Abstract
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) is a general (multi trade) union in the UK, predominately organizing in the retail and distribution sectors. Since 2006 Usdaw has increased its membership by 84 000 members – an increase of 26 per cent, making it in this respect the most successful TUC-affiliated union in the UK. This growth coincided with Usdaw’s decision to develop itself as an organizing union, which involved the establishment of an Usdaw Organising Academy, a paradigm shift in its approach to organizing, and the creative development of new systems and practices to manage the union. This article describes this process of change and so goes some way to providing an explanation for Usdaw’s success. The article also situates Usdaw’s approach within the broader academic and policy debates about implementing the Organizing Model, and draws out some general lessons from Usdaw’s experience.
Introduction
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), the retail and general trades union in the UK, has grown by 26 per cent over the last six years by increasing its membership by 84 000. Usdaw has not only grown in terms of overall membership but has also increased its density of membership in the key companies it organizes. This article provides a commentary on how Usdaw has achieved this.
In 1996, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) launched its New Unionism initiative, which aimed to identify ways to reverse the decline in membership of UK trade unions. Throughout 1996 and 1997, the TUC arranged a series of visits by senior union policy-makers to the USA to study their experience of organizing. Then in 1998, the TUC set up its Organising Academy, which drew heavily on the American Organizing Model. Its aim was to train a cadre of specialist union organizers that would be seconded to different unions. This article analyses the impact on Usdaw of applying the Organizing Model, and developing itself as an organizing union.
This story is complicated by the absence of any clearly agreed definition of what constitutes the Organizing Model – or even agreement that a single model exists (Gall, 2009). However, there is a common denominator across the academic literature that the Organizing Model focuses on an organizing strategy based on supporting lay representatives to organize their own workplaces so they become self-sufficient (i.e. act independently from Full-Time Officers (FTOs)), build membership and resolve the issues affecting members (Heery, 2002). Different unions have tried to apply the Organizing Model with varying degrees of success. This experience shows that the Organizing Model needs to be adapted to suit different circumstances, sectors and union priorities (Simms et al., 2013). Since 2000 Usdaw has been finding its own way to implement the Organizing Model – with its own Organising Academy; new representative training programmes; and new roles, relationships and responsibilities for FTOs and a new strategic planning methodology. This process has taken over 10 years. This article analyses this process of adaption and change.
The authors worked at senior level in Usdaw during this time, and were active participants in this process. The article is based on their experience of contributing to the direction of the changes discussed, and makes use of Usdaw sources that are publicly available (see bibliography), together with some unpublished information and data.
In order to explain the choices Usdaw made, there is a brief ‘thumbnail’ description of Usdaw highlighting some of its specific characteristics, followed by a brief account of how Usdaw came to find its own organizing ‘paradigm’. We then describe the development of the Usdaw Academy and other initiatives to develop union reps, the changes to FTO roles, and the new strategic planning process that was required to drive the mainstreaming of the organizing approach. Finally, the article sums up the reasons for Usdaw’s success and draws out some broader lessons that may be of value to other unions in Britain and continental Europe.
Adapting the Organizing Model
A thumbnail sketch of Usdaw
Usdaw organizes solely in the private sector – and so neither gained nor lost from the expansion of the public sector under the Labour government (1997–2010) and its contraction under the Conservative/Liberal Coalition government (2010–present). It is overwhelmingly a service sector union (mainly organizing in retail and distribution) and so has not suffered from the long-term decline of manufacturing, with which other unions have had to contend.
The UK retail sector is dominated by a number of large retailers who employ over 50 per cent of the workers in the sector. There has been a consolidation within UK retail that has seen the major retailers substantially increase their share of the grocery market. This increase in market share for the big retailers has also meant an increase in employee headcount (for example, the Tesco UK workforce headcount grew from 245 000 in 2005 to 290 000 by 2012 (www.tescoplc.com)). There are relatively few medium-sized employers and a large number of small, often family owned and run, businesses. Usdaw’s membership is concentrated within the large employers with a very high proportion of Usdaw’s members (over 85 per cent) covered by national collective bargaining or consultative arrangements. This is reflected in Usdaw’s own structure, which is highly centralized with power mainly residing at the centre with relatively little power at regional level.
