Union organizer

A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official.

Contents

• Methodology
• Cause within a cause
• Controversies
• Counter organizing
• Organizing in popular culture
• See also
• People
• Notes
• References
• External links

In some unions, the organizer's role is to recruit groups of workers under the organizing model. In other unions, the organizer's role is largely that of servicing members and enforcing work rules, similar to the role of a shop steward. In some unions, organizers may also take on industrial/legal roles such as making representations before Fair Work Commission, tribunals, or courts.

In North America, a union organizer is a union representative who "organizes" or unionizes non-union companies or worksites. Organizers primarily exist to assist non-union workers in forming chapters of locals, usually by leading them in their efforts.

Methodology

Organizers employ various methods to secure recognition by the employer as being a legitimate union, the ultimate goal being a collective bargaining agreement. The methods can be classified as being either top-down organizing or bottom-up organizing. ^[1]

Top-down organizing focuses on persuading management through salesmanship or pressure tactics. The salesmanship may include offering access to resources such as to a well-trained and skilled supply of labor or access to union cartels. Pressure tactics may include picketing with the intention of embarrassing management or disrupting business, as well as assisting the government in investigating employment law and labor law violations. ^[2] A strict enforcement of these laws might result in fines and might serve to hurt the violator's chances in a competitive bidding process. Top-down organizing is generally considered easier than bottom-up and is practiced more in the construction industry. ^[3]

Bottom-up organizing focuses on the workers and usually involves a certification process, normally overseen by a labor relations board such as the NLRB in the U.S. The process entails either a secret ballot election or, in some cases, a card-signing effort (called card check). In either case, should a majority of the employees agree to union representation, the results bind the company to recognize and negotiate with the union. Normally, both sides are given a chance to campaign for or against unionization, though management has a decided advantage due to their greater access to the employees, as well as management's inherent ability to discipline or terminate employees. It is in this electioneering model where the organizer really organizes: arranging meetings, devising strategy, and developing an internal structure known as an organizing committee. It is from the pool of activists recruited to the organizing committee that the union typically later draws its shop stewards. Though some mistake organizing as strictly being a recruitment effort, numerous obstacles emerge which require more than simple enlistment and promotion of the union. During organizing, management has greater means to reward or punish workers, far overshadowing methods available to the union. ^{[4] [5]} For this reason, in most countries, laws such as the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, guarantee the rights of workers to seek union membership and forbid management's use of undue influence such as bribes or threats. Nonetheless, such charges are hard to prove and the labor movement believes the entire process to be slanted against them in enforcement and interpretation of labor laws. ^{[4] [6]} Sometimes, organizing involves legal wrangling over issues such as voter eligibility. In such cases, issues are often settled by appeal to the Labor Board who serves, essentially, as a referee during the process. Intrigue during heated campaigns is not uncommon. In various cases, one or both sides have used spying and information-gathering techniques tantamount to industrial espionage.

Cause within a cause

Within the labor movement, organizing is the cause within the cause. In most industrialized nations, there has been a steady decline in union membership and in the influence of organized labor since the 1950s. A response to this decline has been a renewed organizing effort. The heads of unions are well aware of the problem. In the U.S., many labor activists have blamed John Sweeney, the former (1995–2009) President of the AFL–CIO, for not doing enough to organize. ^[7] In fact, this has been cited^{[ citation needed ]} as the genesis of the split within the American labor movement that led to the formation of the Change to Win Federation (a rival umbrella organization of North American unions set up as an alternative to the AFL–CIO in 2005), by Change to Win advocates at least. Many unions see organizing as a way to ensure the future of their organization. Unions who emphasize organizing and are expansionist are said to have the "organizing model." By contrast, other unions are said to have the "servicing model," spending most of their resources on providing services to the existing membership (i.e., non-expansionist).

Controversies

Within the labor movement, there is some resistance to organizing, though more in deed than in word. Organizing can be seen as a drain on scarce resources with insignificant returns and with results tenuous. ^[8] In transient industries such as construction, an increase in the supply of labor from newly organized shops may cause the supply of jobs to dwindle below what an increased membership can absorb. ^[9]

Most disputes between unions are jurisdictional (territorial). Union jurisdiction is based on geographic scope, craft, industry, historical claim, and compromise. Unions have overlapping jurisdictions. Critics within the labor movement have blamed the movement itself for the fractious effects of union-on-union competition and perceived issues of raiding. Expansionism and the scramble for members in organizing programs bring to light these border issues.

