Union Mobilization Research Articles

Knowledge production at a crossroads: rising antidemocracy and diminishing academic freedom

ABSTRACT This essay links the global shift toward antidemocracy with the global attack on higher education. I argue that rising far-right politics in many countries is also politicizing higher education, in turn diminishing the freedom to research, think and teach. This is apparent across Europe, the Americas, Middle East, Asia, Africa and among supposedly leading liberal democracies such as the United States. A common strategy in far-right attacks on higher education has been to limit scholars’ claim to collective institutional autonomy and reduce scholarly conversation to an individual’s right to free speech. The new UK Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 illustrates this reductionism explicitly. To counter this trend, I argue for reframing academic freedom as social responsibility to wider societies, underscoring its collective dimensions and legibility and applicability to nonacademic audiences. This reframing is particularly important in global north countries given the dominance of the Euro-American academy in knowledge production, and the relative power of western scholars to push back against intellectual censorship. Drawing on the recent wave of political activism across social movements and union mobilization in the United States, I argue this presents an opportunity for connecting the defense of higher education with the defense of wider concerns around issues such as the climate crisis, labor conditions, anti-racism, conflict and abortion rights. I conclude that shifting the narrative about academic freedom is essential for building transnational support across class, race, ethnic, religious, gender and educational differences, and resisting escalating attacks on universities and colleges around the world.

Balón parado. El sindicato de futbolistas de México y la huelga de 1971

This article examines the formation of the Mexican football players’ union and their call for a strike in 1971. I assert that the footballers fought to be recognized as workers in a spectacle that generated substantial profits for the organizers but did not acknowledge their labor rights; they suffered from low wages – except for star players – and were denied the right to freely contract with the employer of their choice, among other issues. I argue that three elements explain the articulation of their demands: 1) the consolidation of football as a sporting spectacle during the 1970s; 2) the context of intense union mobilization during the presidency of Luis Echeverría; and 3) the emergence of a certain class consciousness among some footballers. Although they did not achieve their goal of being recognized as subjects of labor rights, I conclude that the union and the Mexican players’ strike were part of a broader international struggle: the contest for the recognition of professional athletes as workers. This research was supported by newspaper sources and oral testimonies from footballers.

Running From the Union Label? Labor and Business Political Mobilization in the Golden Age

This paper assesses labor's political effectiveness in the industrial Midwest at the peak of union strength during the 1950s—a time and place that should have been ripe for labor mobilization. Comparing labor and business mobilization and outcomes across key labor elections, I find that politicians and business groups were often successful in persuading industrial communities to vote against labor's interests while unions struggled to shed outsider and greedy special interest labels. To make sense of labor's mixed performance, I draw on social movement theory and the inter-related nature of union mobilization, countermovement organization, and the framing of labor issues. Labor struggled when facing a well-organized business countermovement, which effectively weaponized the union label against labor. Union success hinged in part on their ability to downplay union identity and to have other more respected community partners do much of the public-facing work, but only when facing a fractured opposition. The findings point to important vulnerabilities unions faced at their peak and suggest a more nuanced view of postwar labor relations. They also extend social movement research on framing by identifying the important role of countermovements and coalitions in shaping what movements can convey and what will resonate.

Trade Union Mobilization and Female-Dominated Care Work in Ireland: Feminised and/or Feminist?

Cet article adopte une perspective politique féministe pour examiner les changements liés au genre dans la mobilisation des syndicats en Irlande. Alors que les syndicats ont bénéficié d'un accès à l’élaboration des politiques dans une forme de partenariat social, de la fin des années 1980 à 2008, ce processus a été aboli par la crise économique et remplacé par des accords de stabilité des salaires publics en période d'austérité. En adoptant une approche d'étude de cas, nous nous intéressons aux campagnes syndicales pour les professions féminisées afin d’examiner comment le genre est utilisé pour mener un travail politique et un travail sur les idées dans les campagnes féminisées. Cette analyse soulève des questions plus larges sur les conséquences du déclin des modèles corporatistes nationaux et la réponse des syndicats, qui se tournent vers des campagnes de "genre" et mobilisent les secteurs professionnels féminisés.