Usdaw has recognition agreements with four of the five biggest food retailers in the UK. What Usdaw refers to as the ‘big 4’ (Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons and the Co-op) is characterized by having a widely dispersed workforce (Tesco, for example, has over 2 000 stores across the UK). This means that, due to the logistical difficulty of covering such large numbers of workplaces, Usdaw has always struggled to secure and maintain high densities of membership. For example, in 2003 the density of members in Tesco was under 50 per cent – and this was the company with the highest density in the retail sector. With such low densities Usdaw’s power to influence has not been strong. It has relied on strong argument and persuasiveness rather than more industrial responses and, as such, the power of Usdaw has been more ‘legitimate’ power than ‘coercive’ power (French and Raven, 1960). Where Usdaw has recognition, the company managements are relatively benign with the union tolerated and few attempts to de-recognize the union. Other employers have proven to be very difficult to break into. For example, Marks and Spencer has a long history of actively maintaining a ‘union free’ environment. Where there is a recognition agreement, the facilities allowed to representatives are not exceptional and could not be described as offering more favourable terms than those in the public sector and manufacturing.
The retail sector, and hence Usdaw’s membership, is low paid and ‘blue collar’. It is overwhelmingly female (56 per cent of Usdaw’s membership are women) with a high proportion of part-time workers. The sector also has a high proportion of younger staff (21 per cent of Usdaw’s members are aged under 26) and a diverse ethnic balance. Usdaw’s membership has been built up in the private service sector – a sector that traditionally has been hard to organize on the basis of recruiting part-time women and young workers who have traditionally been regarded as hard to recruit. The sector has a high turnover of staff – meaning that Usdaw has always had to recruit a minimum of 60 000 members per year just to stand still. It has always had to emphasize ‘recruiting’ but it was thought of as ‘filling a leaky bucket’ – with members leaving for new jobs as fast as they were recruited (Usdaw, 1998). In the days of closed shop agreements 1 , recruitment was largely automatic and relatively little effort was needed to recruit large numbers of members. This form of agreement was made unlawful by the Conservative government in 1992. As with other UK trade unions, the socio-political climate and the end of the closed shop meant that Usdaw suffered a sharp decline in membership as it struggled to find an alternative strategy. Annual recruitment fell from 131 247 (1980) to a low point of 51 161 (1993).
One response to declining membership was to seek partnership agreements. While Usdaw became well known for promoting a ‘partnership approach’ (Simms et al., 2013), it only signed two recognition agreements that could be described as fitting the partnership model (with the now defunct Littlewoods Group and with Tesco, which is now the largest UK private sector collective agreement covering over 250 000 staff). Other agreements have been labelled as partnership agreements but in fact had no substantive differences from traditional recognition agreements. Arguably though, the window dressing of partnership in these agreements may have heralded a less confrontational style of industrial relations. Partnership agreements, however, did not mean that employers recruited members for Usdaw. It still had to recruit members using its own resources. Consequently the burden of recruitment fell onto the shoulders of Usdaw FTOs with intermittent contributions by lay representatives. Recruitment was always top of the agenda for paid officials who were expected to spend up to two days per week solely on direct recruitment activity. The relatively small number of FTOs, even with help from lay activists, could not recruit members in the numbers the situation demanded. In turn, this placed great pressure on the FTOs who were expected to recruit directly as well as carrying out their servicing of members. So while Usdaw has been a ‘recruiting union’, a strategy based on recruiting alone (rather than organizing) could not fulfil the potential and the needs of the sector.
Finding its paradigm
There was no single architect of Usdaw’s organizing strategy and it was developed over a number of years. It was clear that partnership and ‘leaky bucket filling’ recruitment were not enough to lead to qualitative progress. In 1997, Usdaw’s newly-elected General Secretary, Bill Connor, became very involved in the TUC’s ‘New Unionism’ project, which led to Usdaw’s significant involvement in the TUC project. Crucially Connor also ensured that resources were set aside for Usdaw’s own organizing projects and that a senior official in each region, the Deputy Divisional Officer (DDO), was given responsibility for managing organizing at divisional level. The TUC project involved setting up a TUC Organising Academy (based on the USA AFL-CIO model) to train specialist organizers who were seconded to sponsoring unions and deployed as their sponsoring union saw fit. The sponsoring unions were not obliged to change their structures or other practices. The specialist organizers were an ‘add-on’, bolted onto existing union structures with the hope that the specialist organizers would be a catalyst (Stuart and Martinez Lucio, 2009) for cultural change in their sponsoring unions (Holgate and Simms, 2008). In the first year (1999) Usdaw took three specialist organizers, and then in the second year five more.