Opponents of organizing, mainly in management and business, argue that unionization divides employees against their employer and results in increased costs. Such accusations are not entirely without foundation: Indeed, a successful organizing campaign usually demonstrably benefits the labor at the expense of management. Critics will often circulate horror stories about plant closures and retaliatory firings to discourage union activity and uptake among the workers. Real or imagined, such horror stories are taken as warnings and have a chilling effect on voting. Though illegal, ^[10] retaliatory terminations remain a problem for organizers to overcome. ^[11] Fear is the leading obstacle to organizing. ^[12]

Counter organizing

In bottom-up organizing, management and labor are pitted against each other and management often schedules retaliatory, aggressive tactics in an effort to break the chapter, called "union-busting." The intention of such union-busting may be to "nip it in the bud" before getting locked into a costly collective bargaining agreement. Management may feel that the organizing campaign encourages and capitalizes upon worker disobedience and perceived disloyalty. ^[13] For this reason, management may hire anti-union consultants or lawyers known as "union-busters" or "union avoidance consultants." With the goal of thwarting organizing, union-busters typically have a two-pronged approach: firstly, management will cut deals with individual workers to betray the union and secondly, to exploit loopholes in labor law in an effort to derail or sandbag the election process. The emergence of union-busting as an industry is a relatively new phenomenon and is described in Martin Levitt's book Confessions of A Union Buster. ^[14] Prior to the emergence of the union-avoidance industry, practitioners were mainly "goon squads" also used for strike-breaking. ^[15] In the U.S., the largest and most well-known "goon squad" for hire was the Pinkerton Detective Agency, ^[16] still active today, though in a different capacity. William W. Delaney's "My Father Was Killed By Pinkerton Men" is a song about the violence that often surrounded early American labor strife.

Organizing in popular culture

The most famous movie about organizing is the 1979 factually based film Norma Rae , the story of a Jewish organizer from New York City who came to the American South to organize a textile mill. He recruits Norma Rae, played by Sally Field. Norma becomes a key union activist who defies management at great personal risk.

The 1987 production of Matewan is another factually based story of an organizer who visits a small mining town in West Virginia and who is able to unite rival ethnic groups against a common enemy: the company.

Both of these stories feature outsiders entering rural company towns and stirring workers up against exploitative management. This is a common theme in organizing. The workers are cast as simple commoners being oppressed by powerful managers cast in the role of villains. The organizer is portrayed as a liberator. There is some truth in these stories since companies did, in fact, historically hire armed thugs to break up organizing drives through unethical and oppressive means. ^[5] Modern unions work within the existing system, rather than against it, through sophisticated political action programs. Most unions have reinvented themselves as streamlined, professional machines. ^[17]

10,000 Black Men Named George , released in 2002, is a movie based on the true story of A. Philip Randolph, the famous black organizer who organized the railroad company's largely black Pullman Porters.

The film Bread and Roses (2001) depicts the Service Employees International Union's "Justice for Janitors" campaign to organize cleaners. The story is also a love story between an idealistic young organizer and a female Hispanic immigrant among those he is organizing.

Both of these stories incorporate pro-union messages with ethnic determination. In the case of the Pullman Porters, Randolph is remembered as a civil rights hero. The Justice for Janitors campaign is about immigrants' rights, as many of the organized janitors are from Spanish-speaking or Slavic countries. The status of the characters as minorities paints a picture of them as being outside of, or on the margins of, the American Dream, thus further casting workers and activists as underdogs. The underdog theme is an inspirational archetype in myth.

In the 2005 action movie Four Brothers , one of the characters is a former union activist who turns the bad guy's henchmen against him by informally organizing them against their boss based on the common organizing themes of a greater share in the profits and respect on the job.

In the 1997 action movie Grosse Pointe Blank , Dan Aykroyd's villainous character pursues fellow assassin John Cusack in order to include him in a ridiculous assassins' union.

These latter two movies use organizing as a plot device, though they involve black market businesses and are far-fetched for this reason. Nonetheless, they demonstrate how, absent a union's presence, the same issues arise in any vocation. Also, both of the movies take place in the Detroit, Michigan area, a city which has produced some great organizers.

