An Inevitable Story
It's 7 a.m. and you've just arrived at the storefront building that serves as the headquarters for your independent local union. You're the President - although you dislike that title and are looking for something more descriptive of your actual responsibilities. You don't preside over - you coordinate, troubleshoot and inspire. As far as leading the union goes, that's what your 8000 members do. You've held the president's job since last year when the biz-union that represented you and your fellow workers for about 30 years was decertified and a new union - the independent organization that you now coordinate, troubleshoot and inspire - was created.
Today you are going to do some heavy-duty coordinating. Yesterday, the company where your members work advised you that it would be seeking major concessions at negotiations later this year. Management is angry. You pulled the rug out from under them when you negotiated your first collective agreement as an independent union last year. Your independent union regained entitlements previously given up by the biz-union and even scored some new language on key issues. Your strategy was to jockey the union into a legal strike position at the peak of the moneymaking season. With 8000 members at 250 stores ready to walk at a time that would send share prices plummeting, management caved in and said yes to bargaining demands beyond its worst nightmares. Of course, the corporate managers were at a disadvantage going in and you knew it - still dazed and confused from the shock of the decertification of their favourite biz union and not really knowing what to make of this independent that rode in from out of nowhere on some kind of network.
You are not surprised at management's tough stance and you've got a plan. You go online and log on to the netWORK. Within a few minutes you'll have updated all of your members (all 8000 of them) about this most recent development and reassure them that Plan A is about to roll out. Your elected bargaining committee as well as the strike-planning group are already in the know and the communications working group will be alerted and proceed with contingency plans that were laid months ago for this very purpose.
Within 24 hours a media campaign publicizing the demand for concessions and the company's great financial position will begin. You will have discussed the coming events with several dozen other local union presidents (from mainstream unions and independents) in your area. They will assist you in mobilizing support for your members within the community. This will include putting the heat on the company's suppliers, customers and shareholders. Within a couple of hours, you'll have up-to-the-minute information about the company's financial position and business strategy and its short and long term business plans. You will know exactly when the threat of a strike will be most effective and you'll use that to leverage your position to the max. You will also have the lowdown on the corporate managers who will be calling the shots at negotiations - the local boys as well as the corporate honchos. By the time you get to the bargaining table you will know their vulnerabilities and exploit these without hesitation. All of this information will come to you via the netWORK. Concessions? Hell, you're going to bring home a respectable wage increase and break some more new ground.
It's hard to believe how much has changed since the days when the biz-union was around. It all started about two years ago when you decided to run for local biz-union president. Nobody thought you had a chance. The ruling exec had been in power longer than anybody could remember. Few members dared run against them and those who did, always lost by wide margins. The favoured sons had enormous advantages at election time. They had access to the union's resources (staff, equipment, membership lists) and used those extensively in their campaigns. The members who ran against them could do little by comparison. With no money and with members scattered all over the province, how could you possibly reach out to them? If a member was lucky he or she might be able to distribute a few hundred leaflets around stores in their area while union staffers traveled the province on the members' dime campaigning for the favoured sons. Why would anyone want to beat his or her head against such a wall?
Well, you had no intention of doing that. You had a better idea. That union democracy web site that was always publishing horrible stories about biz-unions was offering to put union reformers' election campaigns on line. That was all you needed to hear. You put your campaign on the Internet and almost overnight the ground shifted in your favour. Information about your well-thought-out platform and your idea about a good future for the members was suddenly available to all 8000 members, all over the map. Not wanting to stop at simply posting information, you got innovative and developed a discussion forum and even a live chat room where members could talk to you one-on-one about the issues, anytime. The rest was history. On Election Day, you won by a really big margin.
Officials at the biz-union were beside themselves at the election results. Not only was the turnout higher than at any time in the past but also the margin was enormous. When it became apparent that there was no way out, the honchos from the International office paid you a visit. You'd made your mark they said, congratulating you on your victory, but it was time now make like a good biz-union local president: Stop making waves, forget those silly campaign promises, hire on the former execs at lucrative salaries and all would be well. You told the honchos where to get off. Trusteeship followed shortly thereafter.
