The use of new ICTs in trade union protests

Abstract

German

French

Despite the interest in the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) by trade unions, little is known about how new ICTs have changed trade union protest. In a period of austerity, in which new groups – including labour-related ones – have shown impressive mobilization using social media, we focus on a cross-country approach, looking at the impact of trade union strikes and protest in the public sector. Our findings show that new ICTs are being used at all stages of strike action and union protests in general, but do not allow us to assert that unions have changed the way they act in a fundamental way.

Keywords

Internet trade unions union protest national cases public sector Europe

Introduction

The deployment of new information and communication technologies (ICTs)¹ and in particular of social media in protest actions has proven crucial to several cases in recent years, all around the world. This is reflected in such expressions as ‘the Twitter revolution’ (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012). Concerning the Arab Spring and in particular the Egyptian revolution of 2011, some tools have been associated with specific stages of the protest action; for example, Facebook was used to set a date, Twitter to share logistical information and YouTube to show the world what was happening (Gerbaudo, 2012). In fact, these movements were characterized by organizing styles based on autonomy and flexibility, which new ICTs appear to facilitate (Fuchs, 2014). Also, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 was followed by different kinds of protests against the austerity measures that have in particular hit workers. Urban movements based on young people have emerged in Spain, Greece and Portugal (Campos Lima and Artiles, 2013). Besides associating trade unions with political problems, these young people – who are important consumers of new ICTs – are less likely to know about unions or to have had the opportunity to join one due, among other things, to precarious employment. Thus, the ability of unions to give a voice to young, vulnerable workers is being challenged by the emancipation of these very workers.

The use of new ICTs in protest actions by social movements is increasingly being studied. There has been growing usage of new ICTs within unions in recent years, covering various fields of union activity, such as membership administration, union publications, organizing activities, and social and political campaigning (Greene et al., 2003; Diamond and Freeman, 2002). However, not much is known about how new ICTs are being deployed in union protests and how far new ICTs have changed unions’ ‘calculated strategic weapon’, namely the strike (Scheuer, 2006). This article examines how new ICTs are being applied to support union protest and strikes, taking a cross-country approach. We assume that new ICTs are not just a new way of doing things. We cannot simply draw an analogy that new ICTs are playing a similar role to the one played by trade union newspapers and pamphlets in the development of the labour movement, or the role of the media in the impact of new social movements some decades ago.

As new ICTs have become the main way of communication, the article takes a comprehensive approach to them, across a broad spectrum, ranging from technology based on the simple transfer of information (static websites and email) to interactive technology that allows real-time users’ input, so-called Web 2.0 (for example, social media, interactive sites and forums). Web 2.0 refers to the stage of internet development at which users became able to interact, usually by means of social media, interactive websites and teleconferencing. Our main research question concerns whether new ICTs have changed the way in which unions protest. To answer this question, we have selected five cases involving trade unions in the public sector, each in a different country, which reflect the rich use made of new ICTs. Based on these case studies, the main conclusion is that although new ICTs have not changed trade union protest fundamentally, they have raised important new challenges to unions, such as the need to revise their communication strategies and to deal with alternative public ‘voices’.

Unions’ use of new ICTs: from optimism in the literature to limited practical evidence

Most literature on unions’ use of new ICTs is based on Anglo-Saxon countries and focuses primarily on how new ICTs are changing how unions are perceived (Wood, 2015; Cloutier et al., 2013). This literature has an optimistic undertone, focusing on how technology can contribute to union revitalization. It is stressed that new ICTs represent part of trade union efforts to reverse membership decline, not only by building a common identity (Whitthall et al., 2009), but also by reaching people who, whether due to personal reasons or other constraints, generally do not participate in traditional face-to-face meetings (Greene and Kirton, 2003; Wood, 2015). In this sense, new ICTs may constitute systems of cooperation rather than systems of information, overcoming the parochial nature of labour activities (Whitthall et al., 2009). Social media, for instance, can enhance collective workplace action, although rather by oiling than building a machine (Upchurch and Grassman, 2015). It is also underlined that the internet in particular provides opportunities for virtual networking, namely through transnational organization (Pulignano, 2009), offers service opportunities such as e-learning and enables the circulation of critical views, thus offering a more democratic environment (Martínez Lucio et al., 2009). Also, new ICTs provide an opportunity to extend the deployment of new forms of union action such as flash mobs (Molnár, 2014) and mobile applications.

