LTB 170/12 Can strikes build unions?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

No. 170/12
Ref: GS: 17.0
Date: 12 March 2012





To: All Branches







Dear Colleagues

“Can Strikes Build Unions?”

The attached document “Can Strikes Build Unions?” will be of interest to Branches.

Any enquiries on this LTB should be sent to the General Secretary’s Office quoting the reference GS 17.0

Yours sincerely




W HAYES
General Secretary





Professor Gregor Gall
Professor of Industrial Relations
University of Hertfordshire
Email: g.gall@herts.ac.uk

Introduction

The large public sector strikes of 30 June and 30 November last year were widely reported by a number of the unions involved to have led to surges and spikes in applications for membership by non-members. This raises the issue of whether strikes can build unions – specifically, whether strikes can lead to net gains in union membership and whether strikes can strengthen union workplace organisation, union bargaining power and membership attachment. In other words, there are a number of searching criteria which need to be used to answer the question of whether strikes can build unions because while the two public sector strikes over pension saw rises in applications, it is well known that union membership is like a set of revolving doors for as some come in, others go out. Net rather than gross membership gains are ultimately the crucial determinant in terms of the number of union members. This research paper reflects on these issues, beginning with looking at the issue of membership gains before addressing the issues of union workplace organisation, union bargaining power and membership attachment.

Membership gains - net and gross

Of their own volition, a number of unions reported that they experienced surges and spikes in membership applications. What the balance was between completely new and formerly lapsed members was not identified. For example, on 28 November 2011, Unison reported: ‘Comparison of monthly figures show that applications to join ... have jumped a massive 126% since result of the union’s ballot for strike action was announced. An overwhelming 81% of these applications have come from women – reflecting exactly who women are turning to for support.’ Then, on 29 November 2011, the UCU reported: ‘Almost 300 people joined the union on Monday, which was more than joined during either of the first two weeks of the month. There has been a steady increase in union membership in November, but yesterday's spike was more than double the previous working day's total of 143. This time last year, 33 people joined the union.’

Labour Research, the monthly magazine of the Labour Research Department (LRD), in a major article in its February 2012 edition, entitled ‘Pensions strike boosts trade union recruitment’, reported the following:

‘With an overall membership level of around 122,000, the UCU university and college lecturers' union reported that around 2,500 people joined the union in November 2011.’

‘The [GMB] union reported that 12,000 people joined in November and 8,000 in October 2011, compared to 7,000 and 6,000 respectively in the same months in 2010.’

‘The country's largest union, general union Unite, with around 250,000 members across the public sector, saw its public sector membership increase by more than 6,600in the last six months of 2011.’

‘With a total membership of around 103,000 [Prospect] clocked up 1,111 new members in November - the best ever month for recruitment in the union's history. Another 77 members joined on the day of the strike itself, with union reps receiving applications on picket lines. The November figure was up 88% on the previous month, itself substantially higher than the average for the year. There were more than 1,700 new members in October and November 2011, compared with 1,100 in the previous two months.’

While these gains are impressive, they are not in themselves the fully story for no mention was made of the number of members leaving or lapsing at the same time so that a sense of the net effect could be gained. Such leaving and lapsing may have concerned disagreeing with the union on the ability of it to take sufficiently effective action to stop the government’s reform of public sector pensions and or not wishing to forfeit a day’s pay to do so. Equally, well the reasons may have included redundancy and retirement. Certainly, these latter reasons were highlighted by the PCS union in a communication with its members called ‘Build the campaign for fair pensions - organise now for 'yes' vote’ on 15 February 2012. In a section entitled ‘Recruitment’, PCS commented:

‘10,000 extra new members joined PCS because of the strike on 30 June and 30 November. When we are seen campaigning on the issues they are concerned about non members will join the union. 
While the our campaign has been a brilliant boost to union membership we are still losing about 2000 members every month because of job cuts so all Regions, Groups and Branches must do much more to recruit non members every month. The ballot and lead up to 28 March will be the perfect time to ask every non member to join PCS.’

Indeed, in only one case in the aforementioned Labour Research article was the importance of net gains considered. Thus, the magazine reported: ‘ATL head of recruitment and organisation Mark Holding said: ‘At the end of November 2011, membership was 5% higher than at the same time last year.’’ But what was not studied was how much of this increase over the previous year was a result of the activity around the pensions dispute even though Labour Research also reported Mark Holding as saying: ‘Similarly, he said, in the two months leading up to the 30 June action, when balloting and preparations for strike action were being made, ‘‘we recruited twice as many new members than in the two months the previous year. ... In the month of November, in the run-up to the day of action, we recruited four times more new members than the previous November’’.

