Collective Bargaining Fights: What is a Contract Action Team and How CATs Power our Contract Campaign

The Contract Action Team (CAT) is the lynchpin of any successful bargaining campaign. It is a member-to-member network responsible for keeping the broader membership informed and engaged in the bargaining process, and for mobilizing the members to take action. 

Besides the roles and responsibilities of CATs, we will cover the basic concepts and skills involved in building a strategic, escalating campaign around staffing, wages, and benefits for nurses. 

With examples from NYSNA and other union campaigns, participants will be presented with strategies on how to put pressure on employers to achieve nurses’ contract demands. We will discuss what goes into a campaign plan, from the initial preparatory phases well ahead of the first bargaining session, to how to establish dominance at the bargaining table through member engagement and open bargaining, to the escalation phase building up to creating a crisis for the employer, to final resolution.