However, more recently, new ICTs have also been associated with new issues and risks (Fuchs, 2014), such as employer counter-mobilization (Upchurch and Grassman, 2015), and new protest movements, namely the anti-austerity movements, who have used ICTs in a creative way to boost mobilization. The use of Web 2.0 in particular, due to its interactivity, has come up against several obstacles within the unions. Once policy is formulated unions will seek to take a whole-union approach to implementing that policy to maximize the collective strength of any action they take, because their strength lies in collective organization. Web 2.0, on the other hand, benefits from continuing discourse and openness to new ideas (Diamond and Freeman, 2002) and may be based on individualized strength. Unions can only apply new ICTs in creative and empowering ways when leaders choose to do so; that is to say, when they release central control over resources and discussions. In fact, only if a union executive decides to invest in new ICTs, sometimes disregarding the union’s own digital divide, will workers, unionized and non-unionized, be enabled to take advantage of technological developments. In this sense, some authors have already identified the organizational context and the communication culture as factors that mediate the use of ICTs (Martínez Lucio et al., 2009). Furthermore, users’ socio-demographic profiles also prove to be relevant and situations of computer illiteracy or other resistances to new forms of communication among workers may also render recourse to new ICTs ineffective (Martínez Lucio, 2003). Even when new ICTs are adopted, personal face-to-face communications still build closer relationships that may motivate people to read emails or to seek out updates from a website (Vielhaber and Waltman, 2008). In fact, research evidence shows that there is a limit to the full potential of new ICTs and in particular of Web 2.0 (Hodder and Houghton, 2015). Although almost all unions have a website, few union websites allow, for instance, two-way communication opportunities (Rego et al., 2014).

Methodology and case overview

In this article we analyse data from five European countries: Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The selection of these countries is intended to enrich the research with heterogeneous experiences: these countries not only have different general uses of ICTs – as Table 1 shows – but also have different patterns of industrial relations, including strike characteristics and protest action intensity. One can differentiate between the Anglo-Saxon, the Mediterranean, the Continental and the so-called transition models (Gallie, 2007). This heterogeneous selection of countries ensures different illustrations of how ICTs are used in strikes and other union protest actions.

Table 1.

National ICTs features (2014).

Country	Mobile phone suscriptions per 100 inhabitants	Percentage of individuals using the internet
Bulgaria	137.7	55.5%
Italy	154.2	62.0%
Netherlands	116.4	95.8%
Portugal	111.8	53.3%
United Kingdom	123.6	91.6%

Source: ITU (2015).

We restricted our analysis to the public sector to control for the impact of sector-based particularities. Furthermore, the public sector has been the main locus of anti-austerity protests and union membership is usually higher in the public sector than elsewhere (Scheuer, 2011). We therefore expected to find more important communication flows and union resources here. Our methodology makes recourse to qualitative data. In each country, we selected one union organization that came to the fore for its protest actions and recourse to new ICTs. These cases are also expected to reflect the pattern of industrial relations in which they are embedded. This resulted in a variety of organizations in terms of size, age, activities and ICT use, as presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

National case studies.

Country	Acronym and union name	Year of creation	Sector	Number of members (2015)	Use of ICTs
Bulgaria	SSZB-ITUPEB - Синдикат на служителите в затворите в България - Trade Union of Prison Employees	2009	Prison workers	1300*	Facebook Mobile phone Website
Italy	FLC-CGIL Federazione Lavoratori della Conoscenza - Federation of Knowledge Workers	2004	Education	202,456	Facebook YouTube channel Website
Netherlands	FNV (Abvakabo)	2015 (1976)	Multi-sector (health)	1,100,000 (345,000)	Blog Facebook Twitter Website
Portugal	SPGL – Sindicatos dos Professores da Grande Lisboa - Trade Union of Lisbon Area Teachers	1974	Education	13,267	Facebook Twitter Website
United Kingdom	UNISON	1993	Multi-sector	1,300,000	Blog Facebook Twitter Website

* 2014.

Source: Authors’ typology.

In Bulgaria we analysed the independent Trade Union of Prison Employees (ITUPEB-SSZB) that, over a five-year period, has come to represent about 21 per cent of all prison employees. In Italy, we selected the Federation of Knowledge Workers (FLC-CGIL) which was established through the merger of two unions: CGIL SNS (School) and SNUR (University and Research), representing both the public and the private education sectors. Our Dutch organization was one of the unions that merged in 2015 to form the new broad national union FNV, representing the health sector. In Portugal, we selected the largest union in the education sector, a regional organization, the Trade Union of Lisbon Area Teachers (SPGL-CGTP-IN) which has lost about 7000 members in the crisis, due to the worsening situation of teachers. Finally, our UK case is UNISON, one of the United Kingdom’s largest unions for more than two decades, with more than a million members. UNISON is also the largest public service union in Europe.