UK unions, including Usdaw, staged a minor recovery in the mid-1990s. Usdaw also continued to enjoy some success in terms of growth following the early involvement with the TUC’s Organising Academy in the late 1990s. However, this was unable to deliver sustained membership growth over an extended period of time. It became clear that there was not one immutable Organizing Model that was suitable for all unions in all situations. The organizing approach needed to vary depending on the characteristics of the sectors and the unions involved. Usdaw needed to find its own way of introducing its own Organizing Model. This analysis formed part of an Usdaw Executive Council paper that was passed in November 2002, and which established Usdaw’s own Organising Academy. Usdaw’s Organising Academy was based on the TUC experience and set up with TUC assistance, but focused on Usdaw’s needs. It was jointly run by Usdaw’s Education Department and FTOs with the Deputy General Secretary leading the initiative. Specially selected Usdaw trainers provided training and coaching support for trainees was provided by a handpicked and trained group of FTOs. More detail about the Usdaw Organising Academy is provided in the next section.
By 2004, it was also clear that the ‘bolt-on’ TUC Academy graduates, who were randomly spread thinly around the country, were not going to be able to shift the collective mind-set of Usdaw to adopt an organizing approach. They did succeed in showing how things could be done and, together with the Usdaw Academy, a few more FTOs saw the potential of the organizing approach but there was no way they could drive the organizational change that was required if Usdaw was to ‘mainstream’ the organizing approach (Simms et al., 2013). As Simms et al. correctly identify, the issue of mainstreaming the organizing approach is intimately bound up with how organizing is managed.
By 2006, Usdaw’s own approach had begun to take shape. It differed from the TUC’s Organizing Model in two main regards. First, it focused on infill rather than greenfield recruitment, which in turn meant focusing the union’s resources on its big 4 agreements. Secondly, it used employer cooperation and shied away from antagonistic industrial relations. The new Deputy General Secretary, Paddy Lillis, took responsibility for Usdaw’s organizing strategy and was keen to drive it forward. Usdaw had learnt from the experience of the TUC Academy, its own Academy and the specialist organizers it employed. This experience was summed up in a policy paper passed by the 2006 Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM). The following extracts spell out Usdaw’s underlying organizing strategy: ‘Absolutely central to the Organising Model is strong membership with active Union representatives. Some key features of an organised workplace are representatives who: Understand their workplace (through mapping and engaging members). Resolve issues. Work as a team (all representatives – shop stewards, safety representatives and union learning representatives). Ensure the Union has a high profile… (Usdaw, 2006: 6) The ultimate aim of the Organising Model is for workplaces to be self sufficient with little need to call on an Usdaw official. The first aim is to ensure that we are as strong as we need to be where we have existing agreements. There can be no surprises that this means, in the short to medium term, principally concentrating our organising efforts on Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and the Co-operative Sector. So we want to see … Large supermarkets being self-sufficient with the Union led by representatives within store. Smaller retailers linked together (by employer) in clusters with representatives leading the Union effort. Factories, distribution centres, call centres, etc organised by a shop stewards’ committee or team of representatives. The aim is for representatives to view their official as an advisor or coach only to be called upon when something new or particularly difficult comes along’. (Usdaw, 2006: 11)
Engaging, developing and supporting representatives
The Usdaw Organising Academy started in 2003 with 15 lay representatives taking part in the six-month programme. It sought to be an exemplar of organizing best practice and a catalyst for change. Lay representatives who wanted to take part had to undergo a rigorous selection process (it was said that the selection process for the Academy was more demanding than that to become a FTO). The selection process was designed to ensure that trainees were a reflection of Usdaw’s membership – and so constituted a positive action measure for those under involved in Usdaw, particularly women and black members. Four weeks of the six-month programme was spent in the training room with the remainder of the time spent ‘in the field’ recruiting new members and organizing workplaces. Academy trainees were released from work by their employer on a seconded basis. They continued to be paid by their employer as if at work with payroll costs being reimbursed by Usdaw. Few difficulties were encountered over negotiating release as it was at zero cost to the employer and easy to administer.
The training programme was entirely new to Usdaw. Training started on the basics of understanding organizing and on effective face-to-face recruitment. Trainees then went into workplaces to practise their new skills each under the guidance of an FTO who was designated as their coach. The training became more involved as the programme developed with trainees going on to cover recruitment at induction sessions of new employees (an important recruitment channel for Usdaw), running campaigns, identifying and developing new activists, and developing teams of representatives in workplaces – in short running mini organizing projects. In line with the union’s overall organizing strategy, most of the work carried out by trainees was done in workplaces belonging to the big 4. Very little time was spent on training for ‘greenfield’ recruitment. The emphasis in the Usdaw Academy was on team working across the union – combining the teaching in the classroom by the Education Department with the coaching in the field provided by the FTOs. This was a conscious step to help move FTOs towards applying the principles of the organizing approach in their day-to-day work. Trainees were expected to keep a simple log of their work and their impact in terms of the new members they recruited can be seen in Table 1. As the table shows, the Academy expanded dramatically from an initial annual intake of 15 representatives in 2003 to an annual intake of nearly 70 in 2011 and 2012. This has meant that significant resources have been diverted onto the Academy – the first Academy was a single nationally run and tightly controlled programme. Since 2010 each of Usdaw’s seven divisions has run their own programme.