Resisting the Great Recession: Social movement unionism in Croatia and Serbia

Addressing the debate regarding the impact of the Great Recession on changing union strategies in post-socialist Europe, our analysis shows that in Croatia and Serbia the crisis, while depressing strike numbers, was nevertheless met with substantial union resistance. Developing a paired comparison and relying on protest event data for the period 2000–2017, we argue that the differences among the two countries’ respective varieties of capitalism drive divergent union strategies described as social movement unionism. In Serbia, the role of unions in protests articulating workers’ demands remained more central and unions were overall more present in the protest arena, while in Croatia, unions have exhibited stronger propensity to forge alliances and adopt innovative policy strategies. While taking on board scholarship that portrays social movement unionism as signalling union weakness, we argue that strategies which increase union mobilization capacity may also be understood as increasing union resilience in changing social circumstances.

The Shifting role role of unions in the social dialogue

The article deals with the declining union density and shrinking coverage of collective agreements in most EU/EES countries, in particular in Eastern Europe and Greece. In many countries, international organizations pushed through “structural reforms” weakening trade unions. The result is declining union density and decreased capacity to conclude sectoral collective agreements and avoid downwards derogations at company level. Even in some core eurozone countries have governments without much of social dialogue carried through “internal devaluation” to restore competitiveness. High union density (Finland) or high union mobilization capacity (France) could not prevent this development. The economic performance of a country and degree of globalization, including the absence of a national currency, appear to be more important. The Swedish (and Nordic) model of self-regulation, resting on negotiations between the labour market parties, contrasts sharply to French state regulation with its high frequency of state extension of collective agreements and minimum wages set by the state. Union density in Sweden is still among the highest in the world but has declined considerably the last twenty years, in particular among the rapidly growing share of foreign-born blue-collar workers. As a small, strongly export-dependent country dominated by large transnational groups, Swedish economy is very influenced by globalization. This has shifted the balance of power to the advantage of employers, and by that circumscribed the unions’ efforts to achieve developing jobs and improved working environment.

To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice by Michael K. Honey

Reviewed by: To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice by Michael K. Honey Marcia Chatelain To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice. By Michael K. Honey. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018. Pp. xii, 241. $34.99, ISBN 978-1-4328-5047-0.) Each January, scholars and activists alike prepare to refute superficial and simplistic tributes to Martin Luther King Jr. The widespread celebration of the King holiday—from churches to schools to corporations—makes this difficult. King's legacy is invoked to promote empty multiculturalism and facile ideas of change, and it reflects erasures in civil rights history. Historian Michael K. Honey rights some of these wrongs in To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice. With clear writing and a thoughtful voice, Honey guides readers through pivotal movements of King's life by foregrounding his tense and symbiotic relationships with the labor movement. Honey adds texture to King's journey from being a descendant of people who "experienced deep poverty in the countryside" to the supporter of striking sanitation workers in Memphis the day before his assassination (p. 22). Honey emphasizes that King's path was sometimes cleared, and sometimes muddied, by an interracial, but not always harmoniously integrated, labor movement. Honey provides a biographically driven look at how the labor movement formed King's leadership style and strategies. King's class consciousness emerged early, with his having lived in Jim Crow Atlanta, and grew sharper during his years at Morehouse College, when he partially financed his education by doing manual labor jobs. King wrote, "I saw economic injustice firsthand, and realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro" (p. 28). King's belief that economic injustice knew no color and demanded solidarity did not always resonate with working-class whites in labor unions. King not only had to overcome the racism within union hierarchies but also had to contend with virulent red-baiting. Honey notes that the 1955 merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) led to barriers for King. "These tragic developments of the Cold War era," Honey writes, "cut short hopes that civil rights and labor organizing would move forward together" (p. 35). Although the movements unfolded at different speeds, labor unions such as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and AFL-CIO affiliate the United Packinghouse Workers of America continued to provide support for King. The tensions between King and the AFL-CIO extended into other realms of Cold War politics, including King's support for a "third way" approach to reconciling impulses toward "capitalism and communism," in newly independent nations around the world (p. 61). While chronicling King's relationship to the labor leaders who supported efforts like the March on Washington, Honey connects King's work with the other signs of growing hostility toward organized workers. For instance, King was indicted in Alabama for violating "a state antiboycott law," a measure that had been passed to curtail union mobilization; and the 1964 Civil Rights Act ensured workers of color rights to "union apprenticeships" and provided other worker protections (pp. 41, 62). The second half of the book traces the years from the height of labor–civil rights coalition building, epitomized in the United Auto Workers' support of the Selma-to-Montgomery [End Page 548] march, to the day of King's death, the day after his speech that demanded a "dangerous unselfishness" in behalf of workers (chap. 6). Honey's book ends in the present, with an overview of failures to realize King's vision. Yet the sober and optimistic tone of the narrative continues as Honey describes the electoral victories and continued work of racially progressive labor organizing, and he recognizes Coretta Scott King's labor activism after her husband's death. Honey concludes the book by wondering if we are closer to King's hope for a world where "'resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity.'" "Are we moving in that direction?," Honey asks. And, with King, he...