We based our analysis on both in-depth interviews and documents. We interviewed a board member from the trade union executive and the person responsible for the information department, assuming that they could provide an organizational view in a complementary way. In addition, we carried out a content analysis of documents – such as studies, reports and online information – to provide more data on the union and its activities. In the Bulgarian case, we also carried out exploratory interviews with workers because they were engaged in the creation of the union. The fieldwork was conducted between February and August 2015 in accordance with common interview guidelines. The interviews were composed of four sections: (i) a general overview of the use of communication tools; (ii) assessing the impact of the use of communication tools; (iii) evidence from a case study/illustration; and (iv) likely future developments. In particular, we focused on the stages in strike/protest action at which new ICTs are used; whether new ICTs are being privileged over other communication tools in union protest; and what kind of difficulties unions encounter in deploying new ICTs in protest action.

Bulgaria

While unions affiliated to the traditional Bulgarian union confederations have rarely been involved in industrial conflicts in recent years and sometimes have been unable to mobilize, SSZB, a recently created grass-roots union movement, has combined social dialogue with protest actions and coordinated labour disputes. In order to be able to negotiate collectively with the central prison administration, 14 prison guards decided to establish a union in 2009 in response to the ‘massive violations of employee rights’ (interview with a member of the SSZB executive). The SSZB was established on the basis of an informal network of employees in the sector to address labour-related problems – such as unpaid overtime, working time organization issues, budget limitations, and health and safety problems – both by mobile phone communication and at personal meetings. Right from the outset, the spread of information and recruitment of members was done mostly informally through texts and emails. The union maintains a closed Facebook group and a Facebook page, where employees engaged in union activities can make more extensive comments and suggestions, including in case of protests. SSZB members also use the union’s website, which regularly publishes documents, media publications, laws, and proposed legislative changes, information on activities and protests and a closed forum for registered members. In addition, union activists also adopted a particular mobile phone provider (thereby getting cheaper calls) to communicate with one another. Maintaining the union website and its Facebook page, all public activities, written materials and reports are undertaken by union members on a voluntary basis.

The union is still actively recruiting and enlarging its regional network. SSZB is financed through membership fees (about €2.6 per month). Half of the fees collected stay in the respective regional section to cover its operational costs. The other half goes to the central management to cover travel expenses for organizing and participating in national protests and for organizing general meetings. To organize protests, they use communication channels, including social media, phone calls, texts and emails. When organizing protests, the board makes formal decisions and usually initiates advanced meetings with local structures in order to discuss and manage the planned protests. In mobilization campaigns and protests, the union’s leadership and its members actively use new ICTs, such as email, closed Facebook groups and a website (http://www.sszb.eu/), besides mobile phones, to mobilize and coordinate actions. Since 2009, SSZB has initiated numerous protests, addressing problematic working conditions and demanding that the administration strictly enforce labour legislation. All interviewees stressed that SSZB gives priority to dialogue and negotiations with the administration. If this strategy is not successful, the union initiates protests.

The latest protest campaign (2014–2015) is indicative of the way the union mobilizes its resources, both new ICTs and traditional tools of communication. Before the protests, the union initiated a petition on paper, because the Ministry of Justice would accord it much more attention than a ‘digital petition’. However, information about the petition was available on the union website. The petition was signed and supported by 90 per cent of all prison employees. On 29 December 2014, employees from all prisons went to protest outside the Ministry’s administrative buildings, holding in their hands a copy of the Ministry of the Interior regulations. On 10 January 2015, the union organized a national protest march against the ‘planned limitation of labour rights in the penitentiary administration and against the insufficient budget allotted to the prison system’ (interview with a board member of the SSZB). Union mobilization takes place through ICTs. SSZB has proven rather successful both in organizing and in achieving outcomes through protests, taking advantage of ICTs mainly as a communication channel. In fact, the SSZB experience shows that the internet and mobile phones facilitate and speed up the information process and mobilization in the case of protests in a small and recently established union.

Italy

The FLC runs a National Media Office with one employee and four expert collaborators. It works in close coordination with the FLC national secretary. As explained by the person in charge of the National Media Office: ‘The FLC uses several media with the aim of having the right tools for each communication need’ (interview with the person responsible at the information department of the FLC). These include a website (www.flcgil.it) with a daily press review and a specific section for campaigns; an e-newsletter; a members’ journal; a YouTube channel for campaigns but also for information and video tutorials targeting practical worker needs; a Facebook page with about 40,000 members; and a Twitter page with about 4000 followers. As explained by the FLC National Secretary for Organization: ‘these tools are aimed at creating and strengthening relationships with unionists, workers and citizens, looking to short-term objectives but from a long-term perspective as media actions need to fall within the general strategy. It is important to prioritize horizontal communication but we also need to support these practices by good coordination’ (interview with FLC board member).