Number of Academy trainees and members recruited by trainees per year.
In 2008, Usdaw launched its Academy 2 programme, which was open to representatives who had graduated from the first Academy. The programme followed similar lines as the original programme with the development of trainees aimed at building teams, helping representative team meetings be more effective, developing activists and running campaigns. Academy 2 trainees were also given much more responsibility and autonomy to ‘manage’ a portfolio of workplaces. Table 1 shows the impact in terms of trainees developed and the number of new members recruited.
The total number of new members recruited by both Academies over a 10-year period totals over 114 000. Academy trainees were also tasked with identifying potential new activists. In the 10 years of the Usdaw Academy over 6 000 potential new workplace union representatives were identified by Academy trainees. In the latter years of the Academy many of the representatives taking part were themselves recruited into union membership and, later, into their volunteer role by a previous Academy trainee.
In essence, the Usdaw Organising Academy was a programme to develop the activists’ organizing skills. It was stressed to trainees that participating in the Academy programme did not guarantee future employment with Usdaw, and at the end of the programme they would be going back to their workplace to put their new skills into practice. However, many trainees have gone on to work for the union in a paid role (all of whom have taken part in an open selection process in order to gain employment – no favours were offered for having participated in the Academy). By the end of 2012, of the 98 Area Organizers (generalist Usdaw FTOs) employed by Usdaw, 35 had gone through the Academy as had three of the union’s eight training officers. This has meant that the Academy has had a dramatic effect on the extent to which FTOs understand Usdaw’s organizing strategy and have demonstrated their commitment to it prior to appointment. The Academy has been a significant factor in shifting the collective mindset of FTOs towards adopting and promoting the organizing approach. In addition, five of the 15 members of Usdaw’s ruling body, the Executive Council, are graduates of the Academy. The Academy has been the single biggest influence on Usdaw in its adoption of the Organizing Model and without the Academy it is unlikely that many of the organizing initiatives Usdaw has undertaken would either have happened or been successful.
Running parallel to the Academy, Usdaw developed a system of obtaining release for union representatives who had an aptitude for recruitment so that they could spend time recruiting new members in workplaces other than their own. Called Stand Down Representatives (SDRs), these representatives would be released from work on the understanding that Usdaw would reimburse payroll costs. Aside from a short induction session, SDRs did not receive additional training for the role. While it provided experience and helped activists build confidence around recruiting in a variety of workplaces, the SDR programme was not a structured development programme. SDRs normally would spend one or two weeks on such recruitment activities in a number of workplaces. Those who showed a particular aptitude would then often spend much longer periods seconded to Usdaw, ranging from several months to, in a few exceptional cases, several years. Agreements on SDR release were reached with employers across all of the union’s major bargaining groups. These ranged from arrangements for as little as 28 weeks total ‘stand down time’ with one major retailer to unlimited time for one representative per store from another major retailer. In this latter case, the restraint on the use of SDRs was Usdaw’s capacity to support the representatives concerned and to fund it.
Typically, SDRs would be given a work programme by their FTO, which would see them visit a number of workplaces each day. Some time would be spent on mapping and identifying shift patterns to ascertain when future visits would be best timed but the main focus of the time spent in workplaces was to talk to potential members. The union developed a ‘rule of thumb’ that a SDR was expected to recruit a new member for every two hours they were out in the field. The use of SDRs steadily grew from their introduction in 2003. Table 2 above shows the number of hours spent each year by SDRs on recruitment activities and the number of new members recruited (initially, no systematic records were kept of SDR activity). As can be seen from the table, Usdaw’s ambition that SDRs would be able to recruit at a rate of one new member every two hours has not been realized.
Number of SDR hours and members recruited by SDRs per year.
Taking 2012 as an example, in total, these two channels of recruitment activity (i.e. the Academy and the SDRs) accounted for 37 319 of the new members recruited that year (virtually half of the 75 086 total). In addition, more than 800 potential activists were identified and hundreds of reps teams helped to function better. They provided the equivalent time of 73 FTOs, in addition to the 98 permanently employed FTOs.
