Accounting for Greenfield Union Organizing Outcomes

Date01 September 2015
Published date01 September 2015
AuthorMelanie Simms
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12072
doi: 10.1111/bjir.12072
British Journal of Industrial Relations
53:3 September 2015 0007–1080 pp. 397–422
Accounting for Greenfield Union
Organizing Outcomes
Melanie Simms
Abstract
This paper presents a framework for evaluating and accounting for the out-
comes of ‘greenfield’ union organizing campaigns. It argues that previous
studies have tended to focus too much on the establishment of collective bar-
gaining and negotiation of first contract as a campaign outcome. Instead, the
effectiveness and representativeness of new union structures are emphasized,
and the sustainability of those structures is emphasized as the most important
outcome. A key finding from the empirical data is that campaigns that build
both workplace activism and are co-ordinated by officers create more sustain-
able outcomes than campaigns that focus on one or the other. The evidence
shows how and why these outcomes emerge, and the paper concludes with a
consideration of the theoretical and practical implications.
1.
Introduction
Given the increased attention to trade union organizing and the significant
investment in such activity by labour movements in many countries, it is
important that we reflect on how effective unions have been in achieving
organizing objectives. In common with other countries (Carter et al. 2003;
Fairbrother and Yates 2003; Milkman and Voss 2004), UK unions have
invested heavily in training specialist organizers and have initiated campaigns
to build membership and representation in workplaces where they are weak.
A particular focus has been on establishing themselves in workplaces that
have not previously been unionized — the so-called greenfield organizing
campaigns (Heery et al. 2000b, 2003a). However, few studies have explicitly
developed a framework through which to understand the factors that
influence organizing outcomes. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to
present a framework and to use it to explain variation in the effectiveness,
Melanie Simms is at the University of Leicester.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
representativeness and sustainability of outcomes in campaigns where unions
have established a presence for the first time.
The paper argues that previous studies fail to capture the diversity of
organizing outcomes largely because they use binary measures of whether or
not particular objectives (recognition, bargaining first contract, membership
engagement structures, etc.) have been achieved at the point where a union
withdraws resources from the campaign. In particular, previous approaches
have often defined greenfield organizing ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in terms of
whether or not bargaining rights are established (see Bronfenbrenner, 1997,
for a seminal study). Factors influencing ‘success’ or ‘failure’ have primarily
been identified as variations in organizing campaign tactics (see
Bronfenbrenner 1997; Ferguson 2008; Heery et al. 2000b; Lynn and Brister
1989). The limitation is that the meaning and outcomes of recognition and
bargaining vary considerably in different settings. Equally problematically, it
pays little attention to what happens after recognition has been granted.
Thus, it becomes essential to move beyond binary measures of organizing
outcomes to explore the sustainability of campaign outcomes and the con-
ditions under which sustainable outcomes can be secured.
This paper first examines different approaches to evaluating organizing
outcomes, before proposing a framework that allows us to capture a more
qualitatively nuanced spectrum of outcomes. The central argument is that it is
not sufficient to understand outcomes simply as a function of organizing
campaign tactics. Rather, the wider features of union structures and policies, the
behaviour of employers, and the wider context must be accounted for if we are
to build a sophisticated understanding of why some campaigns are more likely
than others to create sustainable gains for the labour movement. This paper
analyses longitudinal data through a framework that focuses on the dynamics of
organizing campaigns. This allows for explanation of why and how particular
aspects of campaigns facilitate and hinder sustainable organizing outcomes in a
way that previous studies have not. The research compares five organizing
campaigns that have all been identified by the unions involved as being ‘success-
ful’. There is, nonetheless, considerable variation in representativeness, effec-
tiveness and sustainability. These variations are, it is argued, a function of the
different approaches to organizing by the unions and the contexts within which
the campaigns take place. In other words, tactics employed during the cam-
paigns are not, in and of themselves, sufficient to explain the variation in
outcome. By considering the outcomes of particular approaches to and contexts
of organizing, the strengths and weaknesses of those approaches become visible.
The central finding of the paper is that outcomes are most sustainable when
there is both strong and representative workplace engagement and collective
bargaining strength beyond the workplace.
2. Evaluating organizing outcomes
Important early studies using US organizing data (Bronfenbrenner 1997;
Bronfenbrenner and Juravich 1998; Fiorito et al. 1995) used primarily
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
398 British Journal of Industrial Relations

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