Abstract
When seen from afar, American labor unions appear stuck in repetition. Again and again, they concede to concessionary bargaining, lose National Labor Relations Board elections, and face corruption scandals. The view from outside looks like stasis. For organizers inside the labor movement, the desperate urgency of day-to-day fights is unrelenting. As fur and blood fly, a pause to breathe, reflect and, if necessary, experiment, can look irresponsible.
No One Size Fits All is a bracing challenge to both the insider and outsider views of the contemporary U.S. labor movement. It compiles a range of case studies, written by academics and practitioners, on the most exciting recent innovations developed in the U.S. labor movement. The Chicago Teachers Union won public support for multiple strikes by bargaining not only for wages and benefits but also for racial justice and education quality. Tiny worker centers turn Home Depot parking lots into proto-hiring halls, organizing otherwise vulnerable immigrant day laborers. Tomato pickers and garment workers have pioneered new ways to hold the top of supply chains accountable for their working conditions, which is critical in our era of workplace fissuring. New policy frameworks range from local minimum wages to sectoral wage-setting boards. This edited volume from the Labor and Employment Relations Association consolidates in one place thoughtful discussions of all of these novel practices.
From this buffet of proposals and case studies, three core themes emerge around the central question of how to revive worker organization, power, and voice in America. First, a set of chapters focus on mundane organizational topics, asking about the infrastructure of successful collective action. Subjects for these studies range from the funding sources of worker centers to job satisfaction problems of union organizers to day-to-day member outreach practices. Second, a set of chapters emphasizes the importance of building worker leverage over employers, both through internal worker solidarity and through careful strategic analysis of industry context. In an era of outsourcing, contracting, and workplace fissuring, many workers find themselves employed by a relatively powerless intermediary entity. Several case studies show how some workers have been able to reach up the supply chain to place demands on peak, profitable firms. Finally, beyond organization and leverage, multiple chapters explore the dark magic of winning public support and external allies. Organizing workers already disposed to support unions is far easier than organizing opponents. Achieving worker-friendly public policy is impossible without forging a diverse coalition of supporters.
While the volume aims to celebrate disparate approaches, the strategies and proposals highlight difficult tensions, particularly when read together. Bargaining for the common good is inspiring, but, in the tough, zero-sum moments of final negotiations, should unions push for social justice goals at the expense of bread-and-butter demands? Should external union allies have any decision rights on these matters? Likewise, based on my own research on consolidated buyer power and wage stagnation, I was sympathetic to calls for worker organizations to target the profitable firms at the top of highly intermediated supply chains. But, such an approach typically succeeds or fails on strategic research and campaigning done by professional staffers. It tends not to foster efficacy and power for rank-and-file workers—a goal emphasized at many points in the volume. The chapters on worker centers raise problems of internal democracy and organizational sustainability most directly: Is alt-labor’s agility won by giving up institutional accountability to worker members?
These trade-offs counsel some humility amid attempted innovation. Traditional unions combine formal accountability to workers, member-based funding, and collective bargaining that achieves tangible and stable improvements. This bundled set is powerful, distinctive not only among employment organizations (worker centers, professional associations, and company works councils) but also among nonprofit and social movement organizations beyond the labor movement. Taking risks, moving fast, and breaking things can mean disaster. Pensions can be lost. Health-care costs spiked. If the key thesis of this volume is that new approaches are available to be implemented, union practitioners may rightly worry that we do not yet have detailed evidence about whether and under what conditions these approaches will succeed.
The most powerful response offered by No One Size Fits All to these reservations is the detailed organizational analysis that takes up the first third of the volume. As scholars of work, occupations, and organizations, we should be inspired. Thousands of studies dissect for-profit business practices. Yet, when unions implement solutions that seemingly work for businesses, they often violate crucial standards of voluntary commitment, democratic accountability and oppositional practice (exhibit A: the ill-fated Detroit SEIU call center). Organizational research that can be used by labor unions must be developed by researchers in concert with labor insiders. We should be running field experiments in unions, identifying what works for running successful contract campaigns and union elections. We should consider how network analysis can augment traditional organizing mapping. We should study union structure, asking how varying levels of centralization and coordination relate to efficacy, democracy, and union growth. No One Size Fits All points the way forward.
