Strength in Networks: Employment Rights Organizations and the Problem of Co‐Ordination
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2006.00516.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2006 |
| Date | 01 December 2006 |
| Author | Françoise Carré,Charles Heckscher |
British Journal of Industrial Relations
44:4 December 2006 0007– 1080 pp. 605– 628
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
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Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UKBJIRBritish Journal of Industrial Relations0007-1080Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006December 2006444605628Special
Edition on New Actors in Industrial Relations
Strength in NetworksBritish Journal of Industrial Relations
Charles Heckscher is at the Center for Workplace Transformation, Rutgers University. Françoise
Carré is at the Center for Social Policy, J. W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies,
University of Massachusetts.
Strength in Networks: Employment Rights
Organizations and the Problem of
Co-Ordination
Charles Heckscher and Françoise Carré
Abstract
In recent decades, alternative organizations and movements — ‘quasi-unions’
— have emerged to fill gaps in the US system of representation caused by union
decline. We examine the record of quasi-unions and find that although they have
sometimes helped workers who lack other means of representation, they have
significant limitations and are unlikely to replace unions as the primary means
of representation. But networks, consisting of sets of diverse actors including
unions and quasi-unions, are more promising. They have already shown power
in specific campaigns, but they have yet to do so for more sustained strategies.
By looking at analogous cases, we identify institutional bases for sustained
networks, including shared information platforms, behavioural norms, common
mission and governance mechanisms that go well beyond what now exists in
labour alliances and campaigns. There are substantial resistances to these net-
work institutions because of the history of fragmentation and autonomy among
both unions and quasi-unions; yet we also identify positive potential for network
formation.
1. Introduction
In recent decades, as unions have declined in the United States, alternative
organizations and movements have emerged to fill gaps in the system of
representation. These can be roughly sorted into three levels. The foundation
is a large number of small organizations and membership associations
(‘quasi-unions’). At times, these groups have come together in varying tem-
porary combinations to form campaigns focused on particular issues. At the
broadest level have been attempts, so far extremely rudimentary, to form
lasting networks that can mobilize in a coherent and strategic manner.
606
British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2006.
Quasi-unions represent innovations in organizational form, responding to
otherwise unaddressed employment conditions in modern economies. Like
others, we begin with quasi-unions to examine whether or not they repre-
sent the path for future development of representation structures. The
industrial relations field has been looking at innovations in search of ways
to revive worker representation in the context of the decline of unions and
in the hope that quasi-unions may grow to become viable supplements to or
substitutes for mainstream unions (Fine 2006; Heckscher 1988; Wheeler
2002).
As we will see in the next section of this paper, quasi-unions — organiza-
tions and membership associations — have achieved some degree of impact,
particularly for workers with few, if any, other means to seek redress or obtain
voice in their workplaces. They have a distinctive approach and play a key
role in domains where unions have not been very active. Nevertheless, they
encounter limitations both within and in the political and economic environ-
ment that hamper their growth and limit the scope of their impact. In part
3, we will explore the possibility of constructing larger campaigns and sus-
tained networks — co-ordinated sets of organizations, including both tradi-
tional unions and quasi-unions — to broaden that impact.
2. Quasi-unions: characteristics and activities
We call ‘quasi-unions’ the broad range of organizations that have emerged to
represent the interests of otherwise unrepresented people in their work lives
and in their relationships with their employer, seeking to address matters of
worker rights and to improve working conditions. These alternative organi-
zations, or quasi-unions, form a very broad and diverse field, which has so
far been poorly mapped. The multitude of organizations span a broad range
of organizational forms ranging from contingent worker organizations, hiring
halls, and immigrant worker centres to underground associations and affinity
groups within corporations; campaigns have ranged from support for tradi-
tional strike actions to broad community development efforts and even inter-
national movements; and networks have formed around centres of interest
such as globalization and living wages. Many of these actors are unaware of
others whose interests are aligned with theirs, and even those that are aware
of each other are often mutually suspicious and slow to collaborate. They
have, for the most part, had tenuous relations with the labour movement and
have fallen outside the attention of regulatory agencies.
We have constructed a rough map of this landscape, exploring the strategic
goals of these forms of action, their major accomplishments and challenges,
their trajectory of development, and the main lessons that can be drawn. We
weigh these efforts against an ambitious standard: Can they achieve impact
on corporations on the scale of that achieved by unions and provide an
alternative or major supplement to unions? This question puts the activities
of these organizations to a more stringent test than their leaders would put
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