In addition to the Academy and SDRs, Usdaw also sought to improve the way in which FTOs engaged, supported and developed lay representatives. This meant a fundamental shift in the role of the FTO and is described in the next section.
FTOs – a changing role
Spurred on by the success of the Academy and with a strong push from the centre of Usdaw, the role of the FTO began to change. The emphasis moved from an expectation that FTOs were responsible for the direct recruitment of new members to FTOs being responsible for identifying, coaching and supporting representatives who were going to organize workplaces across the FTO’s allocation (also called ‘patch’). An analysis of the number of new members recruited across each FTO’s allocation and their use of stand down representatives showed that the most successful FTOs had a threefold greater use of SDRs than the least successful. 2 The same analysis also showed that successful organizers were more likely to have identified representatives for the Academy, nominated representatives for organizing awards and identified the most new representatives.
Over a period of time (from the first policy document in 1998 onwards) the role of the Usdaw FTO had changed dramatically. Previous definitions as to what FTOs should be doing were clearly outdated and did not match the union’s organizing agenda; for example, the only reference to organizing in the job description for Area Organizers (Usdaw FTOs) was in the job title. This change in role developed unevenly. It came naturally to some FTOs, whilst others were pushed by line managers (usually the Deputy Divisional Officer, DDO). The pace varied dramatically according to how receptive line managers were to the new agenda and how able they were as managers.
As Deputy General Secretary (DGS), Paddy Lillis was responsible for managing the union’s organizing and recruitment strategy aided by the DDO in each of Usdaw’s seven regions. Over time Lillis was able to deal with the cumbersome and bureaucratic nature of the organization to manage directly the organizing agenda via the DDOs – aided by natural wastage and the appointment of new people into such positions. Lillis also oversaw a training programme that saw each FTO attend a number of courses aimed at encouraging them to spend more time identifying and developing representatives and less time on servicing members.
The training was delivered by the Usdaw Education Department supported by the TUC. This often placed the tutors in the invidious position of being the main advocates of a change programme that (at the time) was not universally popular. This experience made it clear that training was never going to be enough to move Usdaw into the new world of the Organizing Model. The FTOs’ new role had to be clearly established and defined. Eventually, following a year-long consultation across the union, a new guide for FTOs on how they were expected to organize the workplaces in their allocation was published in early 2009. The guide was called Managing Your Patch (MYP) and became the definitive statement as to how to describe and measure a well-organized allocation of workplaces (Usdaw, 2009a). The guide explained what each FTO should strive to achieve in their workplaces in terms of:
High membership levels/density
High Usdaw profile
Well-trained and active representatives
An understanding of their patch
Effective industrial relations
MYP provided a benchmark by which each individual FTO could measure their own progress and could be assessed by their line manager. Each FTO would agree an annual work plan with their line manager aimed at improving how well their patch was organized. This annual work plan was then reviewed at regular intervals throughout the year – more frequently for underperforming FTOs. As well as establishing a clear organizing template for FTOs, MYP also introduced the concept that FTOs are ‘managers’ of the patch of workplaces they have in their allocation. What was controversial language at the time has been accepted as an accurate descriptive term of what an organizing FTO needs to do to be effective. This places an emphasis on managerial skills such as coaching, leadership and team development as well as the more traditional FTO skills and values. There was significant emphasis on developing and supporting representatives.
Part of this agenda is to promote the use of representative team meetings in workplaces. Agreements with most of the major retailers allow for time off with pay for representatives to attend monthly meetings. The major challenge for Usdaw has been to ensure that such meetings take place and that representatives make good use of the time available. It is central to the concept of a well-organized workplace that representatives are able to meet and plan their activities on a regular basis. Ensuring team meetings work in this way has been a priority of MYP and data from Usdaw representative surveys show that the use of representative team meetings has increased. The first rep survey in 2007 showed that 50 per cent of reps agreed that there were regular monthly rep team meetings in their workplace. This rose to 58 per cent in 2012.
Usdaw had to develop its information systems to be able to support its organizing work and to measure progress towards achieving organized workplaces. A major investment has been made in developing IT systems and appropriate software to record progress towards organizing targets and representative training and development planning. This means that an individual FTO can call upon data about membership levels, density, representative training and recruitment activity for most of the workplaces they organize. Their line manager is able to do the same either on individual workplaces or across a FTO’s patch. Both the FTO and their manager, therefore, have data they can use to decide organizing priorities when establishing the FTO’s work plan for the year ahead. The FTO can focus his or her efforts on workplaces where density falls below either the regional or national average. Information is also available to managers on aspects of individual performance of FTOs such as the number of new members recruited across their patch, new union representatives identified, the performance of Academy trainees and SDRs, which representatives have received a development review by the FTO and which representatives are awaiting training. Nationally, senior managers can analyse the performance of divisions and assess trends across the major employers.
