Abstract
Under review are three books broadly concerned with issues of trade union renewal. Dana Cloud’s We Are the Union (2011) demonstrates the importance of local actors in union change and renewal. Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate and Edmund Heery’s Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing (2013) covers the Trades Union Congress’s union renewal efforts. Lastly, Richard Cooney and Mark Stuart’s edited collection Trade Unions and Workplace Training: Issues and International Perspectives (2012) on vocational education and training agreements highlights the differences between coordinated and liberal market economies. Although each text is different in focus and approach, they jointly represent collective challenges facing trade unions around the world.
Cloud’s (2011) book provides brief yet comprehensive histories of the Boeing Company, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) union and the labour movement in the USA. Cloud is guided by the following broad questions: ‘How do ordinary people, through communication and experience, come to a sense of themselves as agents capable of radical social transformation; and how do they accomplish such transformation even when constrained by any number of institutional and cultural forces arrayed against them?’ (p. x). To explore these questions, Cloud focuses on the 1995 and 2011 Boeing strikes. In both strikes, union leaders recommended the Boeing workers accept contracts offered by the company; however, the rank and file union members overwhelmingly voted to remain on strike in 1995 and go on strike in 2011. Boeing workers were in a unique position; their manufacturing jobs required a specific skill set, making outsourcing and offshoring difficult; and the IAMAW had a fairly successful bargaining history compared to other unions.
Cloud draws from her discussions with core union activists and workers, community organizers, journalists and company spokespeople along with an analysis of media coverage. These different sources speak to the various audiences that could benefit from this text, including labour scholars and activists, communications scholars and qualitative researchers. Cloud uses the term ‘loyal opposition’ to describe how dissident caucuses are positioned at Boeing within the IAMAW. The dissident caucuses or rank and file reform groups are set in opposition to the elected administrative caucus and these reform groups attempt ‘to fight the union in order to use the union to their own ends’ (p. xiii). Some of the avenues used by the dissident groups are ultimately double-edged swords that can be co-opted with the aim of dismantling a union. For example, in attempting to make the IAMAW more democratic one dissident leader used the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) to get a rerun of a local election. Although this can be a strategy for promoting union democracy, the legislation was originally created with union busting and anti-communist agendas. For example, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has sponsored LMRDA-based lawsuits against unions.
Both Boeing strikes demonstrate workers’ resistance ‘[a]gainst a profitable global company and a recalcitrant union’ (p. xi). Still, dissident caucuses suffered from undemocratic decision making and high burnout levels causing some caucuses to dissolve after the 1995 strike. Cloud questions if rank and file union members are given a legitimate voice from either administrative or dissident union leaders. Still, the success of unions in the USA, Cloud concludes, depends on union activists to ensure democratic processes, along with rank and file representation, that build on workers’ consciousness.
Rather than focusing on leadership development in one union, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK trained leaders for decision making positions across a number of unions. Simms et al. focus their text Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing (2013) on the Organizing Academy created by the TUC in the UK. The Organizing Academy (OA) was a reaction to union decline and was originally designed to encourage investment in organizing as a distinctive activity separate from other day-to-day union activities. Opposed to a servicing model, the OA approach highlights activities at the workplace level that empower workers and increase membership activism. Beginning with a review of labour history in the UK, the authors map out the impact of the Organizing Academy, drawing on 13 years of research including policy analysis, personal experience, interviews with policymakers, organizers, organizing teachers, activists and other key participants, as well as participant observation in the Organizing Academy. Considering the vast amounts of data used in this text, the authors do a commendable job of summarizing key findings and arguments (showing that unions failed to use the rather benign political and economic environment from 1997 to 2010 to renew themselves) – making their writing accessible for scholars of varying levels.
The 1990s were a time of declining income, union membership and bargaining coverage following the end of the Thatcher government in 1990. Although the authors cover the period in detail, they assume the reader has some prior knowledge of UK union systems, making the text more appropriate for readers knowledgeable about the UK.
Simms et al. argue that organizers were excluded from upper management positions in unions thus implying the activity was less important than other union strategies. In addition, organizers often suffered from ‘organizing fatigue’ (p. 99), similar to the burnout of dissident union leaders in Cloud’s work, as organizers had little support in the face of cultural resistance to embracing an ‘organizing model’ (p. 99) that stresses worker self-organizing and union democracy; and therefore they made limited, if any, change to the wider trade labour movement.
Traditionally, according to the authors, organizing campaigns were evaluated based on the union’s objectives for each campaign, such as increasing membership numbers. However, this evaluation does not capture the changes needed to establish strong union power in the UK. Similar to other scholarship, the authors advocate evaluating organizing campaigns beyond the immediate objectives of unions to include aspects of union power and labour movement strength. For example, campaigns need to be evaluated beyond membership numbers and securing collective bargaining rights in single workplaces. Rather, campaigns should be evaluated based on securing collective bargaining on industrial or sectoral levels, thereby strengthening union power in sectors, with further evaluation based on enhancing worker self-organization and activism, both indicators of union strength that can be difficult to measure.