Consequently, there is as yet no clarity about the scale of the net gains as a result of the pension dispute. Setting that aside, it does nonetheless seem fairly evident that the reasons for the rise in membership applications is attributable to the following reasons. First is the palpable sense of the grievance which the unions framed, championed and led on. Second was the extent of the visibility in the workplace and in the media of this union stance. Third was the significantly increased physical activity of unions around the dispute in terms of meetings and verbal and written communications. The first aspect can be seen as being necessary (without being sufficient) while the latter two can be seen as being sufficient to explain the rise in membership applications (whether on-line or due to personal, face-to-face interaction).

Should it be concluded from this that all strikes or strikes per se have this potential to lead to such rises in membership applications? Although other examples can be found of significant in increases in new members such as those of the 1996 or 2007 CWU postal workers’ national strikes, it is an error to believe that all strikes do so or can do so. This is because when the surface is scratched, there are specific aspects and conditions that are associated with the ability of some strikes do so – meaning that others do not have this ability or potential. Among the main ones are:

A long period of sustained campaigning and mobilisation of which the actual strike is only a relatively small part (with the prolonged exposure of the dispute and strike in the media). This concerns the declaration of a dispute, the announcement of a ballot, the ballot result and so on.
A national dispute fully supported by the national union.
The sense in which the strike and the issues which give to it are not run-of-the-mill ones but perceived as quite fundamental and deep-reaching.
A sense in which righteous moral indignation concerning the grievance outweighs whether the strike will lead to the gaining of the union’s bargaining objectives (especially where they concern the outright withdrawal of the employer’s proposals).

Thus, strikes over annual pay rises and those which are not mass or national strikes are highly unlikely to have this same impact in terms of recruitment. These points are compatible with the only known study of the relationship between strikes and union recruitment by McCarthy (2009). Here, the study examined the behaviour of non-members or ‘free riders’ in the civil service in regard of the PCS union. McCarthy found that the act of union mobilisation in defence of jobs was far more significant as a recruiting sergeant that the actual gaining of the bargaining objective, namely, a national job security agreement. Union mobilisation did not just concern striking itself but the preparations for it. Indeed, the point is reinforced for, when Unison reported its 126% increase, this was from the point that the ballot of members was announced which was 14 September 2011, some two and a half months before the strike itself. (It would be interesting to see if there were particular spikes around the announcement of the ballot result and the giving of the legal notice of the strike.)

But equally well, there may be downsides to those strikes which do have the potential to lead to significant increases in membership applications. The first is that the reason why non-members joined was critically bound up with a particular dispute. With raised and heightened expectations, the outcome of the dispute may well have a key bearing on whether membership is maintained thereafter. For example, what is regarded as a defeat or unsatisfactory compromise by some members (both existing and newly joined) may lead them to leave or lapse their membership through disgust, disillusionment and demoralisation. In particular those that might be prey to these feelings are likely to be those that view themselves as ‘let down’ by the union because they believe the union should service their needs. The second is that the dispute and strike which led many to join is likely to have unrealistically raised these new members’ expectations are to what the normal or routine level of union activity should and could be thereafter. However, the countervailing tendency here may be for newly joined members to become rather more realistic as a result of becoming battle hardened through being active in their union.

Workplace organisation, bargaining power and membership attachment

Gaining new members is not synonymous with strengthening workplace organisation, bargaining power and membership attachment. This is because members can join for reasons of wanting to be serviced in a distant manner as others do when they take out an insurance policy – essentially paying for protection come the proverbial ‘rainy day’. This is all the more so if the new members applied for membership online (and without any contact with the relevant union branch). As such new members can remain atomised from the union they join and the branch they are members of. Therefore, the basis on which they join or are recruited is important and this will vary throughout and across unions.

However, in a strike situation there is far greater potential for new and existing members to become active within their local union in a way that is not true of more ‘normal’ times. The requirement as an active member to do more than sit in routine union meetings and the opportunity to be able participate in a meaningful activity such as a picketline or handing out leaflets to drum up support for the strike means that the potential for a more productive and satisfying form of union activity is available to those that seek it – or those that can be cajoled and persuaded into doing so.