Strategic planning and leadership
The first major strategic choice that Usdaw made in terms of delivering its organizing agenda was to prioritize resources on its 4 biggest agreements with most potential for increasing membership density. These became known as the ‘big 4’ covering Tesco, Morrisons, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s – as agreed in the 2006 ADM policy paper quoted above.
The TUC said in its 2001 report ‘Reaching the Missing Millions’ that there were over 3 million UK employees in unionized workplaces who would be willing to join a union if only they were asked (TUC, 2001). Usdaw knew that it had nearly 350 000 potential members in the big 4 and that its first priority should be to ensure that they, and all new employees, were asked to join. Whilst Usdaw had pockets of strong membership in individual workplaces, as Table 3 shows it was still relatively poorly organized in 2008.
Number and density of members in the big 4.
Figures rounded to the nearest thousand. Reliable data are not available before 2007. Some of the Co-op growth in total membership is as a result of acquisitions by the employer where some members will have already been in membership.
Table 3 shows the impact of focusing resources onto the big 4 and the rise in both membership and density. It also shows that the increase in membership within the big 4 was at the expense of membership levels elsewhere. This reflects the demise of a small number of sizeable employers including Woolworths and catalogue-based home shopping. Three important conclusions can be drawn from Table 3. First, Usdaw’s focus on the big 4 has delivered significant membership growth and a commensurate increase in density. Secondly, Usdaw’s growth has been within existing agreements and has not been on the back of sweetheart deals 3 with employers or encroachment into other unions’ domains. Thirdly, membership growth cannot be solely ascribed to employment growth within the sector – higher density means that Usdaw’s growth has been greater than that of the big 4.
The new world of Usdaw had two broad strands to its strategy: it wanted to implement its own version of the Organizing Model and it wanted to focus its finite resources on the big 4. Simply to issue a management instruction to this effect was never going to be successful – like many organizations, a management directive to do something does not mean that it actually happens. Delivering its strategy meant that divisions and ultimately individual FTOs had to understand the overarching strategy and deliver it. Usdaw needed the managerial capacity to drive central initiatives. It needed to develop a completely new strategic planning process and management capability.
Usdaw successfully applied to the Union Modernisation Fund 4 for resources to help develop its managerial capacity. Working in partnership with the Work Foundation, the following areas were identified where improvements were deemed necessary:
development of a management model that could be universally applied across the organization;
better ways of determining operational performance;
strategic planning that focused on the ‘day job’ as well as new initiatives;
maximizing individual performance and linking this to the overall direction of Usdaw.
This complex project took several years and resulted in adopting a planning process based around Kaplan and Norton’s performance management tool ‘The Balanced Scorecard’ (1996). Kaplan and Norton’s original Balanced Scorecard was based on the four business perspectives of ‘Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes, and Learning and Growth’. It was intended to help businesses ensure that they did not focus on a single bottom line (usually share price or profit) and instead prompted businesses to have broader and longer-term perspectives and objectives.
Like many UK trade unions, Usdaw traditionally viewed success in terms of either new members recruited or overall membership. All other objectives – even what had been won for the members – tended to be subordinated to these objectives. The Balanced Scorecard offered a way to avoid this narrowing of objectives but not in its original form. Just as the Organizing Model needed adapting for Usdaw’s needs, so the Balanced Scorecard needed to be adapted for a trade union. Usdaw consulted widely amongst staff and drew up its own version of the Balanced Scorecard with the perspectives and objectives set out in Table 4.
This approach allowed Usdaw to develop an annual strategic plan with clear objectives, measures to ascertain progress towards these objectives, targets related to these measures, and, crucially, the activities it planned to undertake in order to deliver the objectives. These activities were a mixture of predominately day-to-day activities that were a strategic priority together with a limited number of new initiatives. Emphasis was on what needed to be done to deliver the objectives rather than introducing never ending change. Each of Usdaw’s seven divisions and the departments at the union’s Head Office produced their own strategic plans along the same lines as the National Plans mentioned above. These included Divisional and departmental targets that were agreed with the General Secretary. The intention was to determine a ‘line of sight’ that ran between the centrally produced national strategic plan, through divisional and departmental strategic plans down and the individual members of staff who agreed their contribution via a workplan or an annual performance review. The net effect of this was that every member of staff was involved in a process that asked of them what they would contribute to the objectives of the union. In the case of FTOs, this incorporated their annual MYP workplan as detailed above.