The 1992 production Hoffa , starring Jack Nicholson as famed labor leader Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters, begins the story where Hoffa's career began: organizing truck drivers and warehouse workers in and around Detroit. Jimmy Hoffa went on to become one of the most powerful labor leaders in U.S. history.

The 1978 movie F.I.S.T , tells the same story of Hoffa's beginnings as an organizer and of his rise to power, albeit with more liberties taken. Sylvester Stallone plays Hoffa as a man with good intentions, dogged on both sides, by both sides of the law.

Both Hoffa stories feature Hoffa as a tough "man of the people" and chronicle how his organizing swelled the ranks of the Teamsters. Hoffa was notorious for taking an "ends justifies the means" approach to organizing. Hoffa's legacy remains: his son, James P. Hoffa, is the current general president of the Teamsters.

In an episode of the popular American sit-com The Office , the characters hold an organizing meeting that ends with a manager threatening to fire everyone involved. The character played by comedian Patrice O'Neal tells the boss, "This isn't over."

The Fred Savage sitcom Working had an episode where the main character organizes his fellow workers into a union and tells management it is because he really cares about the well-being of his coworkers, exhibiting solidarity.

The song "Solidarity Forever" by Ralph Chaplin has become the anthem of large parts of the labor movement such as those in North America.

See also

• Battle of the Overpass
• Collective bargaining
• Employee Free Choice Act
• Labor history
• Labor rights
• Labor spies
• Labor Unions in the United States
• NLRB election procedures
• Newsies
• Right to assemble
• Strike action
• Union violence
• Union violence in the United States

Notes

Related Research Articles

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

James Riddle Hoffa was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971. He is notorious for his alleged ties to organized crime and for his disappearance under mysterious circumstances in 1975.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue- and white-collar workers in both the public and private sectors, totalling about 1.3 million members in 2015. The union was formerly called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America.

The nature and power of organized labor in the United States is the outcome of historical tensions among counter-acting forces involving workplace rights, wages, working hours, political expression, labor laws, and other working conditions. Organized unions and their umbrella labor federations such as the AFL–CIO and citywide federations have competed, evolved, merged, and split against a backdrop of changing values and priorities, and periodic federal government intervention.

James Phillip Hoffa, also known as James Hoffa Jr. or Jim Hoffa, is an American labor leader and attorney who was the tenth General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He is the son of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was first elected in 1998, and re-elected in 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016 to five-year terms. In 2018, Hoffa was elected chair of the Road Transport Section of the International Transport Workers' Federation at its quadrennial Congress in Singapore. Hoffa is the second-longest serving General President of the Teamsters Union, after Dan Tobin, who served from 1907 to 1952. Hoffa's final term as General President ended in 2022.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare, including hospital, home care and nursing home workers; public services ; and property services.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is an AFL–CIO/CLC trade union representing over 600,000 workers as of 2024 in more than 200 industries with most of its membership in the United States and Canada.

Labor unions represent United States workers in many industries recognized under US labor law since the 1935 enactment of the National Labor Relations Act. Their activity centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger labor unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.

Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace.

A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law. They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2), due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

A comprehensive campaign is labor union organizing or a collective bargaining campaign with a heavy focus on research, the use of community coalition-building, publicity and public pressure, political and regulatory pressure, and economic and legal pressure in addition to traditional organizing tactics.

The Burke Group is a U.S.-based international management consulting firm. Formally known as Burke International and founded in 1982 by Steven J Burke Sr., the company has headquarters in Canberra, Australia; Casper, Wyoming, United States; Los Angeles, United States and London, United Kingdom.

Kenneth T. Paff is one of the founders and current National Organizer of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a rank-and-file union democracy movement organizing to reform the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), or Teamsters.

The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved from farms to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these conditions. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed and lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s, and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, worker organizing, and strike actions. Labor legislation has changed the nature of union busting, as well as the organizing tactics that labor organizations commonly use.

A paper local is a local union with no or few members, chartered by an existing union or self-chartered, and formed for the purpose of criminal activity. As implied by the name, paper locals often "exist only on paper", and have no members. In some cases, however, paper locals may have members, but the members are not workers but rather friends, family members, or criminal associates of the individual or individuals in control of the paper local.

