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1 Community Unionism

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3 Community Unionism A Comparative Analysis of Concepts and Contexts Edited By Jo McBride University of Bradford, UK and Ian Greenwood Leeds University Business School, UK

4 Jo McBride and Ian Greenwood 2009 Individual chapters their respective authors 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

5 Contents List of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements vii viii x xiii Part I Understanding Community Unionism 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Paul Stewart, Jo McBride, Ian Greenwood, John Stirling, Jane Holgate, Amanda Tattersall, Carol Stephenson and Dave Wray Part II Communities and Community Unionism in 21 the UK Chapter 2 Now That the Work is Done: Community 23 Unionism in a Post-Industrial Context Carol Stephenson and Dave Wray Chapter 3 Contested Terrain: London s Living Wage 49 Campaign and the Tensions Between Community and Union Organising Jane Holgate Chapter 4 Strategies in Search of Structures: The Real World 75 of Community Unionism in Relation to Black and Minority Ethnic Communities Miguel Martínez Lucio and Robert Perrett Chapter 5 Polish Migrant Workers in the North 93 New Communities, New Opportunities? Ian Fitzgerald v

6 vi Contents Part III Comparative Studies of Community Unionism 119 Chapter 6 Beyond Organised Labour in Japan 121 The Case Study of the Japanese Community Union Federation Edson I. Urano and Paul Stewart Chapter 7 Immigrant Workers and Labour/Community 139 Organisations in the United States Kim Moody Chapter 8 Using Their Sword of Justice: The NSW Teachers 161 Federation and its Campaigns for Public Education Between 2001 and 2004 Amanda Tattersall Chapter 9 Union Revitalisation and the Canadian Auto 187 Workers Union: Reconnecting Unions with Local Communities Iona Byford Chapter 10 Conclusion 210 Ian Greenwood and Jo McBride Bibliography 221 Index 233

7 List of Tables and Figures Figures 1.1 The Three Interpretations of Community Number of Employees, Unionised Employees and 132 Estimated Unionisation Rate in Japan Tables 4.1 BME Group Organisational Objectives Japan Community Union Federation Affiliates 134 Characteristics 7.1 Median Weekly Earnings: Foreign-born & Native-born 142 by Ethnicity in USA, Major Occupational Groups of Asians and Latinos 142 in USA, Contract Type and Length of Service at CAW 194 Workplaces 9.2 Joining the Union at CAW Workplaces Union Participation at CAW Workplaces Participation in Union Activities at CAW Workplaces Union Activities and the Wider Community at CAW 198 Workplaces 9.6 Family and Individual Involvement in Unions, Political 200 Parties and Voluntary Associations at CAW Workplaces 9.7 Trade Union Identity at CAW Workplaces Who Are You Likely to Blame for Problems at Work? The Three Most Important Negotiating Issues The Unions Approach to Union Activities at Work 204 vii

8 List of Abbreviations AFL-CIO ALP BFAWU BWFJ BLS BME BPCC CAAV CAB CAW CBOs CIW Co. COF CSO CSWA CTCU CUNN CU DMA DWU ESOL EU EURES FLOC FOSCO GMB HERE I&DEA IAF IRC ISTC JCUF The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations Australian Labor Party Bakers Food & Allied Workers Union The Black Workers for Justice Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA) Black and Minority Ethnic British Polish Chamber of Commerce Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence Citizens Advice Bureau Canadian Auto Workers Union Community-based Organisers The Coalition of Immokolee Workers County Citizens Organising Foundation Central Statistical Office Chinese Staff and Workers Association Canadian Textile and Chemical Union Community Union National Network Community Unionism Durham Miners Association Domestic Workers Union English for Speakers of Other Languages European Union The European Job Mobility Portal Farm Labour Organising Committee Federation of Community Organisations in Schools General Municipal and Boilermakers Union Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union Improvement and Development Agency Industrial Areas Foundation Industrial Relations Commission Iron and Steel Trades Confederation Japanese Community Union Federation viii

9 List of Abbreviations ix LFEPA LIUNA MOT NAFTA NDP NEB NGO NSWIRC NSWTF NUM ONS OTOC P&C PEA PEC PCS PEL RBS RENGO ROC SEIU SERTUC SMJ SMU TAFE Telco TGWU TUC UAW UCATT UCU UE UFW UFCW UNITE Usdaw USDL WRS ZPWB London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Laborers International Union of North America Ministry of Transport (UK assessment test for road worthiness of vehicles) North American Free Trade Agreement New Democratic Party National Executive Board Non-Governmental Organisation New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission New South Wales Teachers Federation National Union of Mineworkers Office for National Statistics (UK) Omaha Together One Community Federation of Parents & Citizens Public Education Alliance Public Education Coalition Public and Commercial Services Union Paid Educational Leave Royal Bank of Scotland The Japanese Trade Union Confederation Restaurant Opportunities Center Service Employees International Union Southern and Eastern Region Trades Union Congress Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan Social Movement Unionism Technical and Further Education system The East London Communities Organisation Transport and General Workers Union Trades Union Congress United Auto Workers (of America) Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians University Colleges Union United Electrical Workers United Farm Workers United Food and Commercial Workers Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees* Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers United States Department of Labour Worker Registration Scheme Federation of Poles in Great Britain

