<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">peter waterman</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:peterwaterman1936@gmail.com">peterwaterman1936@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 4:01 PM<br>Subject: [Networkedlabour] Alex White: Unions and the Newest Media: Is this their Future?<br>To: <a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a>, Networked Labour <<a href="mailto:wordpress@networkedlabour.net">wordpress@networkedlabour.net</a>>, <a href="mailto:CRITICAL-LABOUR-STUDIES@jiscmail.ac.uk">CRITICAL-LABOUR-STUDIES@jiscmail.ac.uk</a><br>
<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small"><br clear="all"></div><br><h1>Is this the future of unions?</h1><ul><li> <span>March 19, 2014</span></li><li> <a href="http://alexwhite.org/category/blog/" title="View all posts in Blog" rel="category tag" target="_blank">Blog</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/category/blog/campaign/" title="View all posts in Campaigning" rel="category tag" target="_blank">Campaigning</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/category/blog/politics/" title="View all posts in Politics" rel="category tag" target="_blank">Politics</a></li>
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<div><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/cws/share?url=http://alexwhite.org/2014/03/future-unions/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></span><span>5</a></div></div><p>There
is a tide starting to rise in the world of progressive activism, and
unions in Australia and globally may get caught in it.</p><p>The tide is
comprised of decentralised, leaderless, temporary movements, empowered
by online organising platforms like MoveOn, Change.org, Avaaz, Twitter
and Facebook. These platforms have given everyday people unprecedented
power to come together quickly and in large numbers over a very short
period of time to achieve a common goal, and then disperse.</p><p>In my
view, these changes are largely being driven by generational attitudes
and the rapid deployment of “disruptive technology”.</p><p>For
progressive institutions, like unions or non-profits like Amnesty
International, Oxfam, Greenpeace or the Sierra Club, there are both
great opportunities and significant risks.</p><p>As a case study, I’d
like to look at a campaign run by United Voice in Queensland. United
Voice is a progressive union that represents minimum-wage workers like
cleaners, childcare professionals, security guards, bakers and the like.</p><p>For
many years, United Voice has been organising at the Brisbane Airport.
The airport, despite being majority owned by industry superannuation
funds, including Australian Super (the fund for cleaners), used contract
cleaning. This form of employment is particularly exploitative of
international students, whose Visa conditions make it unlawful to work
more than a certain number of hours per week. However, the contractor
would often ignore this and employ the international students for more
hours.</p><p>As was reported in <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-airport-rocked-by-sexual-abuse-allegations-20131114-2xj4t.html" target="_blank">the Brisbane Times</a>,
this resulted in an unethical cleaning supervisor at the Brisbane
airport blackmailing women international students for sexual favours.
United Voice raised this and other unlawful employment practices with
the management of the Brisbane Airport but were told it was a contractor
issue, and thus not the responsibility of the Airport.</p><p>United Voice decided to <a href="http://www.coworker.org/petitions/brisbane-airport-stop-deportation-of-women-workers" target="_blank">run a petition on the site CoWorker</a>
about the sexual abuse taking place, and in a very short space of time,
over 2,800 people signed the petition. The person fronting the petition
was one of the young international student cleaners who worked at the
Airport and had witnessed the supervisor’s sexual abuse and was speaking
out.</p><p>Within a few days, the Airport was forced to act. The
supervisor was fired and investigated by the police, and the Airport
management agreed to negotiate with the union over various employment
matters for the cleaners.</p><p>This on the one hand was a great result of the union and the workers.</p><p>But
it highlights an underlying fundamental. Although it was the union who
had done most of the organisation behind the scene, there was nothing
union-specific about the tactic which had resulted in the win. Anyone
could have set up that petition.</p><p>In fact, the <a href="http://www.coworker.org/categories" target="_blank">CoWorker site is filled with examples</a>
of everyday people organising actions in the workplace where there is a
union vacuum. People within and outside a workplace are coming together
very quickly to take action on a specific issue. Union campaigners
should be both heartened and worried at this.</p><p>If workers don’t need a union institution to win change in their workplace, what will cause them to join in the future?</p><p>Another
example of the rise of these decentralised, leaderless movements, is
the Occupy movement that sprung up in 2011 and quickly spread throughout
the industrialised world. People came together in a decentralised,
disorganised, leaderless way, empowered by social networks and the
Internet, and then dispersed leaving no institution behind.</p><p>A more recent Australian version is the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/marchinmarch" target="_blank">“March in March” Facebook movement</a>,
which saw over 50,000 people take to the streets on Sunday 16th of
March. While it remains to be seen whether this movement turns into
anything, the reality is that thinking about permanence or “demands”
utterly misunderstands what these groups are.</p><p>Rather than express
their dissatisfaction and frustration through formal institutions,
30,000 people march in Melbourne and tens of thousands in Sydney,
Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart, Perth, Brisbane and Alice Springs, simply
through a Facebook page. This is a fundamental shift in how civic
protests organise themselves. They come together quickly, then disperse.
