Free checklist
New officer checklist
Just elected or appointed? Here's a practical list for taking over your local's office, so nothing falls through the cracks in your first few weeks.
Week one: get the keys
- Get access to every account the local uses: email, bank (with your treasurer), website, social media, phone, and any software.
- Collect physical keys, office access, and the location of paper files and filing cabinets.
- Find out where the current member list lives, who keeps it, and when it was last updated.
- Get a copy of the current contract, any side letters, and past arbitration decisions.
- Set up a handoff meeting with the officer you're replacing, and write down what they tell you.
Open cases and deadlines
- List every open grievance and disciplinary case, with the member's name, the step it's at, and the next deadline.
- Check the contract's grievance procedure for each step's time limits, and put every upcoming deadline on a calendar.
- Confirm who is handling each case: which steward or rep, and whether they know it's theirs.
- Ask whether any deadlines have already been extended in writing, and keep a copy of every extension.
- Flag anything due in the next two weeks and deal with it first.
The member roster
- Get one complete, current roster, not several partial ones.
- Check it against the latest list from the employer, and add new hires and remove people who have left.
- Make sure each member has a department, status and assigned steward.
- Decide who on the board can see and edit the roster, and where it will be kept safely.
People
- Meet your stewards. Confirm who covers which department or shift, and how to reach them.
- Introduce yourself to the employer's labor relations contacts.
- Find out which members are most active, and who has open issues you'll hear about soon.
Records and continuity
- Decide where the local's records will live from now on, so the next officer doesn't start from scratch.
- Gather meeting minutes, past correspondence and case files into one place.
- Write down the routines you inherit: monthly meetings, reports to the membership, dues reconciliation, elections.
- Keep notes as you go. What you learn in your first month is exactly what your successor will need.
Put it all in one place
LaborWise was built for exactly this: one place for the roster, open cases with their deadlines, tasks, files and notes, so the local's records stay with the local when officers change.