Online tools are used for communication but, in general terms, they are also helpful for improving union actions at any level, whether conveying information, engaging in consultation or participating in and organizing meetings, protests and strikes. An example of the integration between the web and collective action is the campaign ‘Fai la scuola giusta’ (Make schools fair), which started in September 2014 and led to the general strike of school workers on 5 May 2015. This campaign supported the FLC proposals for ‘fair schools’ in contrast with the institutional school reform titled ‘La buona scuola’ (Good schools) announced by the Italian government. As far as the FLC is concerned, the reform amounts to a reduction of education workers’ rights, increasing teachers’ workload without a corresponding wage increase and narrowing teachers’ autonomy. The campaign was structured by several online tools: a specific space on the national website with information about the government reform bill, union proposals and events; a blog with news; an online game; an online survey consulting workers with regard to proposals; and a YouTube video explaining the reform and the reasons behind the FLC’s critical perspective. These online tools are also strictly interrelated with other collective actions: flash mobs denouncing the working conditions in the education system organized by FLC unionists along with workers, associations and self-organized groups; interventions at local level to denounce the critical points in the reform and following the national ‘Buona Scuola roadshow’ organized by the government; and culminating in the general educational sector strike in protest at the school reform organized by FLC-CGIL, CISL Scuola and UIL Scuola. On 5 May 2015, 618,000 workers went on strike with a participation rate of about 65 per cent of the total school workforce. During the campaign, the FLC website also supported the Unitary Workplace Representatives (RSU) in the 3–5 March 2015 election across the education sector with practical information, candidate profiles, flyers, posters and videos. As a result, the FLC gained a high level of consensus, showing an increase in RSU victories compared with recent years.

In another recent campaign, web tools provided the means for a petition named ‘#perchenoino’ (why we can’t) – based on a petition website ‘change.org’ – in favour of unemployment benefits for precarious university employees. This digital campaign was supported by physical actions, such as protests outside the Ministry of Labour. This protest was named ‘#nonèunhobby’ (it’s not a hobby) and organized as a ‘happening’ during which precarious employees performed their favourite hobby. The online petition obtained 8000 signatures and the problem was discussed at a general assembly of the university sector organized by the FLC in October 2015 with the participation of about 270 workers and recorded in a YouTube video viewed more than 450 times.

These kinds of protest initiative prove useful for improving worker participation in collective actions, generating an image of a more innovative union, better communicating the contents of FLC proposals to a wider range of workers and citizens by publishing shocking pictures online, as well as denouncing inadequate working conditions, sometimes taking an ironic approach. In conclusion, the FLC’s new ICT strategy is aimed at enhancing individual motivation, raising awareness, denunciation and attracting public attention, providing information and practical knowledge about the reforms and daily practical tutorials for daily working activities, consulting workers (in online surveys) about their needs and proposals, fostering collective elaboration and generally organizing union actions, for example, in elections, protests and strikes. Thus, web tools form part of a general approach aimed at empowering unionists and workers and supporting their collective actions, as well as their participation in all aspects of the union’s organization and taking advantage of the internet to prepare more attractive protests. Although the immediate impact may not always be significant, the efficacy of these tools needs to be evaluated in a long-term perspective.

Netherlands

The merged FNV has a department and specialists responsible for its communication strategy. This department has around 80 full-time employees and consists of: press communication, member communication, marketing and multimedia (editors, website, content and studio). In most cases, new ICTs and traditional communication are used in a complementary way. Sometimes only social media are used, as in the case of the Abvakabo FNV campaign. In 2014, the Abvakabo FNV launched a campaign to get new members, using mainly Twitter. The various stages were: (i) opening (Twitter) discussion; (ii) ‘buying’ room for tweets on existing and very popular accounts; (iii) reacting to the tweets received by a special team at the union, 24/7. In two months, this union tweet account attracted 1000 followers and a number of new members subscribed. However, the union organization is still not focused on this kind of social media. In fact, social media are active 24/7 and this means a different work schedule for the communications officers involved, including picket services.

The union uses a monitoring system called COOSTO², which delivers daily automated data on the use and main topics of social media. However, for the union it is too intensive to follow this day by day. Nevertheless, the use of modern communication tools has an impact – sometimes unexpected – as shown in the Abvakabo FNV case. The Abvakabo FNV supported the student actions in spring 2015 against the introduction of a new system of student loans. The union was present at a demonstration and distributed its reactions and photographs instantly on Twitter. As the union was by far the most visible on Twitter (8000 followers), many people thanked the union for organizing this action, although they were not responsible for it. The union just wanted to support the students and build bridges.

The use of new ICTs has changed the role and competences of communication officers. Previously, their main task was to coach trade union officials in what and how to communicate. Nowadays members are the focus and the role of the communication officers is no longer to interest journalists, but to open the floor to members with a personal story, not a ‘union story’. Relations with the mass media have also changed. In earlier stages press releases played a central role; nowadays, tweets are increasingly taking over. Moreover the union makes less effort to get articles published. Nowadays, opinions are expressed in blogs. The following case illustrates clearly how new ICTs can be used by the union movement.

