Comprehensive Strategy: The Key to Successful Organizing

[Excerpt] For the last two decades, organizing has continued to be the central focus of the U.S. labor movement. In the past year, the effectiveness of organizing has been influenced by the split in the AFL-CIO, by discussions of labor’s political leverage and strategy in the fall 2006 elections, and by the debate over which groups of workers should be targeted for organizing. Nearly every top union leader talks about “changing to organize” – committing more resources to organizing and running campaigns more strategically. For the majority of unions, unfortunately, this talk has yet to turn into action. Indeed, most unions are continuing to organize much as they did twenty years ago (Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004). In this article, we’ll look at what’s been happening to union organizing – in education and generally, in Ohio and nationally – and the reasons why these trends continue. This article will also spotlight research that provides some answers for those looking for a model of successful union organizing. It is now becoming clear that a new comprehensive model of union organizing is emerging – a model that can be adapted by the OEA and its locals to build membership and influence

No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing

[Excerpt] This study is a comprehensive analysis of employer behavior in representation elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The data for this study originate from a thorough review of primary NLRB documents for a random sample of 1,004 NLRB certification elections that took place between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2003 and from an in-depth survey of 562 campaigns conducted with that same sample. Employer behavior data from prior studies conducted over the last 20 years are used for purposes of comparison. The representativeness of the sample combined with the high response rate for both the survey (56%) and NLRB unfair labor practice (ULP) charge documents (98%) ensure that the findings provide unique and highly credible information. In combination, the results provide a detailed and well-documented portrait of the legal and illegal tactics used by employers in NLRB representational elections and of the ineffectiveness of current labor law policy to protect and enforce workers rights in the election process

California Farmworkers’ Strikes of 1933

[Excerpt] The spring of 1933 ushered in a wave of labor unrest unparalleled in the history of California agriculture. Starting in April with the Santa Clara pea harvest, strikes erupted throughout the summer and fall as each crop ripened for harvest. The strike wave culminated with the San Joaquin Valley strike, the largest and most important strike in the history of American agriculture. All told, more than 47,500 farmworkers participated in the 1933 strikes. Twenty-four of these strikes, involving approximately 37,500 workers, were under the leadership of the Communist-led Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU). In a dramatic reversal of its previous record of repeated debilitating losses, twenty of the CAWIU-led strikes resulted in partial wage increases while only four strikes ended in total defeat for the union. The remaining strikes, including three spontaneous walkouts, two American Federation of Labor (AFL) led strikes and two led by independent unions, resulted in partial gains in four out of the seven conflicts

The U.S. Experience of Organising in the Context of the Global Economy

Excerpt] There is no question that some unions, such as the UAW in auto-transplants and auto-parts, CWA/IUE in high tech and electronics, USWA in metal production and fabrication or the UFCW in food processing, face much greater challenges organising in their primary jurisdictions because they are confronted with more mobile, more global, and more powerful and effective employer opposition, and, in some cases, a workforce less predisposed to unionisation. Yet, as we have seen, even in the most adverse organising environments, union organising success can dramatically improve when unions utilise a comprehensive campaign strategy. Given these differences, what is perhaps most striking about our findings is how few unions are actually running comprehensive campaigns, or even consistently using any of the ten elements of our comprehensive campaign model. Most significant of all, only a smattering of unions today see themselves as global unions taking on global employers. They are not doing the strategic corporate research necessary to develop the kind of critique of the company needed to launch a truly multifaceted comprehensive campaign. They are not developing lasting labour and community networks, locally, nationally and internationally to help them build and leverage their power in the company and the industry. And they are not getting out in front on the issues that resonate with workers and the public ranging from universal health care, to the war in Iraq, global outsourcing, to affordable higher education

Organizing in the NAFTA Environment: How Companies Use “Free Trade” to Stop Unions

[Excerpt] These findings point to both an enormous challenge and a great opportunity for American unions. Clearly, under NAFTA and other free trade agreements more and more employers will feel emboldened to threaten to close the plant during organizing campaigns, and workers and unions will find organizing increasingly difficult. At the same time, unions have an opportunity to overcome these barriers to organizing if they commit enough resources to run large-scale, aggressive campaigns which mobilize the rank-and-file workers to build a union in their workplace, regardless of the intensity of the employer’s campaign

Worker Turnover and Part-Time Employment at UPS

Over the last ten years we have seen a dramatic increase in the utilization of part-time workers by the United Parcel Service (UPS). This increase has been coupled with a stunningly high turnover rate of 150 percent among these workers. This study documents the deteriorating work environment for part-time workers at UPS and finds that a lack of full-time opportunities, a pervasive pattern of management mistreatment, and an alarmingly high injury rate are the primary determinants of the high turnover rate

Successful Union Strategies for Winning Certification Elections and First Contracts: Report to Union Participants (Part 2: First Contract Survey Results)

Summary of results from 1986-1988 survey of 100 chief negotiators conducted by Kate Bronfenbrenner in cooperation with the Organizing Department of the AFL-CIO

California Pea Pickers’ Strike of 1932

[Excerpt] Just before the start of the May 1932 harvest season, growers in the Half Moon Bay area of San Mateo, California, provoked a spontaneous strike among pea pickers when they reduced piece rates from seventy-five to fifty cents a pack. Although the workers were unorganized, the large pay cut represented the breaking point for families just coming out of the slow winter season. The previous year\u27s rate of seventy-five cents a pack had not been enough to tide them over through the winter, especially given the four dollars a month rent they were required to pay the growers for camping out on their land. Unable to feed their families, many of the workers were forced to look to the San Mateo County relief office for charity, only to be told that because they were not permanent residents of the county, they were only eligible to receive two cents per family member per day. A twenty-five-cent pay cut meant that the next winter would be even worse

Organizing Women: The Nature and Process of Union Organizing Efforts Among U.S. Women Workers Since the mid-1990s

The relationship between American working women and the U.S. labor movement can neither be easily described nor categorized. In part, this is because women’s participation and experience in the labor movement differ so greatly across industry, region, union, occupation, and ethnic background. But mostly, it is a consequence of the inevitable contradictions that arise when the proportion of women in the labor movement continues to grow at an escalating pace, whereas for most unions and labor federations, the proportion of women in top leadership and staff positions has increased incrementally at best, even in unions where women predominate

Unions and the Contingent Work Force

[Excerpt] Unions seeking to organize the unorganized face increasing numbers of part-time, temporary and leased employees. These contingent workers now make up more than a quarter of the American work force. Of the new work force they are the least organized and perhaps the most difficult to organize. But they are also the group most in need of the protections, benefits and representation that a union can provide. There have always been some service industries such as hotel, health care and retail, that have maintained a large contingent work force because of long hours and fluctuating demand. Also there have been many workers, especially women, students and elderly workers, who have preferred part-time and temporary employment because of family, health or educational priorities. Recently, however, American corporations have been replacing permanent full-time workers with temporary, part-time and leased employees for the sole purpose of cutting wages and salaries, increasing management flexibility, and in many cases avoiding unionization. Thus the number of part-time and temporary workers is increasing in every industry and job classification, whether assembly line worker, registered nurse, or computer programmer