The Revitalization of Social and Civic Participation in Eastern Europe?

In the context of recent global economic and political changes, trade unions were forced to find new discursive and organisational strategies, as well as new means of imposing their agendas. However, the form and configurations of protests in Romania have shifted significantly from the workers’ strikes of the 1990s to middle-class protests, often described as being founded on the interests of young people and mainly focusing on the quality of democracy. In this paper we explain the weakness of interaction and the absence of spillover effects between popular protests and trade union mobilization. We demonstrate that, despite the high level of social mobilization Romania witnessed in the period January 2017–July 2018, and arguably since 2012, trade unions and popular protests did not manage to build on each other’s mobilization efforts. Although the mass protests might have positively influenced opportunity structures, trade unions were not able to benefit from them. Therefore, rather than looking at opportunity structures, in this paper we propose to understand the incapacity to join forces through an analysis of the mobilization claims of both parties and of their internal characteristics, such as their participants (by emphasizing the active involvement of young people), and organizational features. We argue that the lack of interaction between protests and unions is to be explained by incompatible mobilization frames: whilst unions also opposed the reform of the justice system, their main focus was the pension system and tax reform – moreover, they addressed issues specifically associated with work; popular protests, on the other hand, mobilized young people almost exclusively around the reform of the justice system.

The dual nature of teachers' unions

AbstractIn the early 21st century, teachers' union mobilization was widespread throughout the United States. Decrying low salaries, restrictions on labor rights, and more, teachers' unions engaged in large‐scale tactics such as massive strikes, public protests, and successful ballot campaigns. In this article, I demonstrate that by sharing characteristics of both social movement organizations and interest groups, teachers' unions are well suited to respond to political threats. Teachers' unions are large, longstanding organizations with the resources necessary to use a wide variety of tactics. Teachers' relationships with parents and the local community provide strong potential for alliances, and teachers can leverage their professional identity and expertise to help establish legitimacy in educational policy conversations. Ultimately, however, the future of teachers' unions depends upon sustained worker and ally activism beyond the current wave of mobilization.

Trade union involvement in work–family life balance: lessons from France

This article explores the challenges faced by union involvement in work–family life balance. It draws on the French case, where the state’s explicit call for firms to address the work–family life balance issue, notably through mandatory collective bargaining, has provided opportunities for union mobilization. Findings from qualitative research conducted at branch and company levels show that this public strategy has failed to stimulate innovation in related union policy and practices, even within a relatively feminized and partnership-oriented confederation. The reasons for this failure are discussed using a theoretical framework combining opportunity structure, and voice and choice issues. The article concludes that union underinvestment in work–family life balance results from a lack of effectiveness of the opportunity structure, but also, more specifically, from voice and choice factors which lead union representatives to downplay the issues at stake in this new bargaining agenda.