In March 2014, the collective agreement for 190,000 employees in hospitals expired. The employers’ organization (NVZ, Nederlandse Vereniging van Ziekenhuizen, Dutch Federation of Hospitals) and the unions did not agree on a new contract. The unions organized actions and started to prepare strikes, a complicated step in the hospital sector, as the interests of patients and the broader public are at stake. In September 2014 employees in 20 hospitals submitted 30,000 signatures from employees to their administrations in order to persuade them to change the opinion of their employers’ organization. In December 2014 the unions rejected a final NVZ proposal. Two months later they started mobilizing hospital employees and the public by various actions and presented an ultimatum to the employers to restart the negotiations before 9 March. After that date, actions and strikes would be intensified. Physical debates at workplaces and small discussions on social media were also stepped up. On 3 March NVZ invited the unions for new negotiations. This resulted in a new collective agreement, which was approved by 97 per cent of the employees. After each negotiation, the union informed its members within 24 hours by social media, to keep them involved in the process and to increase pressure on the employers (integrated action strategy), including an electronic ballot on the results. The feedback on the process was also transmitted by social media: ‘When we agreed on the new CLA, we got a lot of thanks via social media. That is a really good compliment’ (interview with board member of FNV).

In summary, not all officials are prepared to participate in web and Twitter discussions and to react properly to opponents from inside and outside the union. Also, the organization is not always ready for it. Social media are active 24/7 and this requires an adapted work schedule for the communications officers involved, including picket services. Members are more active and informed during the process. This strengthens the visibility and position of the union and the commitment of its members on a daily basis. In the hospital case, physical workplace visits and discussions on social media were combined. In all FNV sectors ballots can be done electronically, often in combination with physical meetings, taking full advantage of the new ICTs.

Portugal

Between 2005 and 2009, Portugal’s Socialist government implemented several education reforms, the most controversial of which concerned teachers’ career structure and teacher evaluation (Stoleroff and Pereira, 2008). This triggered massive protests from teachers, bringing together the union movement and spontaneously emerging groups that arose in parallel and local action to organize teachers wishing to protest. Perhaps the most important street demonstration since the 1974 revolutionary period involved teachers in Lisbon in 2008, with around 100,000 participants. Since then education has been buffeted by spending cuts allegedly due to ‘austerity’, in particular after the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2011 (Pernot and Rego, 2014).

Our interviewees at the SPGL consider that new ICTs have played an important role in teachers’ protests in recent years. Blogs in particular have helped to mobilize public opinion and in the construction of protest groups, such as the one supporting the public school system. As the person currently responsible for the information department says: ‘blog discussions boost the self-esteem of teachers who were mistreated by the education ministry’ (interview with person responsible for the information department of SPGL). However, the most popular blogs on education, with the most impact in the mass media, do not have any connection with the union movement. The SPGL does not run a blog, considering that it consumes too much time.

Also, it is clear that new ICTs mean more than the replacement of postal communication by email communication. The forum on the SPGL website provided a new opportunity for participation, but was judged too demanding in terms of supervisory needs and hence shut down one year later. Insulting messages and other inappropriate content require strict control; this is why the management of the information provided on the website or in social media, operating in real time, is restricted to the person responsible for the information department or a staff member. Note that although at SPGL Web 2.0 – namely Facebook and Twitter – is under the control of the SPGL leadership, we may expect it to open up possibilities of distributed discourse within the union.

SPGL is aware that many people use the internet but still assumes that there are greater priorities. Face-to-face communication is one such priority for SPGL. This is put into practice in several ways. Today, all union members, including executive members, teach and engage in union activities, as was common through to the mid-1990s. Furthermore, electronic ballots came under discussion some years ago as a means of complementing conventional voting and a number of steps were taken, such as requesting a budget for voting via the national ATM system. The costs were excessively high, however, and the solution did not seem completely reliable. The electronic ballot was raised because of the Brazilian experience with it since 2000, but lost out in favour of physical voting in schools. SPGL never intended to replace the face-to-face contact afforded by its network of ballot boxes (about 300) distributed to schools across the region in election periods. According to SPGL, this way elections generate an opportunity for hearing and recruiting new members due to direct interaction; physical proximity promotes deeper communication and trust.

In strikes, new ICTs seem to be considered in parallel with traditional communication tools. The preparations for the 18-day strike in June 2013, for example, were timed to coincide with the holding of national exams and started with a survey, both on paper and online, addressed, as usual, to both members and to non-members to ascertain whether they intended to support the strike. Only subsequently did the website and Facebook play a role in facilitating communication and this mainly in terms of the ongoing debate, clarifying and mobilizing for the strike. In a third stage, school meetings were organized, with high participation rates. In sum, ICTs have not significantly changed the way SPGL runs strikes, despite their contribution to all stages of the process.