Are traditional advocacy institutions relevant in these circumstances?</p><p>For
other non-profits, you just need to look at platforms like Avaaz and
Change.org which regularly campaign on environmental or human rights
issues, putting similar pressure on the Sierra Club or Amnesty.</p><p>In
response to crisis-levels of membership density in the USA and New
Zealand, the peak union bodies have decided to adopt a new
organisational model to promote unionism and collective action. The
response is (in my view) largely due to very hostile anti-worker laws,
which place severe restrictions on what registered unions can do.</p><p>In the USA, the AFL-CIO has created <a href="http://www.workingamerica.org/" target="_blank">Working America</a>,
a “community affiliate”. Working America campaigns outside the
workplace for the various social and economic objectives of unions, and
works to build a membership from non-unionised working people who
traditionally are viewed as Republicans or “Fox News viewers”.</p><p>Membership of Working America is free, although members are encouraged to become regular donors, in place of membership dues.</p><p>By
all accounts, the Working America experiment is very successful. Free
of the legal straightjackets imposed by the US Labor laws, Working
America is more agile and responsive than many traditional unions.
Additionally, models like Working America facilitate working people to
organise in hostile anti-union workplaces like Walmart.</p><p>People who
have never had a union experience can learn what it is like to act
collectively and win dignity at work. Without the requirement to
formally register a union, workers can organise and take action without
the legal strictures of a union ballot and the risks of union-busting
campaigns by employers.</p><p>Similarly, there is an interesting experiment in New Zealand that is similar to Working America. Called <a href="http://www.together.org.nz/" target="_blank">Together</a>,
the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions is attempting to organise a
very dangerous, un-unionised workforce in the forestry industry.</p><p>The
forestry industry in NZ is rife with unethical contracting and
subcontracting, which has resulted in low safety standards and an
unprecedented level of workplace deaths. It is also un-unionised and New
Zealand’s workplace laws place very onerous restrictions on unions and
workers to organise an employer or workplace.</p><p>The NZCTU in
response has created a community model of unionism in Together, where
the cost of entry is just a dollar and members are encouraged to donate
in lieu of regular membership dues.</p><p>Members of Together get the
full benefits of union membership, including workplace advice and
assistance, and advocacy, although (as far as I’m aware) distinct from
the formal legal structures that a union would have.</p><p>Together is
New Zealand-wide effort, with something particularly interesting
happening in the forestry sector. The NZCTU and the First Union, which
has formal coverage over forestry, have created First Forestry Together.
Because the largest traditional barrier to entry (membership dues) has
been removed, Together is finding that their organising conversations
with forestry workers and their families has become much easier.
Together has Family membership options (so parents can join up their
kids who may work in forestry), and also Whanau membership (Whanau are
Maori extended families). Remember, the objective in this case is to
organise the forestry industry, rather than to grow a union’s financial
membership on paper.</p><p>Together is also able to be more agile and
responsive than a traditional union, and explore more innovative methods
of organising and fundraising. They’ll soon be exploring widening their
coverage and making membership completely free, with the objective of
unionising the un-unionised.</p><p>I’m very excited about both Together and Working America.</p><p>I
hope these kinds of organisational models straddle the generational and
technical divides that I referred to at the start of this article.
