creating new levels of activity and effectiveness within their regional economies. By joining together with community groups they are further multiplying their impact, turning unused potential power into real effectiveness in shaping their jobs and communities. Union initiatives with management are building labor-management partnerships for making industries more effective with better jobs, stronger skills and more successful companies.

Tools for Building the

Union and community leaders around the country are asking, "How can we start the process of building these high road partnerships. This issue of the Working for America Journal begins to supply answers to that question.

Building high road regional partnerships and industry partnerships requires certain basic tools. People who want to build new high road partnerships need tools so they can begin effective action in a number of directions:

• We need to analyze what's going on in our communities and industries, to understand the terrain on which our work will take place. Where are jobs being created? And are they good jobs or bad jobs?
• We need to be able to carry out effective strategic planning, to bring together the major social stakeholders in unions, community groups and high road employers to build strategies for winning within our economic environments.
• We need to understand how to build ongoing effective partnerships with the natural allies of working families in the broader community.
• We need to know how to use existing government programs including the Workforce Investment Act and other specific programs - to increase labor's capacity to impact workers, jobs, and labor markets in our communities and industries.
• We need to have models for turning difficult challenges - like the growing use of temporary and contingent workers - into strategic opportunities for building new institutions to expand effective worker voice, in the workplace and in our communities.

  Tools for Building the High Road Roadmaps to the Future Building Labor-Community Alliances   Innovative Strategies for Workers in High Tech

This edition of the Working for America Journal is designed to start delivering some of these tools for building the high road in our communities and industries. This volume draws on presentations by leading high road practitioners at the Institute's1999 national conference. The three articles here bring together insights from some of the leading thinkers and leading high road initiatives. The first two address how to plan and develop broad regional partnerships:

• Roadmaps to the Future - Using Research and Strategic Planning to Chart a High Road Course: Carrying out regional assessments and stakeholder-based strategic planning in our communities and industries.
• Building Labor-Community Alliances - Mobilizing the resources and talents of the entire community to create effective high road strategies.

• Innovative Strategies for Workers in High Tech - sharing important examples of unions that are changing how they do their work to meet the needs of increasingly insecure workers in telecommunications and other high tech sectors.

The overviews here also serve as summaries for a new series of Working for America Working Papers that will give a more in-depth look at these and a dozen or more other current strategic issues about how to build high road regional partnerships. Topics will range from an overview of the new Workforce Investment Act to programs for particular group of workers (for example, new entrants, youth, dislocated workers, temporary workers) to initiatives in particular sectors (health care, apparel, metal working, food processing) and programs for building capacity for effective programs (economic development, creating nonprofit organizations, identifying sources for fundraising, developing skill standards initiatives).

Working for America is also developing practical tools for use in creating high road partnerships that will be produced in upcoming months. These include:

• An Overview of High Road Regional Partnerships - What are the existing high road regional partnerships? How they are being built? What they are accomplishing?
• Tools for Assessing your Community's Economy - Where are the jobs? The good jobs? Which industries are adding or losing jobs? How equally are income and wealth distributed?

We at Working for America Institute look forward to working with you and other union, community and business leaders to help create more high road partnerships for our communities and industries.

Contents

Tools for Building the High Road Roadmaps for the Future Building Union-Community Alliances Innovative Strategies for Workers in High Tech   Updates What's New on the Web In Memory: Tony Suazo

The Working for America Journal is published by the Working for America Institute 815 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006. tel: 202-638-3912 800-842-4734 fax: 202-783-6536 website: www.workingforamerica.org Contact Us The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute assists unions, employers, communities and public agencies in building good jobs and strong communities. The Working for America Journal is prepared under Grant No. G-5915-6-00-87-60 from the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, under the authority of the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982. Grantees undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to freely express their professional judgment. Therefore, points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent the official position or policy of the U.S. Department of Labor