Research Tips

Here, I’ll offer some tips on doing organizational research in general and the UAW specifically.

1. Take a deep breath! In the course of doing research, you will run across things that on the surface, make you think you’ve found corruption or whatever. You’ll find conflicting information that doesn’t make sense. You’ll want to go screaming at the top of your lungs to bring attention to it. Don’t. Just take a deep breath. Maybe sleep on it. Think though what the generous explanation is.
2. Talk with someone else. When you find something, run it by other people you know who would be in a position to know.
3. The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
4. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
5. Fault lines aren’t always stable nor predictable. Coalitions within the IEB are not as stable and predictable as you’d think. Different people hold different views on various issues.
6. Get some Moleskine notebooks to keep notes. I am not trying to sell Moleskine notebooks, but you can get them at Barnes and Noble and they are great to keep notes in. I have several 5″x8″ ruled notebooks. It is so much better than loose leaf because I end up losing or misplacing loose leaf notes. Keeping the notes in notebooks makes it less likely to lose them and it helps to keep your notes together.
7. Get some cloud storage and be a pack rat. Cloud storage is cheap these days, and free up to limits. Google, DropBox, MS One Drive, there are many out there, use what you like best. Anything of interest, save it to your cloud storage. Err on the side of saving too much. Websites and files you see online today may not be there tomorrow. Print to pdf in your browser to save copies of them. Print important emails to pdf and save them. Think through a directory structure that makes sense for your research. This all helps later, you can do keyword searches of your files to find the files you are looking for!
8. Learn how to use spreadsheets. This is critical if you are doing any kind of financial research or analysis. Learn to make charts too. Use whatever you are comfortable with, Google Sheets, MS Excel, Open Office, etc. There is a lot of online training you can take for free.
9. Words matter. So do instructions. You’ll run across words that have specific meanings in the legal, financial, or regulatory context. A law dictionary is helpful. Old finance and accounting textbooks are great. There are online finance dictionaries. With government documents (DOL LM2, IRS 990, etc.) there are instruction manuals online that tell people how to complete the forms. Download these and save them for each year form you are studying (the manuals often change from year to year, so saving the old instruction manuals may be helpful in interpreting past years’ forms). Often they will tell you exactly what certain data mean.
10. Data aren’t perfect. The regulatory forms (DOL LM2, IRS 990, etc.) often contain mistakes. The UAW’s forms are getting pretty good now that we have a Monitor and everybody else watching us with a microscope. At the local level, and in smaller organizations, the mistakes are often more noticeable. Usually the bigger the organization, the better they are filled out. But the DOL and IRS have a lot going on without a lot people to do the work, so they often look the other way with minor reporting errors. But if you see something amiss, you can still bring it up to the UAW or your local.
11. Different reporting bodies/forms often use different definitions. For example, the number of UAW members, you will often run across different numbers. For example, the LM2 reports the number of members, but the Secretary-Treasurer reports a different number of members on the financial report to members at the Conventions. Minor differences for sure, but different ways of calculating. Understanding these differences is important.
12. The UAW uses a modified cash accounting system. Usually, companies use an “accrual” method of accounting. In this method, income and expenses are booked as they are accrued, not when they are received or paid. In this method, assets, including investments, are booked at fair value, which often means market value. With the modified cash accounting system, income and expenses are booked as they are received or paid, when the cash changes hands. In many ways this is appropriate for unions. But assets and investments are booked at cost, and investment gains aren’t on the books until the investment is cashed in. Which means if the UAW buys $300 million in stocks, and over 5 years the value of those stocks increases steadily to $500 million, the investment is carried on the books at $300 million until the year they are sold, and in that year they book a $200 million investment gain. I have argued many times in various complaints this is misleading to members in an organization with such large investments (strike fund) relative to annual disbursements, when the IEB can churn these investments to realize investment gains at will. More about this later.
13. Accounting conventions change. The way the UAW works its accounting has minor differences over time. A change in auditors, a change in programs, etc. can drive these changes. I find the financial discussions in the verbatim IEB meeting minutes extremely helpful to understand these changes.
14. Triangulate. By this, I mean try to verify things you find out with other independent sources and methods. Think through the implications of what you think, and see if you observe the intended consequences. Check for alignment.
15. Know when you are getting snowed. If someone moves the goalposts on you, that’s a sign its a sham. If someone tells you there is more to this than you know, but then won’t tell you what it is that you don’t know, its a sham.
16. Show a bit of humanity. Of course we all want our elected and appointed representatives to represent us. They are highly paid, highly skilled politicians, and dedicated unionists. We have a right to hold their feet to the fire. But at the same time, they are human, with an incredibly difficult job to do in a complex political and social structure to get it done in. Show a bit of humanity in criticizing and arguing with others.
17. Your thinking should change, the more you do this. If not, you aren’t researching enough.
18. Don’t lose sight of what’s important. We live in a world with a lot of injustice, and our Union is one big part of the solution. Our Union isn’t perfect by any stretch, but it is and has been effective in winning justice. That’s what its all about. Don’t lose the faith. Organize! Build power! Win justice!