Two clear challenges have arisen. First, as the head of the information department said, ICTs seem to require more contemporary language. The union does not consider that it needs to infantilize the language used but rather to adopt a more modern and attractive style, even though teachers are, on average, becoming older. This is also a major challenge given that other organized groups updated their language. Secondly, the use of ICTs means that trade unions are more vulnerable to other forces. During the Troika period there were important urban actions by protest movements using social media for mobilization and organization (Campos Lima and Artiles, 2013), which posed a challenge to unions; institutionalized movements may have become too rigid to take advantage of this kind of tool.

United Kingdom

The current UK government intends to increase the level of regulation of industrial action. Unions will in future be required to obtain a turnout in a postal ballot of at least 50 per cent of those entitled to vote. In important public services 40 per cent of those balloted must vote in favour of industrial action. Trade unions in the United Kingdom are fighting back against the proposed legislation. But if enacted, these rules will make it even more important than it is currently for unions in the United Kingdom to mobilize workers. And ICTs will have an important part to play in achieving this, if they can be used to improve communications between the union and its members. It is also worth noting that the TUC (the UK trade union confederation), in its response to the government’s proposals, urges that electronic balloting should be introduced (TUC, 2014) if the government truly want to see a higher turnout in industrial action ballots, rather than simply increasing the strike threshold to unjustifiably high levels. ICTs are thus firmly on the agenda as far as industrial action in the United Kingdom is concerned, although the Trade Union Bill, which has not finished its passage through Parliament, will possibly not include a reference to the electronic ballot.

Between 2014 and the first half of 2015, UNISON was involved in more industrial action than any other UK union, with nearly 800,000 UNISON members taking some form of industrial action. Using UNISON as a case study we look at how new ICTs are used to mobilize workers, based on a description of the various techniques employed. Like other UK unions, UNISON has a well-developed website. The problem with this is that it tends to be static and has to cater for 1.3 million members, spread across about 1000 branches, working for over 26,000 employers in a range of different services. The website is backed up by electronic newsletters. However, these are inevitably about disseminating information, not an exchange of information. At branch level, work has been done on developing interactive sites (Kerr and Waddington, 2014), but these are still relatively rare. More branches have their own static sites that mirror the approach of the national site and have the added disadvantage that they tend to become stale. In addition, there are Facebook sites and blogs. Where these are maintained centrally they promote the official line of the union. Inevitably with such a large and diverse union there are also unofficial sites where people post more critical views.

When there is industrial action all of the various official sites are used by UNISON to mobilize workers. The question is, how effective this has been. Historically, UNISON ballots have produced a large majority vote for action on a relatively small turnout. There are no obvious signs that the use of new ICTs has changed that much. In summary, new ICTs are already used by UNISON and indeed by other UK unions to mobilize workers during disputes. Nevertheless, turnout for ballots remains low for most unions. The evidence from the UNISON case study suggests that in order to address concerns, digital communications need to be more two-way and interactive. However, within UNISON there is a strong view that ICTs can never replace face-to-face contact, even if the ICTs facilitate interactive dialogue. Trade union organizing is about building trust. Workers going into a dispute with their employer need to trust their union, knowing the problems they will face. Trust is best built face to face. Importantly, there is clearly an appetite for electronic balloting among union members, which, as the TUC points out, would help avoid low turnout. Finally, if industrial action is limited by the current government, new ICTs open the door to other forms of protest action for union members.

Discussion and conclusion

We believe that understanding how new ICTs are being deployed effectively and their diverse uses in protests represents a contribution towards not only more mature union strategies, but also the assessment of the effective value of new ICTs in changing union action. In this sense, based on our main findings presented in Table 3, six conclusions emerged from the cases analysed. Considering that we did not develop a comparative study, but intended to highlight different cases, these conclusions can also be understood as a future research agenda.

Table 3.

The use of new ICTs in union protest in five union organizations.

SSZB (Bulgaria)	At the 10 January 2015 protest, texts and emails were used to spread information and recruit members, while the website helped to disseminate documents and news.
FLC (Italy)	The general strike of school workers on 5 May 2015 was prepared using several online tools, some of them interactive, such as a blog, an online game and a survey addressed to workers in order to find out their position. A flash mob was also used in a phase of increasing protest.
FNV (Netherlands)	In 2014–2015, face-to-face meetings in the workplace and social media were used to discuss future union action in order to force the employer to negotiate. Later, the union informed members by social media, including an electronic ballot on the results of each negotiation.
SPGL (Portugal)	The 18-day strike of June 2013 was decided based on a survey both on paper and online addressed to teachers. The website and Facebook facilitated the debate and mobilization, together with face-to-face meetings in schools.
UNISON (UK)	All websites, both static and interactive, are used in a strike to mobilize workers. The electronic ballot is considered to be crucial if the government manages to increase the strike threshold.