Out of these activities are the opportunities – to some extent dependent on the outcome of the dispute – to increase the quality and quantity of workplace union reps, to strengthen bargaining power and membership attachment. But not of these are guaranteed. In the case of the 30 November strike, such was the activity of national unions in terms of direct communication to individual members without recourse to or via the branches that no necessary additional link was established between members and their local union as a consequence. This tendency was heightened by the centralised degree of control over the nature of the strike action exercised by the national leaderships – just one single day of national strike action, rather than a rolling programme of selective action with one day strikes in between as was touted in the notion of ‘smart striking’. But this tendency was countered by the need to get as many members not just to go on strike but to also attend the rallies and demonstrations in each town and city on the day of November 30 so that local union organisation was active in its contact with its own members and required more of its members to be active in order to ensure a good turnout at the rallies and demonstrations (because much of the necessary media attention for the strike was understood to be based on such rallies and demonstrations and that as the strike was a political rather than economic strike the rallies and demonstrations were part of creating political leverage over the government). The sense in which the strike was an active one where strikers attend a rally or demonstration rather than treat the strike day as a day off work to go fishing or have a long lie in was, thus, manifest.

Some of these points can be seen in the example given by the Labour Research article when it recounted the experience of the ATL union:

‘According to Holding, the build-up to strike action also saw an increase in the level of activity of many school and college union representatives. They were organising meetings of members for the first time, coordinating lobbying activities, including lobbying MPs and in some cases inviting them to come into school. The level of engagement and collective organisation is unprecedented and has resulted in a significant organisational gain. It shows the central role played by union reps in the effectiveness of the union.’

There are occasions where the degree of attachment between member and union is heightened by strike action. It is easier enough to see the case here where the union is clearly believed to have won its bargaining objectives through its own actions (rather than those of others or the abject weakness of its opponent). But there are also some conditions of defeat of a strike where no matter the defeat the members become so highly attached to the union because such is the sense of righteous anger that anybody that advocates for the workers and defends them is applauded even if the advocacy and defence are fairly ineffectual.

Yet these conditions of heightened attachment do not exist in a vacuum and, therefore, cannot be expected to continue as they are indefinitely. They either need to be replenished or reinforced or they will decrease and dissipate. However, out of attachment can remain a residual sense of loyalty even if that sense of loyalty is not an active one. The same is true of bargaining power with employers. The ability to take effective strike action (judged by the closure of workplaces and the stopping of the work of the employer rather than the gaining of bargaining objectives per se) does show an employer that union has credibility here. In this sense, a strike can be an investment because for a period of time afterwards the ability to threaten another strike has a palpable credibility with the employer. But this will not last forever and a point will be reached where the employer does not find the threat alone credible. In terms of bargaining power resulting from union density, there is an irony in that as the number of redundancies in the public sector has increased dramatically the density of unions like Unison and PCS has also increased even though they have lost members as a result. This is because the complexion of those taking or affected by redundancy is more informed by non-union members. An increase in union density is then potentially a useful resource in threatening or taking industrial action.

Conclusion

Many unions have seen a considerable rise in applications for membership as a result of the strike action over public sector pension reform and the preparations for it. We will need to await yearend figures and a breakdown of them to see whether there have been net gains in membership as a result of the strikes. One union that appears to have experienced net membership gains as a result of association with striking is the RMT. Striking is central to its brand of being a ‘fighting back’ union. What we do not know is the exact relationship between striking and recruitment for it appears that recruitment activity in the form of union organising is successful because of the perception that the RMT is amply prepared to use the strike weapon. This is not the same as saying that RMT strike action directly leads to recruitment as was the case in the run-up to 30 June 30 November. Indeed, it may suggest that recruitment takes place after strikes and strikes that were in other companies. But we do not know this for sure because the kind of study McCarthy (2009) undertook in regard of the PCS union has not been carried out in regard of the RMT. In such a study, the sense of occupational identity would be a likely significant factor in aiding recruitment as it may well have been for a number of the teaching and NHS unions in 2011. In the campaign of the grassroots activists of the Unite union against the Building Engineering Services National Agreement, reports suggest that it was not just strike action but other forms of collective mobilisation which show the potential for membership recruitment and the like. Again, further study would be needed to tease out the links and their context.

Whether or not the intended action – again on pensions – by a number of unions on the 28 March 2012 will see further recruitment will be interesting. This is because the action is unlikely to be as big as 30 November 2011 in terms of its size and the extent of its coverage by the media. But more importantly, it may be the case that rather than see further significant recruitment – because many of those presently predisposed to joining may have already done so – the opportunity is instead one for tightening up on union organisation and deepening membership attachment.