Your online election campaign was so successful that it developed into an active online worker community. The members were talking to each other and to you and your executive on an ongoing basis about a wide range of issues. Before long it was hard to imagine what life had been like in the old isolated days. One of your campaign promises was to develop a permanent web site so that the online community could continue after the election. Being true to your word, the online worker community site went live the day after the election.
When the biz-union announced its trusteeship decision, the members logged on and decided to check out. Nobody knows exactly whose idea it was to boot the biz-union and start an independent but within days, a group of members had figured out what needed to be done to part company with the biz-union and to start an independent alternative. A group consensus seemed to emerge that could be summed up by, "why the hell not?" By the time the open period in the collective agreement rolled around it was a fairly simple matter of getting the necessary paperwork for the LRB. The vote was again, really decisive.
The online community grew and expanded. At the same time, what you and your fellow workers had just experienced was happening all over. As reform-minded workers realized the power of the World Wide Web and its capability to tilt the playing field, whether with their employer or their union, in their favour, online worker communities sprang up everywhere. Some were independent unions that had escaped from biz-unions; others were locals of biz-unions that were suddenly moving towards local autonomy in a hurry. Links developed among the various communities forming a massive network where information about a limitless range of subjects traveled quickly and efficiently - all you have to do is ask the question, chances were that somebody on the netWORK has the answer.
Unions and their members routinely use the netWORK to source out and share information and to mobilize around common issues. The netWORK is not an organization- it's an infrastructure. It doesn't belong to anybody - it just exists. Any union, organization or individual supportive of workers is welcome and can link up. There is no dogma to swallow or official party line to tow. All that is expected of members is that they respond to calls for help if they are in a position to respond. You and the growing number of indies out there have found the netWORK remarkably efficient. It will work for you this time as well. By 11:00 a.m., you have rolled out your plan to meet the company's concession threat and stop it in its tracks. Not bad for a few hours. Now you're off to work. Oh yeah, you work half-time at the same job you had before all this began - all the union's officials do. It helps save money and keeps you close to the action. Tomorrow is another day.
Are we dreaming?
No, in fact we think that different versions of this story are going to play out over and over again within the next 5 years - give or take. We think it's inevitable.
A look over the discussion in the past week's forum will show you some reasons why (this thread is a good example). The biz-unions have failed so fully - so awfully - in the case of service industry workers that it's painful even to think about it. Where once there were good secure full time jobs, there is now a workforce that is about 80% part time and with agreed upon caps on hours of work that ensure that nobody will ever find their way into full time employment. There are wage rates that are so low that workers get more of a raise when the provincial minimum wage goes up than when their biz-union comes back from the bargaining table. There are terms and conditions of employment that leave workers worse off than if they had no union. As the employers get richer, the workers' contracts get longer, ensuring that they have limited opportunities to ask for more. And the union leaders? Well, they pay themselves big piles of cash and go on trips to exotic resorts to hobnob with management. And the employers? They just keep on raking it in.
How long can this go on? We think not much longer. The fun has to end sometime. The ability of the biz-unionists to contain the rebellion has always hinged on one significant factor: The near impossibility for members (especially those in large geographically dispersed union locals) to communicate directly with each other. That's changing as we speak.
The net is a powerful tool and one that doesn't lend itself well to control and compartmentalization of information. To the contrary, the net lends itself well to the free flow of information and ideas and makes possible the instantaneous linkup of people who would otherwise be isolated by time and geography. Information about what how it is and how it can be is here and available to anyone who wants it. The free flow of ideas is the foundation for innovation and progress.
It is possible that some reformers may be successful in significantly changing their existing biz-unions, like the dedicated Teamsters for a Democratic Union who are running their own slate for their union's International Exec, but it is also possible and quite likely that those who decide it's not worth waiting a working lifetime for like the Atlantic Meat Packers, will choose whatever form of workplace representation they believe is best for them. Then there will be others who will be even more innovative still. We aim to help them all along in whatever way we can. What's your inevitable story?
Some inspiring words:
"We cannot hope to influence and change others if we are not prepared to change ourselves."Nelson Mandela, in Toronto yesterday.
Coming up this week: The Swiss Chalet Workers go mainstream, reformers run for office and more from inside the machine.