Union organizer

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Leonora O'Reilly, a trade union organizer and founding member of the Women's Trade Union League

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

In some unions, the organizer's role is to recruit groups of workers under the

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

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 in Portland marching on May Day

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

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

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

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

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 "

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

activist
who defies management at great personal risk.

The 1987 production of

ethnic
groups against a common enemy: the company.

Both of these stories feature outsiders entering

political action programs. Most unions have reinvented themselves as streamlined, professional machines.[17]

Pullman Porters
.

The film

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

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

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

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

People

Notes

  1. ^ Breslin, Organize or Die, 2003, p. 16.
  2. ^ DeFreitas, "Can Construction Unions Organize New Immigrants?", Regional Labor Review, Fall 2006, p. 26-27.
  3. ^ Breslin, Organize or Die, 2003, p. 16-17
  4. ^ a b Diamond and Sneiderman, Organizing Guide for Local Unions, 1992, p. 52.
  5. ^ a b La Botz, A Troublemaker's Handbook, 1991, p. 8; Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 29-30; Murolo and Chitty, From The Folks Who Brought You The Weekend, 2001, p. 176.
  6. ^ Bai, "The New Boss," January 30, 2005, p. 40; DeFreitas, "Anxious Anniversary: Is Recession Stalking the 5-Year-Old Recovery?", 2006, p. 8.
  7. ^ Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 343, 359–360; Bai, "The New Boss," January 30, 2005, p. 43.
  8. ^ Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 362; Breslin, Organize or Die, 2003, p. 60.
  9. ^ Fitch, Solidarity for Sale, 2006, p. 47
  10. ^ Office of General Counsel, A Guide To Basic Law and Procedure Under the National Labor Relations Act, 1997, p. 19, 23.
  11. ^ Diamond, Labor Law Handbook for Organizing Unions Under the National Labor Relations Act, 1991, p. 20; Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 29-30; Rundle, "Starbucks Union Battle Goes Before Labor Board," Metro New York, July 10, 2007, p. 4.
  12. ^ La Botz, A Troublemaker's Handbook, 1991, p. 178; DeFreitas, "Can Construction Unions Organize New Immigrants?", Regional Labor Review, Fall 2006, p. 28; Murolo and Chitty, From The Folks Who Brought You The Weekend, 2001, p. 177.
  13. ^ Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 39.
  14. ^ *Levitt and Toczynski, Confessions of A Union Buster, 1993.
  15. ^ Kelber, My 70 Years in the Labor Movement, 2006, p. 24; Diamond and Sneiderman, Organizing Guide for Local Unions, 1992, p. 12.
  16. ^ Murolo and Chitty, From The Folks Who Brought You The Weekend, 2001, p. 105, 131.
  17. ^ Bai, "The New Boss," New York Times Magazine, January 30, 2005, p. 41, 42; Breslin, Organize or Die, 2003, p. 9.

References

External links

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