In the 22 years he has been a union organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Muskegon native Jim Rudicil has preached "using all the tools in your toolbox" as a way to communicate with, and organize nonunion workers and employers.

Over the years, some of the organizing policies and practices that have been used, discarded (and perhaps re-used) including: picket lines, handbilling, salting, legal action, top-down (approaching the employer), and bottom-up (approaching the worker).

"What works sometimes just depends on the local market," Rudicil said last week, commenting on the IBEW's major organizing push in Florida. Rudicil is leading the IBEW's "Florida Initiative," which began in earnest 18 months ago.

Not long after the effort began, Florida, like most other states, ran smack into a statewide housing slump brought on by the national credit crisis. Residential construction in Florida has slowed big-time, and that has pushed electrical firms and workers from residential into commercial work, where they may not have experience bidding jobs or doing the work.

That change may translate into opportunity for the IBEW and National Electrical Contractors Association contractors, who are aggressively seeking out nonunion workers forced by the job squeeze to earn less than they were making a year ago - and who are not happy about it. Unions and their contractors have instituted a new wage package in order to be competitive and able to target those workers.

When it comes to organizing, Rudicil said the personal approach is working best in the Sunshine State and in other parts of the South - with NECA contractors actively involved in the process. Together with the Florida Initiative's mobile international union staff of 11, plus local union representatives, they're regularly holding "blitzes" as part of their latest organizing strategy. The IBEW organizers make unannounced visits to jobsites, find the electricians, hand out fliers, and then quickly leave. "Some get caught, most don't," Rudicil said. "Word usually gets around anyway."

The news on one flier pointed out the disparity between the median wage of an electrician in Green Bay, Wisconsin ($23.52) vs. the median wage of an Orlando electrician ($16.48). The flier also pointed out that when it comes to Social Security benefits, a 40-year-old Florida electrician retiring in 22 years would receive $9,370 less per year than his counterpart in Wisconsin.

"Find out what you can do to change that," the flier said in bold print. "You owe it to your family." Also on it is an invitation a few days in advance for the nonunion electricians to bring their families to a get-together at a local hotel ballroom.

At the hotel, Rudicil said "two things get the attention of the workers. The money and the employers." The IBEW wage package for South Florida is $25 on the check plus $8 in fringes. In the Orlando area, the union wage package is $20 on the check plus $8 in fringes.

Besides the upgrade in pay, union employers are present to show that there are companies willing and able to hire electricians at the higher rate. An average of 60 nonunion workers have attended the industry nights, with an average of six union employers participating.

"We don't go heavy on the union stuff, by and large they're interested in the wages and the employers," Rudicil said. "There has definitely been a learning curve in teaching the employers how to interact with these guys. But really it's all about educating the workers and helping them make as good a decision as possible."

The union-management collaboration shows prospective workers that both the IBEW and the National Electrical Workers Contractors Association are on their side. A dialogue can be opened at a neutral site. Bilingual organizers are available. Contractors get an opportunity to see the quality and quantity of available electricians.

Names and contact information gleaned from the industry nights allow unions and contractors to build a database of potential hires. There are now more than 2,000 contacts in the database. Job offers by union contractors give workers the confidence to demand more money - which may make union employers more competitive in the future. And union employers are given a voice in organizing efforts, which is rarely the case elsewhere.

"We're reinventing a union movement in the state of Florida," said IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill. "We've never targeted a state like this before. We're throwing everything we have into it."

The strategy seems to be working: IBEW membership in Florida has jumped 13 percent since it began, with the increases coming from individuals and groups.

The IBEW Journal reported that arbitrary work rule changes and stagnant wages and benefits led 300 municipal utility workers in the city of Lakeland to IBEW Local 108. Plant operator Chris McPherson left his job and a membership at IBEW Local 3 in New York to move South, where he describes the difference between the two work environments as night and day. "Here, there's a lot of nepotism and favoritism that goes on," McPherson said. "I told them the only way to defeat this is to bring the union in."

Rudicil said in the hope that success breeds success, similar blitz strategies are also ongoing in Georgia and the Carolinas, where the downturn in construction has been less severe. Through the year ending in February 2008, IBEW membership in North Carolina was up 27 percent

"There's a blitz going on in Charlotte even as we speak," Rudicil said. "This effort has worked better than anything we've ever tried so far."