Simms et al. conclude that ‘organizing activity has made comparatively little impact on formal, aggregate measures of union power’ (p. 163) as collective bargaining coverage in the UK has decreased since the 1990s. They suggest that union renewal may be found in other avenues such as social movement unionism or community unionism. Nevertheless, the authors caution these avenues may be difficult given the 2010 centre-right coalition government compared to the previous 13 years under the Labour Party. Unions may have missed a pivotal opportunity after the Thatcher government to have a large impact in the UK.
The final book, Trade Unions and Workplace Training, edited by Cooney and Stuart, adds to a series on employment relations from Routledge edited by Rick Delbridge and Edmund Heery. The collection surveys new roles for unions in vocational education and training (VET) arrangements in a variety of countries. The first section, entitled ‘The Theory and Practice of Unions and Training’, compares British and Australian unions, highlighting the evolution of training partnerships in both countries. These essays recognize the importance of employee voice and enthusiastic local actors on both management and labour sides for establishing successful training arrangements. Cooney, in particular, highlights the limitations of a more liberal market economy that Australia has become, with a deregulated VET system resulting in limited and sometimes low quality training opportunities with growing inaccessibility depending on the industry and employer.
Part Two, ‘Unions, Training, and Social Institutions’, focuses on institutional frameworks of different countries related to VET. Four countries are included in this section: Canada, France, Germany and Norway. Each country has a different model for their economy, beginning with Canada as the most liberal market economy where government and unions have limited roles with regard to training. Each subsequent country has a more coordinated market economy, leading to Norway, where the authors assume VET would be more effective only to find limited evidence of success. Overall, this section works to show the similar issues of skill certification and employee access to training that unions have faced in different countries with different economies. The authors argue that unions must push VET agendas at multiple levels with multiple initiatives such as putting political and public pressure on companies to establish VET, putting VET clauses in collective agreements and establishing local support and demand for this type of training. In order to have sustained success unions must actively respond to the institutional context of each country.
Lastly, Part Three, ‘Training and Union Renewal’, focuses on how VET could be a path for union renewal and recognizes how unions have used training agreements in this capacity. The last two chapters focus on the USA and Britain, both of which have more liberal market economies compared to other countries in the collection. These chapters demonstrate how union renewal can be linked to vocational training, particularly for underrepresented groups such as young and migrant workers who may begin looking to unions for support and training opportunities.
While these essays could stand independently, together they effectively show how different unions, governments and employers are handling vocational training around the developed world. Several pieces effectively connect findings from their country of study to other contexts, which is appropriate for an edited collection. All contributions are geared towards an academic audience competent in labour studies. The data included are both quantitative and qualitative, ranging from the 1980s to 2009. Unfortunately, some of the essays use data collected in the 1990s and thus cannot address the 2008 economic crisis and unions’ responses to this event. Additionally, there is limited discussion of theoretical approaches to understanding the institutional VET frameworks. Overall, although there are limited successes across the world for unions in relation to VET, most of these successes have been a result of multi-initiative plans at a political or country-wide government level, as well as the level of the company or industry and strong support from the local region and community.
In comparing the three works, some key aspects stand out: in particular, methodology related to voice and stories and intersectional analysis. With respect to methodology, Cloud’s case study includes one union and one company across three plants in the USA. Simms et al. focus on a national umbrella organization for trade unions in the UK. Cooney and Stuart include works on various countries focusing on training arrangements. The various case studies used in these texts are indicative of the range of approaches that can and are taken in labour studies that all include some aspect of workers’ voice and participation in unions.
While many of the essays included by Cooney and Stuart examine different countries, significantly less detail for each country is included compared to the other two works. Also, much of the text is dedicated to outlining legislative and organizational relations and these details function to demonstrate how these contexts affect union strategies related to VET. For example, in the broad category of ‘liberal market economies’ unions were far more likely to target education systems for relationships, while in more coordinated market economies unions could work with government to establish national VET programmes. However, at times this kind of detail means an overwhelming number of acronyms and country-specific terms to understand. That being said, this text functions as a thorough overview of the legislative setup of many countries and showcases the broad differences between different economies in terms of regulation. Sections from this text offer a dynamic overview of the variety of structures in which trade unions are operating and provide needed grounding in relevant academic literature with the extensive references listed.