Reference

McCarthy, N. (2009) ‘Union mobilisation in a recognised environment – a case study of mobilisation’ in Gall, G. (ed.), Union Revitalisation in Advanced Economies: assessing the contribution of ‘union organising’, Palgrave, pp107-130.

[fishtank]

Can the complete acceptance,endorsement and repetition of management dogma build unions?
Discuss.

[DGP1]

Is there pies involved?

[mdm]

is there a Greggs nearby?

[prowler]

Can the complete acceptance,endorsement and repetition of management dogma build unions?
Discuss.

Yes, I like that. After recent experiences I have to say I have utterly no faith in the CWU or many of it's reps, but, as they say, better in than out.

[dvbuk55]

Can the complete acceptance,endorsement and repetition of management dogma build unions?
Discuss.

And thereby hangs the future, unfortunately.

What we have seen in recent negotiations is an acceptance by the leadership to embrace Royal Mails view of the company, its finances, its modernisation plans, the BSI and the last nail in the coffin.........the acceptance of the workfare scheme and then having the gall to try to justify it with ever more desperate LTBs.

What has probably increased the membership of other unions is the fact that they are facing the problems experienced by the shop floor membership, such as the erosion of terms and conditions and falling pay. Whereas the CWU.................is facing the problems of trying to use knuckle draggers to negotiate complicated agreements which results in a loss of pay and full time employment....................talk about changing horses in mid stride.

[pcb]

Step forward and take up the challenge. Don't stand on the sidelines taking cheap shots get involved and maybe you'll go into negotiations with the likes of Cameron and higson and do better! Just a thought.

[dvbuk55]

Step forward and take up the challenge. Don't stand on the sidelines taking cheap shots get involved and maybe you'll go into negotiations with the likes of Cameron and higson and do better! Just a thought.

Yes of course................it's so easy to jump on the gravy train..................and I prefer the word capitulation rather than negotiation, I think that better describes the current situation.

[pcb]

Agreements are made and people have to abide by the result of the vote to accept. now every agreement has faults and ever person has an opinion so please take up the challenge and don't join the gravy train and stand by your principles.
you always have a good steer on issues and I enjoy reading them but don't complain and do nothing about it. Get involved and change the system. before you say, this is Britain and we haven't done revolution since the civil war!

[dvbuk55]

Agreements are made and people have to abide by the result of the vote to accept. now every agreement has faults and ever person has an opinion so please take up the challenge and don't join the gravy train and stand by your principles.
you always have a good steer on issues and I enjoy reading them but don't complain and do nothing about it. Get involved and change the system. before you say, this is Britain and we haven't done revolution since the civil war!

There is an unhealthy relationship between the CWU and Royal Mail, which in my opinion, disenfranchises the membership from making any inroads to improving terms and conditions. It is true to say that agreements are made BUT it would also be true to say that with the last agreement the membership were forced to accept the deal. The full agenda was NOT communicated to the membership, the agreement was not fully itemised. Now as for complaining, if I pay for someone to do a job, pay for a service or goods and they don't meet my expectations, then I complain...................it doesn't mean I want to work in a shop, plaster a wall or grow apples.

[fishtank]

How long would it take an ordinary member to rise to a position in this union that would have any real influence on the national agenda?
Assuming,of course that the face fitted and the old boy's network deigned to shuffle up and make a place for you at the top table.
We must be talking at least 5 years as a member,5 years as a local rep gaining experience,5-10 in an Area Rep/Branch position and then who knows?...the sky's the limit.
Fast tracking...it isn't.
Of course as you move up the ladder you start looking back down nervously and your perception of the "big picture" changes slightly.

[dvbuk55]

How long would it take an ordinary member to rise to a position in this union that would have any real influence on the national agenda?
Assuming,of course that the face fitted and the old boy's network deigned to shuffle up and make a place for you at the top table.
We must be talking at least 5 years as a member,5 years as a local rep gaining experience,5-10 in an Area Rep/Branch position and then who knows?...the sky's the limit.
Fast tracking...it isn't.
Of course as you move up the ladder you start looking back down nervously and your perception of the "big picture" changes slightly.

There's some food for thought ft:

5 years a member check
5 years a rep Brings me to 71
5-10 Area/Branch That's 81

The sky certainly would be the limit........would I look more attractive to the electorate I wonder with a white robe and a harp