Source: Authors’ findings.

First, there are distinct contexts in which levels of union influence vary and thus there is a variation in terms of the development of ICTs and the empowerment they bring (Upchurch and Grassman, 2015). The European labour movement is heterogeneous and so according to our research is its use of new ICTs. In some countries new ICTs seem to be associated with changes in the relationship between unions and their members (enhancing participation rates), as is shown by the British and Dutch cases, seeking to advance the implementation of the electronic ballot, or the Italian efforts to attract new groups. Other countries illustrate how the internet seems more of a new and sometimes complementary means of disseminating information (through emails, websites and so on), as in Portugal and Bulgaria. In some cases, it makes a substantial difference and in others it involves only a change in form, but not in substance or effectiveness.

Secondly, new ICTs are resource-demanding, in terms of both funding and the personnel required regularly to update and control the dissemination of information. In this sense, leaders are nowadays required to have technological skills (Kerr and Waddington, 2014; Brusadelli and Caveng, 2014), which means also that leaders are challenged by new ICTs (Greene et al., 2003). If the impact of scarce resources becomes clearer in smaller unions – with fewer members and thus few resources – we may say that, in general, if the labour movement does not invest in new ICTs in periods of prosperity, it may prove harder to deal with them during a crisis or to take advantage of their capacities to offset the greater difficulties in recruiting then prevailing. That was evident in the Portuguese case, for instance; SPGL had invested in its website before the substantial decrease in members in recent years.

Thirdly, new ICTs are deployed in conjunction with traditional means of communication during protests. Workplace meetings seem crucial in gaining the support of workers, even though new ICTs play a role in preparing and complementing those meetings. As some studies seem to identify, face-to-face meetings take on particular importance in workplaces with a weak or non-existent union presence (Berntsen, 2015). Furthermore, the survey carried out by Kerr and Waddington (2014) regarding the utility of the respective communication strategies attributed the highest score to the local representative. This means that new ICTs do not seem to replace traditional means of communication, but seem to enlarge the range of communication possibilities; both means of communication are often combined in union protest. This is visible in all the selected cases.

Fourthly, there is a potential relationship between communication tools and the stages of union strikes and protests. In fact, the traditional forms of communication – in particular, face-to–face meetings – seem to play an important role in recruitment and organization, building up relationships of trust, as the methods of community organizing duly demonstrate (Holgate, 2015). New ICTs are important in information dissemination and thus can feed the debate in a unique way. In none of our national cases have new ICTs fundamentally changed the union action process.

Fifthly, following previous research showing that the perception of a union’s online presence is affected by internet experience and skills (Panagiotopoulos, 2012), there is a need to adapt communication to the target public. Although our research did not intend to focus on the way new ICTs involve new groups – such as young people – we realized that new ICTs offer attractive opportunities for innovative action as this group is usually distant from unionism. The Italian and Dutch cases show this clearly. This conclusion confirms other research evidence that younger members possess more internet skills and thus can more easily be reached through the internet. In this sense, although new ICTs do not seem simply to solve old problems of collective action, a renewed and appropriate language may prove important to attracting young workers, as a Portuguese interviewee highlighted.

Sixthly, in the digital era, other social actors are gaining ground and competing with the labour movement. New ICTs are not available solely to unions. In fact, less institutionalized movements with socio-economic motivations are using new ICTs more intensively and gaining the support of young people. The labour movement is also being challenged by individuals, as shown by the Portuguese case and blog authors. This trend, which results from the fact that in Web 2.0 a user can easily become a producer of information, has been noticed in other organizational fields, such as party politics, where there is evidence that social media have particular appeal to political actors lacking resources, thus fostering new kinds of legitimate actors (Gibson, 2015; Couldry, 2015). Therefore, as Upchurch and Grassman (2015) point out, in certain cases unions need to be less bureaucratic in order to benefit from the opportunities raised by real-time communication (Martínez Lucio et al., 2009).

These findings could be considered guidelines for future research that would contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how new ICTs are being used effectively in trade union protests. A particular lack of information was encountered in our study in relation to the impact of the new ICTs, namely how they can change users’ perceptions. We felt a need to know how effectively the different forms of communication reach members and non-members and how they are perceived. Studies focusing on users and potential users are scarce (Panagiotopoulos, 2012; Kerr and Waddington, 2014), as well as studies matching both sides, with the unions applying different communication tools and user perceptions and practices.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the organizers of this special issue and the two referees for all their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article.

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (grant number UID/SOC/04521/2013) while the first author was affiliated at SOCIUS-ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa.

Notes

References

Bennett

Segerberg

(2012) The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Berntsen

(2015) Stepping up to strike: a union mobilization case study of Polish migrant workers in the Netherlands. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 21(4): 399–412.