By focusing on the Organizing Academy of the TUC, Simms et al. are able to provide more details on specific organizing campaigns than the edited collection. Union Voices begins by examining the ‘tool box’ (p. 58) taught to students at the OA and then how these techniques were used in different organizing campaigns across various sectors. This approach to studying the OA allows the authors to include stories from OA students and ‘tell the stories of what organizing is “like” on the front lines, what organizers do, and how they do it’ (pp. 1–2). Chapter Four, entitled ‘Union Organizers and Their Stories’, presents interviews with OA students demonstrating how the intended organizational changes in union culture did not materialize in ways the TUC had hoped. For example, there were no high-level organizing positions dedicated to organizing and there was limited cultural change that would create employment opportunities dedicated to organizing activities. Furthermore, the authors found that most organizers were not able to fully do the job for which they were trained; instead, the organizers were pushed into simply increasing membership numbers rather than focusing on increasing union member activism or cultural change in the labour movement.
Similarly, Cloud’s method allows her to highlight workers’ stories within the larger stories of Boeing, the IAMAW and the dissident caucuses. Chapter Seven demonstrates Cloud’s commitment to giving workers voice by formatting the chapter as a dialogue between her and dissident caucus leader Keith Thomas. The information included in this chapter came from an interview and a series of letters between Thomas and Cloud regarding union democracy, dissident caucuses and issues concerning the use of the legal system to hold unions accountable. For the most part, this chapter reads like a conversation between Cloud and Thomas and highlights the in-depth research done by Cloud.
Although Cooney and Stuart did not include personal stories of workers or union employees in their collection, many of the essays recognize the need for international and national leadership along with strong organized local leaders for successful VET agreements. Coordination between union leaders and leaders of the TUC is also highlighted in Simms et al., who advocate cooperative organizing approaches rather than control from the ‘top’ and the ‘centre’ (p. 166). The relationship between the local and the international is briefly covered in Cloud’s work although the bulk of her text is dedicated to issues of local leadership.
Cloud’s focus on dissident caucuses glorifies the actions of the small group of workers who are held up as leaders of change against larger structures. The emphasis on one dissident leader, Keith Thomas, echoes the praise of heroic models of leadership found in previous union-renewal literature (Briskin, 2011). Cloud is nevertheless critical of the actions, ideals and motivations of dissident unionists, while demonstrating the good intentions of the administrative caucus members, and she recognizes the difficulty of having full representation in movements that require leaders. Although Cloud describes the good intentions of these administrative caucus workers, she positions their actions in the union’s institutional history thus minimizing their agency. Subsequently, Cloud positions the rank and file as the only people capable of union reform partly because they are not bound by the same institutional structures as the administrative caucus.
Critics have been quick to point out a flaw in labour texts, namely their lack of intersectional analysis (Alberti et al., 2013). Cloud provides a summary of issues related to gender, race and sexuality discrimination not only in the administrative union caucus but also in the dissident caucuses and the Boeing workplaces. Arguably this section could have been longer and integrated throughout the text, but what is written is also embedded in the stories of Boeing workers and union members and their personal experience with these forms of discrimination. Cloud’s data demonstrate how workers are aware of the various kinds of discrimination and their agency in navigating the spaces of discrimination.
Simms et al. also include gender, race and age in their analysis, noting that underrepresentation in unions was already identified as an issue by the TUC. When recruiting students for the OA, the TUC specifically recruited people from groups underrepresented in decision making union positions. Overall, the authors do not give much credit to the TUC in diversifying union officers. More praise is given to OA graduates who subsequently made an impact on the diversity in their own unions through their own hiring practices.
None of the essays in the edited collection by Cooney and Stuart detail issues related to ethnicity, age, gender or sexuality of workers. Rather, the authors only discuss social divisions related to worker’s access to quality training. Workers with access to training tend to already have highly skilled jobs while those excluded from training have low skill and low paying positions. The authors in the edited collection do not address the characteristics of people in low skill jobs or the structural barriers for the workers beyond the lack of training arrangements for people in low paying positions.
While each of the texts has a different context and case study, they all show how unions across the world are facing similar difficulties with declines in union membership, bargaining strength and issues of union democracy. All three texts give the negative impression that trade unions have not had success in union renewal around the world over the past decade. Although there is overlap in the issues labour is facing across countries, these texts also make clear the importance of context, especially regarding legislative frameworks and institutional histories. The value of these books will ultimately depend on the audience, as together they are neither a cohesive nor a comprehensive statement on trade unions. Rather, each text offers a glimpse of the situation of trade unions from a different perspective and together the texts demonstrate the prevalence of certain trends. Together they speak to larger changes needed for union renewal to be successful, such as upholding union democracy through being accountable to rank and file members (Cloud, 2011), a cultural change that encourages the rank and file to take on more active roles in the union (Simms et al., 2013) and the need for coordination between local and international union levels (Cooney and Stuart, 2012).