Filling the Half Empty or Half Full Glass and Redirecting the Debate about Labor Transnationalism

Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing. By Jamie K. McCallum Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013. 210 pp., paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-7862-8). There tend to be two types of labor scholars who study transnationalism: the glass half empty and the glass half full varieties. The former bemoans the optimism of the latter, while the latter defends their optimism. This polarization extends to the assessments of various forms of international labor rights mechanisms, from labor rights protections in free trade agreements, to social clauses in global governance institutions, to codes of conduct, and global framework agreements. The “half empties” argue that these mechanisms lack teeth and have translated into few organizing victories or little improvement to workers' living and working conditions. The “half fulls” generally concede these limitations but assert (full disclosure, I am in this camp) that these new transnational mechanisms can provide new opportunities for transnational relationship and movement building, organizing and mobilization, and alliance building across issue areas (see Kay 2005, 2011a,b; Evans and Kay 2008). In his groundbreaking book, Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing , Jamie K. McCallum attempts to bridge the ideological divide. His measured and skeptical assessment of the efficacy of global mechanisms—in this case global framework agreements—will placate the half empties. But his insightful dissection of how they can stimulate local union mobilization and revitalization will satisfy the half fulls. His most significant accomplishment, however, is to demonstrate that perpetuating this dichotomy is the wrong way to think about union politics and success in an era of globalization. He ends his book with a concluding sentence that should have been its first: “Struggles such as these remind us that victory is not as simple as winning; it is about building the power to fight in the first place” (p. 159). Nevertheless, by that final page, it is clear that McCallum has redirected the debate about …

Stepping up to strike: a union mobilization case study of Polish migrant workers in the Netherlands

This article examines a union mobilization of Polish temporary agency workers in the Netherlands. The case study contributes to the migrant organizing literature a micro-level account of the dynamics of mobilization from the viewpoint of the migrants and organizers involved. The findings emphasize the importance of key actors in building solidarities within and between different groups of workers in fragmented workplaces, with implications for unions seeking new ways to respond to changing employment practices. This study highlights some of the possibilities and limitations of organizing among contractually fragmented workforces.

Social movement unionism in practice: organizational dimensions of union mobilization in the Los Angeles immigrant rights marches

To revitalize union movements globally, labour scholars frequently prescribe social movement unionism. This union strategy adopts social change goals beyond member representation and contract negotiations and often requires allying with community organizations in pursuit of these goals. As a term, however, social movement unionism is often described in opposition to union organizational functions, such as member representation. This article challenges this organization-movement dichotomy by demonstrating the important influence of union organizational dimensions on the dynamics of social movement unionism. Analysis is based on case study research of labour union involvement in the 2006 immigrant rights marches in Los Angeles. Unions that participated in organizing these marches – thus, practicing social movement unionism – allied with large community organizations, preferred reform goals and advocated tactics perceived as effective. Such strategic decisions were informed by organizational considerations regarding members’ interests and unions’ long-term capacity for mobilization.

“A Blood Stained Sin”: Slavery, Freedom, and Guerrilla Warfare in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky, 1863–65

