TABLE 1 - uploaded by Kate Bronfenbrenner
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[Excerpt] In this chapter we seek to answer the following questions: Why has it been so difficult for unions to turn the organizing efforts and initiatives of the last six years into any significant gains in union density? Why have a small number of unions been able to make major gains through organizing? And most importantly, which organizing stra...
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... Among these variations three features appear in many organizing campaigns, albeit in different forms: the head office or central identification of target groups of potential members; the allocation of resources to identify issues relevant to the target group at the place of work, coupled with the deployment of organizers; and the recruitment of new members, together with the identification of grassroots worker leaders who might increase the likelihood of the new group of members becoming self-sustaining within the union (McAlevey 2016). US-based research demonstrates that the success of organizing depends on the range and intensity of practices deployed during the campaign (Bronfenbrenner and Hickey 2004), confirming a requirement for specific organizing resources, strategic planning and member mobilization (Fletcher and Hurd 2001). Similarly organizing requires unions to identify the concerns of potential members and establish a connection between these concerns and the union Knotter 2017). ...
Trade unions have repeatedly been challenged by neoliberal programmes implemented within Member States of the European Union (EU) and at the European level. The twenty-seven country chapters at the core of this book chart the features of the neoliberal challenge in the EU Member States and the measures implemented by unions in their attempts to adapt to changed circumstances since 2000. It is clear that union activity, either independently or in conjunction with allies, will be at the centre of revitalization campaigns if the pieces left from the neoliberal challenges are to be picked up and wielded into a coherent response.
This book offers a comprehensive comparative overview of the development, structure, and policies of trade unions in all the 27 Member States of the EU from 2000 to 2020. It presents an in-depth analysis of the neoliberal challenges facing these organizations and their strategic and policy responses.
... When discussing the characteristics of the 'organizing model', Arnholtz and colleagues (2016) maintain that it entails 'a very structured and systematic approach', and Bronfenbrenner and Hickey (2004) show a correlation between the richness of choice of different tactics and the success in organizing workers. However, there is a general lack of systematization of these practices in the literature; we have lists of elements of 'good practices' (Heery et al., 2000: 39), 'range of techniques' (Waddington and Kerr, 2009: 28), 'arsenal of overlapping tactics' (Tapia and Turner, 2013: 602) and 'mix of tactics' (Alberti, 2016: 81). ...
This article analyses a campaign urging a British university to re-establish in-house cleaning services after years of outsourcing. The small independent union leading the campaign began from an extremely low level of power resources and managed to build enough associational and societal power to win the dispute on cleaners’ working conditions. The study is based on participant observation of the union’s activities, document analysis and interviews. The article argues that the strategy emerging from the study, centred around three key strategies (collectivization of individual grievances, education, and disruption of core business activities), can be articulated in a process following the main categories of Mobilization Theory: organization, mobilization and collective action. Additionally, the union managed to conciliate servicing and organizing strategies, as well as attention to class-oriented and migrant-specific issues.
... The way trade unions have reacted to such pressure over time has depended on the differences in history, culture, organizational structure, and leadership that have influenced the various trade union organizations (Arnholtz & Andersen, 2018;Bronfenbrenner & Hickey, 2004). At the same time, such pressure has led to an identity crisis that is closely connected with the present crisis of democracy (and representative democracy in particular) and with the crisis affecting the relationship between individuals, society, and work (Bauman & Mauro, 2017). ...
This paper focuses on how trade unions are redefining their organizational identity in response to the neoliberal changes that have affected the labour market, mainly as a result of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Such changes brought about a profound crisis of representation among workers in various sectors. Trade unions have had to redesign their identities to meet new demands from workers. Based on 30 interviews with unionists from one of Italy's major unions, the study identifies four dis-cursive variations and as many potential evolutions in the identity of trade unions. The respective positionings generated by these four discourses for the union and its members are examined. The study also highlights certain contradictions in these discursive variations, which may either encourage a redefinition of the union's strategic objectives or, on the contrary, act as regulating mechanism that hampers change.
... While the right to form unions and bargain collectively exists throughout all of the eco nom ically advanced democracies, the United States remains an outlier for the enormity of obstacles facing American workers attempting to exercise this right. Po liti cal opposition to union-friendly legislation, broad cultural antipathy toward unions, and employers' widespread use of threats, dismissals, and antiunion consulting firms to dissuade workers from voting pro-union in secret-ballot elections have made unionization far more difficult in the United States than in other OECD countries (Godard 2009;Bronfenbrenner 2009;Logan 2006;Bronfenbrenner and Hickey 2004). Union organ izing is particularly problematic in the low-wage private ser vice sector, characterized by part-time employment, temporary contracts, erratic hours, and irregular shifts. ...