Brusadelli

Caveng

(2014) Nouvelles Pratiques Syndicales et Usages des TIC – Rapport Final. Amiens: IRES.

Campos Lima

Artiles

(2013) Youth voice(s) in EU countries and social movements in southern Europe. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 19(3): 345–364.

Cloutier

Pascale

Bilodeau

(2013) The dynamics of strike votes: Perceived justice during collective bargaining. Journal of Organizational Behavior 34(7): 1016–1038.

Couldry

(2015) The social foundations of future digital politics. In: Coleman

Freelon

(eds) Handbook of Digital Politics. Padstow: Elgar, pp. 35–48.

Diamond

Freeman

(2002) Will unionism prosper in cyberspace? The promise of the Internet for employee organization. British Journal of Industrial Relations 40(3): 569–596.

Fuchs

(2014) Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.

Gallie

(2007) Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

10.

Gerbaudo

(2012) Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Books.

11.

Gibson

(2015) Party change, social media and the rise of ‘citizen-initiated’ campaign. Party Politics 21(2): 183–197.

12.

Greene

Hogan

Grieco

(2003) Commentary: E-collectivism and distributed discourse: new opportunities for trade union democracy. Industrial Relations Journal 34(4): 282–289.

13.

Greene

Kirton

(2003) Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists. Industrial Relations Journal 34(4): 319–333.

14.

Hodder

Houghton

(2015) Union use of social media: a study of the University and College Union on Twitter. New Technology, Work and Employment 30(3): 173–189.

15.

Holgate

(2015) Community organising and the implications for union revitalisation. ETUI Policy Brief 4/2015. Available at: https://www.etui.org/fr/Publications2/Policy-Briefs/European-Economic-Employment-and-Social-Policy/Community-organising-and-the-implications-for-union-revitalisation (accessed 8 June 2015).

16.

ITU (2015) Measuring the Information Society Report 2015. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union. Available at: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/misr2015/MISR2015-w5.pdf (accessed 24 February 2016).

17.

Kerr

Waddington

(2014) E-Communications: An Aspect of Union Renewal or Merely Doing Things Electronically? British Journal of Industrial Relations 52(4): 658–681.

18.

Martínez Lucio

(2003) New communication systems and trade union politics: a case study of Spanish trade unions and the role of the internet. Industrial Relations Journal 34(4): 334–347.

19.

Martínez Lucio

Walker

Trevorrow

(2009) Making networks and (re)making trade union bureaucracy: A European-wide case study of trade union engagement with the Internet and networking. New Technology, Work and Employment 24(2): 115–130.

20.

Molnár

(2014) Reframing Public Space Through Digital Mobilization: Flash Mobs and Contemporary Urban Youth Culture. Space and Culture 17(1): 43–58.

21.

Panagiotopoulos

(2012) Towards unions 2.0: rethinking the audience of social media engagement. New Technology, Work and Employment 27(3): 178–192.

22.

Pernot

Rego

(2014) Portugal – Santé, éducation, dans la tempête. Chronique Internationale de l’IRES 148: 68–82. Available at: http://www.ires-fr.org/images/files/Chronique/C148/C148-5.pdf (accessed 8 June 2015).

23.

Pulignano

(2009) International Cooperation, Transnational Restructuring and Virtual Networking in Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations 15(2): 187–205.

24.

Rego

. (2014) A typology of trade union websites with evidence from Portugal and Britain. European Journal of Industrial Relations 20(2): 185–195.

25.

Scheuer

(2006) A Novel Calculus? Institutional change, globalization and industrial conflict in Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations 12(2): 143–164.

26.

Scheuer

(2011) Union membership variation in Europe: A ten-country comparative analysis. European Journal of Industrial Relations 17(1): 57–73.

27.

Stoleroff

Pereira

(2008) Teachers’ unions and the transformation of employment relations in public education in Portugal. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 14(2): 313–331.

28.

TUC (2014) Bring strike ballots into modern age and let us go digital, says TUC. Press release, 18 July. Available at: https://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace-issues/employment-rights/bring-strike-ballots-modern-age-and-let-us-go-digital-says-tuc (accessed 8 June 2015).

29.

Upchurch

Grassman

(2015) Striking with social media: the contested (online) terrain of workplace conflict. Organization. Epub ahead of print 19 August 2015. DOI: 10.1177/1350508415598248.

30.

Vielhaber

Waltman

(2008) Changing Uses of Technology: Crisis Communication Responses in a Faculty Strike. The Journal of Business Communication 45(3): 308–330.

31.

Whittall

Knudsen

Huijgen

(2009) European Works Councils: Identity and the Role of Information and Communication Technology. European Journal of Industrial Relations 15(2): 167–185.

32.

Wood

(2015) Networks of injustice and worker mobilization at Walmart. Industrial Relations Journal 46(4): 259–274.

The use of new ICTs in trade union protests – five European cases