“A Blood Stained Sin”: Slavery, Freedom, and Guerrilla Warfare in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky, 1863–65 J. Michael Rhyne (bio) In early September 1867, the outgoing Kentucky governor, Union Democrat Thomas Bramlette, delivered a farewell address in which he patted himself on the back a bit, but also issued a sharp rebuke to Republicans throughout the United States, particularly those who, like William G. “Parson” Brownlow of Tennessee, now held high office in former Confederate states. He proclaimed such Republicans to be men who would subordinate every interest, mental, moral, and physical, public, private, and social, to their own base and inordinate thirst [to hold] office. This party, led on by these demagogues, propose to ‘reconstruct’ the governments of the Southern States, so as to enfranchise the negro and disfranchise the white men not of their party in those States. They hope thereby to build up a negro party in the South, which will perpetuate political power in their hands. Such a party, Bramlette postulated, would create political competition [End Page 553] that would eventually “force a conflict of races,” which could only lead to the extermination of the “weaker” race. Finally, he accused these “demagogues” of pretending that “it is only their purpose to ‘punish treason and protect loyalty,’” while “they make war upon our Constitutional Union more ruthlessly, but with less manly courage, than did those whom they would punish.” He concluded this passage by openly proclaiming that “We can respect the manhood of those who, though erring in purpose and in judgment, struck boldly and bravely for separating the Southern States into an independent government,” but “we have no respect for those who pervert the powers of a free government” in order to accomplish “the destruction of the rights and the liberties of the Southern white men.”1 This speech was from the mouth of the unconditional Unionist governor of the commonwealth who served during the last two years of the Civil War. Like the nation as a whole, Bramlette’s Kentucky tried, but failed, to avoid a civil war. As secession turned into civil war, leaders in the commonwealth, including states’ rights governor Beriah Magoffin, sought a position of neutrality. In the end, war came to Kentucky as both the Union and the Confederacy moved to secure this vital state, or at least part of it, within their lines. Although the Kentucky legislature refused to call a secession convention, the state produced a number of Confederates, including at least twenty-five thousand regular soldiers, along with prominent leaders such as John C. Breckinridge. Yet politically and militarily, the commonwealth proved to be a far more significant supporter of the Union war effort. By most estimates, nearly twice as many white Kentuckians served in the ranks of the Union army as joined the Confederacy, along with approximately twenty-four-thousand African American soldiers.2 The [End Page 554] commonwealth also made a very significant contribution to the Union in terms of numerous military and civilian leaders, as well as large amounts of food (particularly corn, beef, pork, and animal fodder), cloth and clothing, manufactured goods, oxen, mules, and horses. Why, then, would the outgoing governor be so hard on Republicans? Simply put, Thomas Bramlette had been a proslavery loyalist, like most of his constituents. Federal abolition of slavery in Kentucky, both through wartime policy and the Thirteenth Amendment, which Kentucky refused to ratify, infuriated such men, and now they were being asked to face the unthinkable: black equality.3 For many white residents of the Bluegrass region of central Kentucky, the war they hoped to observe from a distance instead became very personal, beginning in earnest with the Confederate invasion of 1862, massive Union mobilization efforts thereafter, Confederate raiding in the commonwealth, and, by the autumn of 1863, the imposition of martial law. Still, these factors paled in comparison to what began in 1864: the recruitment of Kentucky slaves for the ranks of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). As recruitment escalated, so too did guerrilla warfare, much of which had little or no direct connection to the Confederate war effort. Many guerrillas evinced intense hatred of both black recruits and unconditional Unionists who remained loyal...

Gender segregation as a benefit - a qualitative study from Pakistan.

To explore the possibility of exploiting gender segregation as a benefit for registered female nurses. Nursing is a highly gendered profession in Pakistan with 95% of nurses comprising females who suffer from low professional status, negative identity and unfavourable work environments. A qualitative research design was used to interview 12 nurses in management positions through purposive sampling. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the views of female nurses on the benefits, if any, of gender segregation in the nursing profession. Content analysis identified three major categories of benefits of gender segregation for female nurses including: (1) demand for female nurses compared with demand for males, (2) resilience of female nurses in the face of difficult work environments and (3) comfort and safety of female co-workers in a male-dominated setting. Realising the benefits of gender segregation could mobilise nurse teamwork and union efforts in order to improve nurse identity, professional status and work environments. The present study highlights the nurse manager role in advancing knowledge of gender segregation benefits, team-building for gender solidarity, control of nurse supply, union mobilization and raising community awareness for women's health development.

