Ask a Union Organizer: How should I get started with creating a union among doulas?

It’s our Ask a Union Organizer column! Each month, union organizers from across repro answer your most pressing questions about unionizing your reproductive health, rights, and justice workplace. Anything is fair game — how to unionize, when to unionize, and what to do when shit hits the fan.

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How can/should I get started with creating a union among doulas? Is it possible to create a union amongst contractors/self-employed people?

Dear Future Doula Unionist,

Yes, creating a union amongst contractors/self-employed people is possible!

The Freelance Solidarity Project of the National Writers Union is one example of a union explicitly for freelancers. Another example of sorts would be entertainment unions like SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild) and WGA (Writers Guild of America), which just landed significant new contracts for their members. These are examples of longer-standing unions representing people working on a contract basis. In repro specifically, Holler Health Justice is a non-profit with a worker self-directed model that has unionized with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) West Virginia state chapter.

You can think of a “union,” at its most basic level, as people coming together to advocate and bargain for their interests as a collective using the power of solidarity; we have more leverage with powerful people and institutions when we act together than as individuals. A tenant union is a group of people organizing to negotiate their rent and advocate around their housing conditions as a collective. A debtors’ union is a group of people working to negotiate and advocate for debt reduction and cancellation collectively. In labor unions, workers come together to advocate and bargain collectively around the terms and conditions of their employment. By forming unions, we can collectively exercise our power to withhold rent, debt payments, or labor until we get what we deserve.

A doula “union,” then, would involve doulas coming together to collectively bargain and advocate with the entities that most impact the terms and conditions of your work. For screen actors and writers, for example, collective bargaining agreements are negotiated with television and film production studios and include not just pay, but benefits like health insurance members can access despite mainly working on a short-term contract basis. For doulas, this might be hospital systems or birth centers where your members regularly support clients, and it could also involve setting minimum standards all individual clients must agree to. Unions also support workers throughout their contracts, particularly in dealing with people who have power over them in the workplace. For SAG or WGA members, this could mean intervening not just with a studio but also in situations involving an individual director or producer. For doulas, members might want help from the union in dealing with a hospital system policy, a specific medical provider, or a difficult situation with a client. Whatever your needs are, you and your members will know best! No one knows your work and the challenges you face as well as you do.

A lot of doulas already operate under a collective model that could serve as a starting point for forming a labor union. You can look into doula and birth worker training and accreditation organizations like CAPPA or DONA for assistance finding other doulas or birth workers in your area to organize with. Social media is also a great way to connect with other birth workers. And many are organizing together to achieve legislative and policy wins in coverage, for example. Groups like Los Deliveristas Unidos, while not technically trade unions, also offer examples of ways workers have come together to advocate for themselves by lobbying lawmakers rather than bargaining contracts with their employers. Consider contacting IWW and/or the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee for help. Doulas and birth workers are a wellspring of organizing potential overall!