The success of the Strategic Plan was predicated on being able to measure progress towards the defined objectives and this meant collecting and analysing data. New IT systems that had been developed helped this process. Each month a report was produced for Divisions. This report showed at a glance how the Division was performing against its targets and managers were expected to respond accordingly. Organizing and financial data were relatively easily available but data relating to some aspects of the People and Delivery perspectives did not exist. Usdaw commissioned surveys of staff, representatives and members in order to measure progress towards its objectives in these areas. The surveys not only provided important management data that allowed for decisions to be made, it also threw up some interesting results (data from staff survey 2011 and reps and members surveys 2012):
94 per cent of representatives say they are proud to be an Usdaw representative;
84 per cent of representatives say that building a strong membership is their number one priority;
84 per cent of staff said that they had a good understanding of Usdaw’s objectives/strategic priorities;
76 per cent of staff said that they could see how the work they do contributes to the organization’s objectives (Usdaw, 2012).
The representative survey results reflect the work that Usdaw has carried out to ensure that representatives are developed and supported, whilst at the same time focused on building membership levels and growing the union. The staff survey results show that staff, including FTOs, not only understand the union’s overall sense of direction and strategy, but also what they need to do in order to contribute to it. This, coupled with more effective management practices, has transformed the organization.
Usdaw has invested significantly in its managers and provided extensive training and development. A compulsory Management Development Programme was instigated for all senior managers, which included:
defining the core skills and behaviours that were expected of managers;
360° analysis of managerial performance;
development needs analysis and subsequent training;
externally provided coaching support (Usdaw, 2009b).
Limitations and qualifications
Usdaw’s strategy is not without risks. Focusing on the big 4 can be criticized on at least two counts. First, the retail sector in the UK constitutes a significant part of the economy and is a major source of employment. By focusing on the big 4 the union runs the risk of increasing the dual nature of the sector – organized versus unorganized. Secondly, Usdaw has 70 per cent of its membership tied up with four employers. This would pose a risk should any of these face problems commercially and shrink, or should management’s position on union recognition change.
However, Usdaw’s choice of targeting the big 4 is vindicated by growth in membership density across all four employers at a time when each of these employers was growing substantially. Data from the Labour Force Survey show that the total headcount in retail has essentially levelled out (rising slightly from 2.83 million in June 2002 to 2.86 million in June 2012) yet employee headcount for the big 4 has risen sharply (according to internal Usdaw figures, Tesco alone had increased its headcount by over 100 000 in this time period). 5 It is axiomatic as density grows across these agreements that Usdaw should identify its next set of target areas to organize. Usdaw will need a similar uniformity of purpose to that it has shown over concentrating on the big 4, when it comes to deciding where and how to organize next.
Usdaw has deployed managerial systems to good effect but these are not without risk. The union has introduced systems for managing staff, including FTOs, that would not be out of place in many commercial organizations. Research has shown that when a union develops new managerial methods there is a risk that the influence of lay activists is diminished, and the principles that have guided trade unions are diluted (Thomas, 2013). Usdaw’s challenge has been to deliver the best that it can with the finite resources available, while simultaneously focusing the collective efforts of the union on the priorities defined by the Annual Delegates Conference in the resolution quoted above. As can be seen in Table 4 above, trade union principles run throughout Usdaw’s Balanced Scorecard and its mission statement of ‘improving workers lives – winning for members’. The managerial changes have been introduced without any changes to the wider democracy of the lay structures across the union or any changes to the rights and responsibilities defined in the Usdaw rule book. Paid members of staff have been made much more accountable than previously but all of the democratic institutions of the organization remain unchanged. Adopting some of the language and tools of management does not necessarily need to herald a loss of trade union values. There was an internal debate within Usdaw as to whether or not organizational change should extend to the branch structure and beyond but there was little enthusiasm for this from any of the major decision-makers.
The Balanced Scorecard objectives.
Conclusion
Usdaw is one of the success stories of the UK trade union movement. As Figure 1 below shows, it has grown from its low point in 1994 and has experienced steady and significant growth over the last six years. It has also increased membership density across its biggest agreements. This has been a result of Usdaw’s decision to develop itself as an organizing union.
Usdaw and UK union membership (000s), 1989–2012. Note: The timeframe of 1989–2012 is chosen as Labour Force Survey data is only available from 1989 and has been used to ensure consistency. The main focus of this article is Usdaw's recovery and growth and it is felt, therefore, that there is no need to use older data and mix datasets.