... U nekim državama, kao što su Austrija i Nemačka, uloga radničkog saveta podrazumeva i učešće radnika u upravnom odboru kompanije. 14 Vidi, na primer: Simms, Holgate, and Heery, 2012; Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004. Usledili su rezultati poput lobiranja za reforme zakona, pomaganja radnicima oko pitanja vezanih za ugovore, povećanja zaštite na radu za atipične radnike i pregovaranja kako bi se kompanije ohrabrile da prednost daju tradicionalnom radnom odnosu (umesto što prebacuju dužnosti na atipične radnike) (ibid). ...
... The George Meany Center produced a guide on organizing in the early 1990s, which includes a brief section on assessment, including how to track the data collected (Diamond 1992). Bronfenbrenner and Hickey (2004) show that "benchmarks and assessments" can make a real difference in the outcome of representation elections. Analyzing data from 412 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certifications election campaigns during 1998 and 1999, they found that the use of benchmarks and assessments statistically increased the odds of a union winning a representation election by 162 percent, even when controlling for company and industry characteristics, bargaining unit demographics, and employer opposition. ...
... Analyzing data from 412 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certifications election campaigns during 1998 and 1999, they found that the use of benchmarks and assessments statistically increased the odds of a union winning a representation election by 162 percent, even when controlling for company and industry characteristics, bargaining unit demographics, and employer opposition. Of ten different organizing tactics and strategies Bronfenbrenner and Hickey (2004) analyzed, benchmarks and assessments was one of only three to be individually statistically related to win rates, highlighting the importance of this tactic for organizing outcomes. Indeed, Bronfenbrenner and Hickey (2003, 21) listed "benchmarks and assessments," together with adequate and appropriate staff and financial resources, and an active representative committee, as the three core "building blocks of any organizing campaign upon which all the other comprehensive tactics depend." ...
... These are technically two separate activities; however, the former informs the latter and benchmarks essentially require assessments. In the few empirical studies that analyze the impact of benchmarks and assessments on some outcome (e.g., Bronfenbrenner and Hickey 2004), the two tend to be conceptualized as a single variable. 2. The typical assessment process in political canvassing is actually fairly simple: canvassers ask potential voters if they support or are planning to vote for the candidate(s) for whom they are canvassing. ...
Many labor unions assess support among prospective members to guide decision making during organizing campaigns, and to predict voting in representation elections. However, research on the actual practice of how unions make assessments is limited. We fill this void through a study that combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of assessment activities. The quantitative portion involved a survey of eligible voters in the 2010 flight attendant representation election at Delta Air Lines. The qualitative portion involved in-depth interviews with staff involved in that campaign and organizing directors or key organizing staff in nine of the largest labor unions in the United States. We focus on the factors that influence the accuracy of assessment predictions, describe practices currently being used to predict votes in these campaigns, and discuss future research needs.
... None of them has a recognised union or a collective agreement. The situation at auto suppliers, where three out of four American auto workers are employed (Ruckelshaus and Leberstein, 2014), is not much better (Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004;Aschoff, 2012: 137;Ruckelshaus and Leberstein, 2014). While the UAW maintained its collective bargaining arrangements with the Big Three, it has been unable to extend this institutional power to cover the transplants. ...
This is a case study of how the transnational cooperation between two unions – IG Metall in Germany and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in the United States – was put on a new trajectory. It is a template for the challenges unions face in adapting their nationally oriented self-interest toward building transnational solidarity and being able to leverage global corporate power in defence of workers’ interests across borders. Using the power resources approach, it highlights the unions’ transnational strategy built on mobilising associational and institutional resources. Understanding their make-up and utilisation became crucial in the process as limits to institutional power without involvement and mobilisation on the ground became evident. The case study focuses on the initiation and preparation phase of a more comprehensive organisational cooperation, culminating in a formal agreement to establish a Transnational Partnership Initiative (TPI) in 2015. While no organising gains were made in this phase – indeed, only losses – it was crucial for building trust and mutual understanding, as well as for actively promoting a broadly based anchoring of the TPI in terms of policy in both unions. The case study’s conclusions are generally positive on this count; yet they are preliminary as the overall project is a work-in-progress and its basis of support beyond the two unions (societal power) is still untested.
... In some countries, such as Austria and Germany, the role of a works council extends to co-determination. 14 See, for example,Simms, Holgate, and Heery, 2012;Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004. ...
