NATCA Recognizes Scholarship Winners: Erin Murray
Every year, NATCA offers a scholarship program for spouses, children, stepchildren, and legally adopted children of active, retired, and deceased members in good standing for at least two b consecutive years. This scholarship is for full-time attendance at accredited colleges and universities within the United States and its territories for an undergraduate degree program.
Last year’s prompt asked candidates to examine the factors that can either strengthen or weaken labor unions.
Erin Murray, child of Matthew Murray (Boston Center, ZBW) is among last year’s 20 scholarship winners. Read the essay that Erin submitted below:
Unions are drowning. They are left flailing after years of no support from the government, right-to-work acts being passed, and companies only receiving a slap on the wrist for crushing union efforts. The purpose has never left the cause, but the spirit is dipping, and many people are beginning to see unions as obsolete and unhelpful after years of backwards progress. Unions face many struggles from the outside, anti-union propaganda and blatant union busting has been all too common in recent times, but a greater threat that unions are facing is a slow crumbling from the inside due to poor communication and misaligned goals between leadership and members.
A union is an organization made to benefit and support workers from the ground up. The original focus of every union is making sure no employee is mistreated by their supervisors. However, this intention is sometimes lost as the union grows, and leadership moves farther away from being just another member. The most dangerous instance of miscommunication for the stability of unions is when leadership and members are not on the same page about their goals. This is caused by leaders who do not interact with their members, do not experience what the members do, and forget what it is like to be a regular employee within the organization. This is what causes the most animosity within a union. The feelings of being ignored and not being heard brews distrust into every level of the organization except the top. A member who is paying to be in the union and putting in time and effort for the cause should not feel like they are an afterthought. Though many members will have different perspectives on many issues, that won’t matter if none of the issues they find important are ever discussed or handled.
Solving these miscommunications is much more difficult than just telling leadership to listen because, in many cases, they are so far removed from their members that they truly believe that they are listening, they are helping, and that their goals are perfectly aligned with the rest of the organization. The best solution to this is by reconnecting leadership with their members directly. Meetings should be made on a fairly regular basis that involve members getting to speak their goals and ideas directly to people higher up in the ranks of the union. These meetings should have the option of anonymity because, even if unfounded, there will always be fears of retribution when airing grievances. Members who attend the meetings could be volunteers who feel their voice is not heard or could be selected randomly and encouraged to speak about how they feel the union is doing on addressing their main concerns and solving their most pressing issues. Hearing directly from those who are most affected by any change is the most effective way to ensure that issues that are being focused on reflect the concerns of those impacted.
We’re currently accepting applications for 2026-2027 students! The deadline is March 1, 2026. Find more information on eligibility requirements and how to apply at natca.org/community/scholarship-application/.