Like the UK trade union movement as a whole, Usdaw halted its decline in the mid-1990s. Unlike the rest of the movement, it continued to grow thereafter but at an irregular and slow rate. Figure 2 shows that Usdaw’s early recovery was hit and miss and it has only been able to sustain a period of growth once it developed its own Organizing Model and, crucially, the managerial capacity to implement it.
Usdaw annual growth in membership.
Usdaw has been fortunate that during the period under discussion the senior officials mentioned above (together with a small number of others) had the authority and vision to support and push through the process of change described here in the face of cynicism and some opposition. Their leadership helped facilitate the six key factors that have been responsible for Usdaw’s success. These factors are as follows.
It has found its own way of adapting the Organizing Model to suit its needs. This placed lay representatives at the heart of its organizing strategy as is demonstrated by: The growth of its Organising Academy and the contribution this had made to the recruitment of new members and its acting as a catalyst for organizational change. The contribution made by SDRs in the organizing of workplaces and recruitment of new members. The increased prevalence of representative team meetings. The refocusing of the FTO role to support and coach lay reps and their teams. Strong data from Usdaw surveys of representatives that show them to be committed advocates of the union and well supported by their FTOs.
It instituted organizational change. It did this first by changing the role of the DDO into managers of the regional organizing strategy and then developing new working practices for FTOs, which changed the FTO role from servicing and recruiting to that of a ‘manager’ of their patch including the development of the representative network within it. Crucially, the new practices adopted by the FTOs delivered real change. There are a number of reasons why this has been achieved: the introduction of MYP set out a clear template of the expectations with regard to FTOs; information systems allowed for FTOs and their managers to assess performance against these expectations; and managers were equipped and developed to manage effectively FTOs and deal with under-performance. Ultimately, the change management programme as described gave weaker officials little room to hide and avoid their responsibilities.
It has focused its resources on its big 4 agreements and has grown substantially across each of them. Since 2007 membership has grown by 64 000 across these four agreements. This has allowed Usdaw to increase substantially its membership density at the same time as each of the employers were themselves growing and consolidating market share.
It has introduced a new approach to strategic planning that: Looks beyond the bottom line of membership growth and establishes objectives across a broader perspective of what an organizing union needs to achieve. Establishes a line of sight between a national strategic plan and the individual contribution that each member of staff will make towards the overall objectives of the union.
It has developed information systems that give invaluable, real time information to organizers and managers across a wide range of organizing metrics.
It has started the transformation of the way in which the organization is managed and has developed the confidence and competence of its managers to ensure that its change programme is delivered.
The argument that has been made here is that to make the Organizing Model work it has to be adapted to suit the circumstances a union finds itself in. Hence it would be inappropriate (and even illogical) to suggest that other unions should seek to copy Usdaw in order to be successful. There are, however, some lessons that can be drawn from Usdaw’s experience:
The Organizing Model works but it needs to be adapted to suit different circumstances. This takes time. Usdaw spent a decade working out what its organizing approach looked like and then not far off another decade to hone it and apply it effectively. This does not mean that the Organizing Model is some kind of toolbox that a union can pick and choose from. There is a common core within the Organizing Model which involves having a lay representative centred approach – with lay representatives supported as the agency for organizing (and as far as possible servicing) their workplaces, and with the union’s resources geared up to help them.
Unions need to work out for themselves the shape and look of the organizational change they need to drive the organizing approach. If organizing is ‘bolted on’ to a structure with other roles and practices unchanged, it will remain marginal and fail to revitalize the union. If a union fails to implement organizational change, it will fail to implement the organizing approach.
Unions need to have focus and accountability. For many unions, there are significant opportunities for growth within their existing agreements. It may be wise to concentrate finite resources on delivering the biggest and quickest return for their efforts, or at minimum in a planned and strategic fashion. A scattergun approach merely burns up resources with little long-term effect.
Unions need to learn how to manage and not be afraid to do so. Union leaders (and FTOs) almost exclusively come from a background of being union representatives that have spent a large part of their working lives battling ineffective or bad managers, so it is not surprising that ‘management’ becomes a dirty word in trade union circles. If Usdaw was to succeed in mainstreaming the organizing approach, it had to start developing its managers’ capacity to be effective managers.
Unions need to be open to sharing ideas, learning from each other and being creative. For Usdaw, the catalyst for change was the TUC’s New Unionism project and the TUC Organising Academy. Similarly, when Usdaw needed to improve the way it managed itself, it had to seek out models from modern management practice, and adapt these for a trade union. If a union isolates itself and closes itself down, it faces atrophy (and probably merger).
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.