The United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management was a select committee created by the United States Senate on January 30, 1957 and dissolved on March 31, 1960. The select committee was directed to study the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers, and to recommend changes in the laws of the United States that would provide protection against such practices or activities. It conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings, took testimony from 1,526 witnesses, and compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony. At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee. The select committee's work led directly to the enactment of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act on September 14, 1959.

Workers United is an American and Canadian labor union which represents about 86,000 workers in the apparel, textile, commercial laundry, distribution, food service, hospitality, fitness and non-profit industries. It was established in its current form in 2009 and is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The Richard L. TrumkaProtecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, is a proposed United States law that would amend previous labor laws such as the National Labor Relations Act for the purpose of expanding "various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace.” The measure would prevent employers from holding mandatory meetings for the purpose of counteracting labor organization and would strengthen the legal right of employees to join a labor union. The bill would also permit labor unions to encourage secondary strikes. The PRO Act would weaken "right-to-work" laws, which exist in 27 U.S. states. It would allow the National Labor Relations Board to fine employers for violations of labor law, and would provide compensation to employees involved in such cases. It is named after Richard Trumka, who was elected president of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, and served in that office until his death in August 5, 2021.

The 1985–1987 Watsonville Cannery strike was a labor strike that involved over 1,000 workers at two food processing facilities in Watsonville, California, United States. The facilities were owned by Watsonville Canning and Richard A. Shaw Inc., two of the largest frozen food processors in the United States, while the workers were all union members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 912. The strike began on September 9, 1985, and completely ended about 18 months later, on March 11, 1987.

References

• Bai, Matt. "The New Boss." New York Times Magazine. January 30, 2005.
• Breslin, Mark. Organize or Die: Marketing and Communications Strategies for Labor Leaders, Agents and Organizers. Castro Valley, Calif.: McAlly International Press, 2003. ISBN   0-9741662-3-5
• DeFreitas, Gregory. "Anxious Anniversary: Is Recession Stalking the 5-Year-Old Recovery?" Regional Labor Review. Fall 2006.
• DeFreitas, Gregory. "Can Construction Unions Organize New Immigrants? A Conversation with the Carpenters' Tony Martinez." Regional Labor Review. 9 (Fall 2006).
• Diamond, Virginia R. Labor Law Handbook for Organizing Unions Under the National Labor Relations Act. Silver Spring, Mary.: George Meany Center for Labor Studies, 1991.
• Diamond, Virginia R. and Sneiderman, Marilyn, eds. Organizing Guide for Local Unions. Silver Spring, Mary.: George Meany Center for Labor Studies, 1992. ISBN   0-9633128-0-4
• Kelber, Harry. My 70 Years in the Labor Movement. New York: Labor Educator, 2006.
• La Botz, Dan. A Troublemaker's Handbook. New York: Labor Notes, 1991. ISBN   0-914093-04-5
• Levitt, Martin J. and Toczynski, Terry C. Confessions of A Union Buster. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1993. ISBN   0-517-58330-5
• Murolo, Priscilla and Chitty, A.B. From The Folks Who Brought You The Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of the United States. Paperback ed. New York: The New Press, 2006. ISBN   1-56584-776-8
• Office of General Counsel. National Labor Relations Board. A Guide to Basic Labor Law and Procedures Under the National Labor Relations Act. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007.
• Pleasure, Robert J. and Cohen, David. Construction Organizing: An Organizing and Contract Enforcement Guide. Silver Spring, Mary.: Labor's Heritage Press, 1997.
• Rundle, Michael. "Starbucks Union Battle Goes Before Labor Board." Metro New York. July 10, 2007.
• Von Drehle, David. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2003. ISBN   0-87113-874-3
• Fitch, Robert. Solidarity for Sale New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. ISBN   978-1-891620-72-0, ISBN   1-891620-72-X
• United States. Congress. House of Representative. The Future of Union Organizing: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, Hearing held in Washington, DC, September 19, 2013. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 2014.

External links

• National Labor Relations Board
• AFL-CIO Organizing (archived 27 June 2007)
• National Labor College
• What is the Employee Free Choice Act? (archived 14 July 2007)