10 Notes on Contributors Iona Byford is a Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth Business School in the Department of HRM and Marketing. Her research interests are Trade Unions and Trade Union Renewal, Industrial Conflict and Disputes, and Trade Unions as a broader social movement. Ian Fitzgerald is a Senior Researcher in the School of the Built Environment at Northumbria University. He has over ten years experience in the field of industrial relations which over the last three years has involved him in extensive work in the area of Polish migrant workers. Ian Greenwood is a Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management in the Division of Work and Employment Relations (WERD) and a member of the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC), Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, UK. His current research interests include workplace skills, team working and industrial relations, community unionism and the impact of restructuring in the steel industry. Dr Jane Holgate is a Senior Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University. Her research interests include trade unions and the development of organising and recruitment strategies, particularly as they relate to under-represented groups in the union movement, gender and industrial relations, the labour market position of migrants and black and minority ethnic groups and new geographies of labour and the politics of intersectionality ( race, class, gender, etc). Dr Jo McBride is a Lecturer in Industrial Relations and HRM at the University of Bradford, School of Management. Her research interests include trade unions and social movement unionism, workplace collectivism and the dynamics of power and control in the employment relationship. Miguel Martínez Lucio is a Professor at the University of Manchester, Manchester Business School. His work involves the changing nature of x

11 Notes on Contributors xi regulation within employment relations, the internationalisation of work and trade unions, and the changing boundaries between industrial relations and society. His work on ethnicity, race and employment relations is focused on the dynamics of representation and voice. He has published in a variety of journals and books. Kim Moody is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Employment Studies at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. He was a co-founder and for many years director of the independent trade union publication Labor Notes in the US. His major research interests are in working class and trade union issues. He is author of four books and many articles in these areas. His most recent book is U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition (2007). Dr Robert Perrett is a Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management at Bradford University School of Management. His primary research interests lie within employment, representation and social inclusion. Recent research focuses on the diversity of new systems of employment relations and the ability to represent new clusters of workers within an increasingly decentralised and fragmented economy. Dr Carol Stephenson is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Inequality at the University of Northumbria. Her research interests include female activism in the post-industrial context. She has worked within the labour and trade union movement. Paul Stewart is Professor of the Sociology of Work and Employment at the University of Strathclyde. He has written widely on the sociology of work and notably on the labour process including the changing nature of labour relations in the aerospace and automotive industries and is a former editor of Work, Employment and Society. He is currently working on community unionism in Japan. John Stirling teaches employment relations in the Division of Sociology and Criminology at Northumbria University of which he is Head of Division. He has had an active engagement in trade union education programmes for more than 20 years both as a practitioner and a researcher and he has published widely in this field. Most recently he has been working on a capacity building project with trade

12 xii Notes on Contributors unionists in Sierra Leone where issues of the relationship between unions and communities are in sharp focus. Amanda Tattersall is a union and community organiser and researcher. She is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Unions NSW, the peak central labour council in NSW, Australia, and previously was a community and student organiser. She has a PhD that compares coalition unionism across the US, Canada and Australia and is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Sword of Justice: Coalition Unionism and the Battle for Community. Edson Ioshiaqui Urano is a Lecturer at Sophia University, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Department of Portuguese Language & Luso-Brazilian Studies. His work focuses on Sociology of Work, Industrial Relations and International Migration. He has been doing research on the migratory process of Latin Americans to Japan and the transnational dynamics of this phenomenon, as well as on their subordination to flexible labour market and production system and implications on their working lives. He has analysed community unionism in Japan, as an alternative way to organise peripheral workers in Japan, and the meaning of this movement in the context of global social movements. David Wray is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Sociology and Criminology at Northumbria University. His main research interest is the social consequences of post-industrialism, particularly in the postindustrial mining communities of Co. Durham, where he worked for over 20 years. Recently he has widened his research to include the post-industrial mining communities of Cape Breton in Canada. His research in Canada has been supported by a British Academy Grant.

13 Acknowledgements We would clearly like to thank all the contributors to this book, particularly for their time and commitment to this project which helped enormously in completing this book. Three babies by contributors (Amanda Tattersall, Carol Stephenson, Jo McBride) during the writing and completion of this book did not deter the achievement of deadlines, so thanks to all for understanding and collectively pulling together to get the work to us in good time. We also offer thanks to Paul Stewart for his work on the collective introductory chapter. We would like to thank everyone who attended the workshop meeting and contributed to a great deal of debate on the subject. We are very grateful to Miguel Martínez Lucio for his encouragement with the initial progression of the two day workshop and Tricia Steele at Bradford School of Management for administration and assistance during those two days. xiii