Great article. I want to confirm that it is OK to share this through social media platforms. Your request at the end of the article is that publications not publish your writing. Is that right? I have found a number of "quotes" and ideas from this that I would like to post (along with a copy of this substack article). I have very little reach - - I'm just an everyday democrat in Alabama (which is having a resurgence of labor organizing). My social media contacts tend to be like minded democrats. I learned a great deal from this article and look forward to your future writing. V/r, Tami
“In contrast, the largest corporations today are generally dispersed into thousands of small and medium-sized establishments (see Table 1), making it significantly harder to scale up workplace power.” Smaller workplaces linked in a production network may present more opportunities for successful organizing and building worker power than you think. First, smaller workplaces are easier to organize because the scale of the task is smaller - contacting all the workers and building unity is easier, takes less time and resources, than in a bigger workplace. Second, if one understands the system of production, at least in manufacturing, one can find the key links in the chain, where a disruption can bring the entire network to a halt. My experience in the garment industry before it was almost completely off-shored in the 1990s was a confirmation of both of these points. That is also confirmed by the recent UAW “standup strike” where stopping one key plant disrupted multiple other plants.
In the service sector, the Starbucks Workers United campaign is demonstrating the relative ease of organizing small workplaces. I believe the optimum size workplace for NLRB organizing campaigns is between 15 and 30 workers. Of course in a mega-corporation like Starbucks it is a big task to organize enough shops to impact the corporation’s bottom line and get a contract, and even longer to get a corporation-wide deal. But it seems clear that the incremental progress of organizing at Starbucks is putting increasing pressure on the company through public awareness and support, and that at some point the company will realize that it is in their interest to settle.
Other points in the article are well taken, and the point that we need innovative strategies to deal with changes in the industrial and social landscape is obviously correct. But please don’t write off smaller workplaces and decentralized systems of production as obstacles.
What about labor becoming more generically social, by doing things like opening food kitchens or drug rehabs? I won't mention the Swedish Wage Earners Fund idea...
Makes me want to mention Raymond Williams's concept "mobile privatization." Personally, I would add that capitalism's successful promotion of automobiles has also been one of the major (pardon the pun) drivers of the sprawl/suburbanization/commodification of services.
Great article. I want to confirm that it is OK to share this through social media platforms. Your request at the end of the article is that publications not publish your writing. Is that right? I have found a number of "quotes" and ideas from this that I would like to post (along with a copy of this substack article). I have very little reach - - I'm just an everyday democrat in Alabama (which is having a resurgence of labor organizing). My social media contacts tend to be like minded democrats. I learned a great deal from this article and look forward to your future writing. V/r, Tami
“In contrast, the largest corporations today are generally dispersed into thousands of small and medium-sized establishments (see Table 1), making it significantly harder to scale up workplace power.” Smaller workplaces linked in a production network may present more opportunities for successful organizing and building worker power than you think. First, smaller workplaces are easier to organize because the scale of the task is smaller - contacting all the workers and building unity is easier, takes less time and resources, than in a bigger workplace. Second, if one understands the system of production, at least in manufacturing, one can find the key links in the chain, where a disruption can bring the entire network to a halt. My experience in the garment industry before it was almost completely off-shored in the 1990s was a confirmation of both of these points. That is also confirmed by the recent UAW “standup strike” where stopping one key plant disrupted multiple other plants.
In the service sector, the Starbucks Workers United campaign is demonstrating the relative ease of organizing small workplaces. I believe the optimum size workplace for NLRB organizing campaigns is between 15 and 30 workers. Of course in a mega-corporation like Starbucks it is a big task to organize enough shops to impact the corporation’s bottom line and get a contract, and even longer to get a corporation-wide deal. But it seems clear that the incremental progress of organizing at Starbucks is putting increasing pressure on the company through public awareness and support, and that at some point the company will realize that it is in their interest to settle.
Other points in the article are well taken, and the point that we need innovative strategies to deal with changes in the industrial and social landscape is obviously correct. But please don’t write off smaller workplaces and decentralized systems of production as obstacles.
What about labor becoming more generically social, by doing things like opening food kitchens or drug rehabs? I won't mention the Swedish Wage Earners Fund idea...
Makes me want to mention Raymond Williams's concept "mobile privatization." Personally, I would add that capitalism's successful promotion of automobiles has also been one of the major (pardon the pun) drivers of the sprawl/suburbanization/commodification of services.