‘Gig’ or platform-based work represents one of the most recent, highly-publicized labour market trends. Attributed to the increased demand for flexibility on the part of employers (Eurofound, 2015a), better labour market efficiency (IOE, 2016) and, in some cases the desire for greater flexibility on the part of workers (De Stefano, 2016), gig and platform-based work is one type of non-standard work facilitated through technology and digital markets, on-demand. Despite its relatively small size (Farrell and Grieg, 2016) the gig economy has the potential to rapidly change the way work is organized and performed, to alter the content and quality of jobs, and to reshape industries. This paper examines challenges to freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining for workers in the gig economy, and explores the broad range of strategies that gig-economy workers are using to build collective agency, and to promote effective regulation of gig work.
... For example, some unions in Anglophone countries (i.e. SEIU and HERE) made strenuous efforts to organize precarious workers, which were created by employer-driven externalization and casualization of employment relations, and employed transgressive protest repertoires, such as bridge blockades, public rallies, sit-down protests, and solidarity campaigns with civil society groups, rather than resorting to the contained repertoire of strike action(Bronfenbrenner and Hickey, 2004;Hickey et al., 2010).6 According toMcAdam (1986: 67), cost denotes "the expenditure of time, money and energy required of a person engaged in any particular form of activism," while risk denotes "the anticipated dangers-whether legal, social, physical, and financial-of engaging in a particular type of movement activity." ...
In South Korea, many struggles of non-regular workers, who attempted to organize their unions and engage in militant action to protest against employers’ inhumane discrimination and illegal exclusion, have failed to achieve the desired outcomes, due to their vulnerable employment status and their lack of action resources. In this light, our study examines the conditions that lead to victory in precarious workers’ struggles, by focusing on three attributes: internal solidarity with regular workers, external solidarity from labour and civil society groups outside the workplace, and mobilized protest repertoires. Specifically, this study seeks to identify the configurations of these three conditions that produce successful outcomes in precarious workers’ struggles, in terms of bargaining gains and organizational sustainability. We do this by employing fs/QCA modelling to examine 30 major cases of non-regular worker struggles occurring over a 16-year period from 1998 to 2013.
Our analysis presents the finding that the conditional configuration of strong external solidarity, strong internal solidarity, and fewer struggle repertoires constitutes a significant causal path to successful outcomes. This reaffirms the idea that strong solidarity bridging, whether with regular workers that have a different employment status in the segmented workplace, or with labour and civil society groups outside the workplace, is the crucial causal condition for precarious workers to achieve their desired outcomes from struggle. An unexpected finding, however, is that when precarious worker struggles mobilize fewer struggle repertoires, they are likely to achieve the successful outcomes of bargaining and organizational gains. Our study contributes to the theoretical elaboration of labour movement revitalization for the precariat class, by shedding light on the activism of precarious workers, considering that the English-language literature that pays attention to the active role of such atypical workers in staging protests against employers’ inhumane treatments and the neoliberal labour regime is limited.
... where the ability of employers to move work out of the country is much more restricted" (Bronfenbrenner & Hickey, 2004, p. 32) and is one of the comprehensive campaigns in which a number of organizing strategies are used to successfully organize workers. Bronfenbrenner & Hickey (2004) suggests the use of five or more organizing strategies in a comprehensive campaign results in better union win rates and that UNITE-HERE generally used four or more tactics in their campaigns. 2 UNITE-HERE primarily engages in organizing the unorganized and runs an aggressive organizing drive in major financial cities against hotels that hire large numbers of immigrant workers in service positions (UNITE-HERE, 2012b). ...
... 661749S GOXXX10.1177 1 Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, USA UNITE-HERE has had success in organizing less mobile populations in the hospitality industry by using internal and external tactics as part of a larger comprehensive organizing strategy (Bronfenbrenner, 2006;Bronfenbrenner & Hickey, 2004). Internal tactics include a concentration on building one-on-one relationships among workers inside and outside of the workplace, strategic targeting, active representative rank and file committees, effectively utilized member volunteer organizers, and escalating pressure tactics in the workplace (Bronfenbrenner, 2006). ...
... The push back from the Hyatt is extraordinary though not unexpected. Bronfenbrenner & Hickey (2004) writes, "the overwhelming majority of employers . . . aggressively oppose the union's organizing efforts through a combination of threats, discharges, promises of improvements, unscheduled unilateral changes in wages and benefits, bribes, and surveillance" (p. ...
This article explores United Needle Trades and Industrial Employees (UNITE) and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE)’s strategic campaign to organize a diverse low-wage workforce of housekeepers in the hospitality industry in one Midwest city in Indiana. Organizers’ personal narratives provide examples of the challenges involved when creating relationships between low-wage workers from different racial and cultural backgrounds as part of a strategy to rebuff management’s continual efforts to exploit and undervalue its workforce, increase profits for the firm, and discredit the union as an effective intermediary for representation. The findings suggest UNITE-HERE’s organizing attempts realized gains for housekeepers in the form of wage and benefit increases and dismantled a covert blacklisting policy even though the hotel remains non-unionized.