Transformative cities

When our article was first written, the Occupy movement was in full swing and we were clearly in optimistic mode. However, as all studies of social movements have shown, from the antiapartheid struggles of South Africa to the rebellious nineteenth century in France or Britain, the road of mobilization is never straightforward. Nor did we assume that “Occupy” in the United States or even the popular rebellions of the Arab Spring would lead to a blossoming of democratic nations. We take these understandings from writers such as Eric Hobsbawm (1996), who understood the French Revolution and the British industrial revolution as complementary processes that set the stage for the imperfect and unequal nation-states of France and Britain today. In South Africa (to pick one historic moment), after the high school students who took to the streets in protest in Soweto were mowed down by South African army tanks, the streets were virtually quiescent for a decade. However, over 40 years of fascism in South Africa, the 1950s bus boycotts, the 1960s Sharpeville massacre, the famous trials of Mandela and others, the Soweto school children, and finally the union mobilization in a United Front and international sanctions led to the end of apartheid. But, as we are all now aware, these battles did not end inequality or neoliberalism.

When Labour Makes a Difference: Union Mobilization and the 2007 Federal Election in Australia

AbstractIn advanced democracies, unions influence industrial relations through collective action and law. They also maintain influence in politics through their alliances with labour parties. But the weakness of some labour movements, most apparent in falling membership, raises questions about their capacity to shape future industrial relations policy, reach voters and maintain their party alliances. Drawing on literature in industrial relations and political sociology, this article provides a framework for understanding how the Australian union movement successfully campaigned against the conservative Howard government's labour laws called WorkChoices. We characterize the union movement's campaign — Your Rights at Work — as a form of political organizing that responded to both shifting state strategy and the limits of traditional defences constituted by industrial action, legal protection and reliance on the Labor Party. Political mobilizations produce different kinds of impacts. Given that the campaign relied on a sophisticated electoral strategy, we analyse Australian Election Study (AES) 2007 data to assess its impact on voters and on activism. We find that the campaign increased the salience of industrial relations to voters, that union activism jumped in the lead‐up to the election, and that unionized voters voted against the government in record numbers. While this article primarily assesses electoral impact, we offer brief perspective on the movement's impact on policy and politics in the conclusion.

Identifying Outsiders Across Countries: Similarities and Differences in the Patterns of Dualisation

This paper makes three contributions: a) it develops a new conceptualization of outsider-status, based on employment biographies, rather than on current labour market status; b) it proposes a new operationalisation of outsiders based on post-industrial class theory and c) it shows empirically who the outsiders are across different countries and across the three dimensions of economic, social and political exclusion.The empirical analysis shows similar, but not identical sets of insiders and outsiders in different national political contexts. Workers in low-skilled service sector jobs are systematically disadvantaged throughout the developed world in terms of work and pay conditions, social rights and political integration. Low-skilled blue collar workers, by contrast, are outsiders in terms of political integration in all countries, but they are unionized and generally enjoy full social rights. Finally, medium- and high skilled young and female workers in service sector jobs tend to be outsiders in continental Europe, because they are strongly affected by atypical work contracts, lacking trade union mobilization and insufficient social rights. Overall, blue-collar workers suffer from structural economic strains, while high-skilled service workers in continental Europe suffer from political disadvantage, and low-skilled service workers fare worst because they are disadvantaged both economically and politically.

Union Mobilization: A Consideration of the Factors Affecting the Willingness of Union Members to Take Industrial Action

AbstractDrawing on mobilization theory, this article seeks to identify the factors that shape the willingness of union members to take industrial action. The study utilized data from a large‐scale survey (N = 1,111) carried out in a financial services union during the renegotiation of a collective bargaining contract. The results suggested that individuals were more willing to engage in industrial action when they experienced a sense of injustice or unfairness in the employment relationship and when they held a collectivist orientation to work. Moreover, their propensity to take industrial action was greater when they considered that their union was an effective instrument of power. Workplace representatives were also important, particularly when they were seen as being responsive to their members' needs in situations of perceived injustice. The implications for mobilization theory and for union strategy are discussed.

Union Solidarity under Stress

The advent of democracy in South Africa has brought a number of benefits and opened spaces for union mobilization. It has also set in motion processes that undermine union solidarity. This article takes the most influential trade union in South Africa's history, the National Union of Mineworkers, as a case study to explore this paradox. On the basis of data generated by a range of research methods, the authors explore three themes: the occupational mobility of black mineworkers, attempts at authoritarian restoration through subcontracting, and the employment of women in a predominantly male occupation.