Unions and progressive organisations need to experiment with different
organisation models which are leaner, more adaptive and more responsive,
and willing to make mistakes or change direction. Ironically, one of
the union movement’s greatest strengths – their organisation itself –
can also be a weakness.</p><p>Tim Lyons, from the ACTU, talked about this challenge <a href="http://actu.org.au/Media/Speechesandopinion/TimLyonsclosingaddresstotheAustralianUnionsOrganisingConferenceMelbourne28February2014.aspx" target="_blank">in his speech at the recent ACTU organising conference</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>We need to change.</p><p>We
need to bust open our structures in way that makes our organising more
sustainable in more places. The traditional model of trade union
organisation – a union shop with a collective agreement, remains a
powerful force for good. It has changed millions of workers lives for
the better and it still can. We need to make that work everywhere we
can, and break down barriers – within unions and between unions – to
making it work</p><p>But we also need to recognise that we need
different models as well – that we can’t make that traditional model
work everywhere. We need to have different models of membership and
organisation.</p><p>The ACTU is thinking and talking with union leaders
about how we move a program of change: in traditional organising, in
alternative membership and organising models, in how we do politics and
influence public policy, and in how we influence capital markets and be
better stewards of workers’ capital. Your thinking and talking at this
conference is an important contribution to that.</p></blockquote><p>I’m
heartened to hear the likes of Tim Lyons, as well as union leaders in
the USA and New Zealand, willing to think differently about the future
of unions. The great risk for unions, not to mention other progressive
institutions, is that they will become irrelevant to everyday people.</p><p>Especially
in geographic or industry areas with low or no union presence, adopting
these kinds of new models of activism and membership are essential to
remaining relevant, and assisting working people to win dignity at work.</p> <div><div><h3>Share</h3><div><ul><li><br></li><li><br></li><li><br></li><li>
<br></li><li><br></li></ul></div></div></div><div><h3>Google+</h3><div><a href="https://plus.google.com/111113302218133256858" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TCWMozfQ97Y/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAACLk/axnt1ntxQHY/photo.jpg?sz=40" alt="Alexander White" align="absmiddle" height="20" width="20"> </a><a rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/111113302218133256858" target="_blank">Alexander White</a><span></span></div>
</div><div><hr><h3>(Possibly) Related posts:</h3><ul><li><a href="http://alexwhite.org/2013/05/who-are-the-real-competition-for-unions/" rel="bookmark" title="Who are the real competition for unions?" target="_blank">Who are the real competition for unions?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://alexwhite.org/2011/12/retaining-members-in-public-sector-unions/" rel="bookmark" title="Retaining members in public sector unions" target="_blank">Retaining members in public sector unions</a></li><li>
<a href="http://alexwhite.org/2012/11/five-essential-elements-of-strategy-for-unions-to-win/" rel="bookmark" title="Five essential elements of strategy for unions to win" target="_blank">Five essential elements of strategy for unions to win</a></li>
<li><a href="http://alexwhite.org/2009/08/using-facebook-as-an-organising-tool/" rel="bookmark" title="Using Facebook as an organising tool" target="_blank">Using Facebook as an organising tool</a></li><li><a href="http://alexwhite.org/2013/07/nz-presentation-engaging-young-workers/" rel="bookmark" title="NZ Presentation: Engaging young workers" target="_blank">NZ Presentation: Engaging young workers</a></li>
</ul></div> <p>Tags: <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/marchinmarch/" rel="tag" target="_blank">#marchinmarch</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/actu/" rel="tag" target="_blank">ACTU</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/afl-cio/" rel="tag" target="_blank">AFL-CIO</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/avaaz/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Avaaz</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/campaign/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Campaigning</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/change-org/" rel="tag" target="_blank"><font color="red"><b>MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "alexwhite.org" claiming to be</b></font> change.org</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/civic-protest/" rel="tag" target="_blank">civic protest</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/facebook/" rel="tag" target="_blank">facebook</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/get-up/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Get Up</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/nzctu/" rel="tag" target="_blank">NZCTU</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/tim-lyons/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Tim Lyons</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/together-nz/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Together NZ</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/union-leadership/" rel="tag" target="_blank">union leadership</a>, <a href="http://alexwhite.org/tag/working-america/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Working America</a></p>
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<div><h3>About Alexander White</h3>
Alex White is a national marketing advisor working in the labour
movement with a decade of policy, campaigns and public relations
experience. His background is complemented by professional and
leadership roles in the trade union movement, charities, environmental
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