Strike wave at fastfood chains

In the US, there’s a modest strike wave going on at fastfood chains. So far, actions have taken place in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and Milwaukee. Employees demand $15 per hour and the right to form a union without intimidation.
Various observers (example) have noted that US labour law hardly offers any protection any more to workers who organise. Increasingly, workers opt for actions different from the traditional union model (not only in fastfood, but also for example at Walmart). In the case of the fastfood chains, it regards one-day strikes supported by unions and community organisations.
According to an editorial in a local newspaper, the actions may appear futile, but the idea is to expose the growing inequality in a sector where a CEO may earn up to over 1,000 times as much as the average employee. A possible strategy is to fight for local authorities to raise the minimum wage or introduce living wage regulations.

French unions: influential despite low membership?

France is often mentioned as an example of a country where unions have relatively few members, but are still influential because of their capacity to mobilise workers. Two British researchers, Susan Milner and Andrew Mathers, have published an article on this topic (abstract).
Union density in France is 8%, which is substantially below many other European countries. Still, there are indications that especially CGT and CFDT have strengthened their workplace presence, respectively in manufacturing and small companies in the services sector.
As for influence, Milner and Mathers say French unions have forced governments to ‘adopt incremental strategies for change even where systemic reform was the initial objective’. Despite massive mobilisations, they were unable to stop Sarkozy’s pension reform. In other instances, they were more successful. For example, they were involved in protests of the unemployed, homeless, undocumented residents and seasonal workers, which influenced policy on universal health coverage. And they joined youth who protested successfully against a new type of temporary employment contract paying below the minimum wage.
Milner and Mathers refer to a poll which shows that according to the French, the legitimacy of unions mainly depends on three things: their mobilising capacity; their experience and their independence (not just of employers but also, for example, political parties).
The latter aspect may be the achilles heel of French unions. Over the past decades, French unions have become ‘increasingly dependent on material subsidies from the state’. Their officials ‘remain seconded employees of their original company, usually one of France’s large flagship companies with strong links to the state and organised employers’. It could be argued that French unions need more members to strengthen their economic independence.

Somewhat surprised, academic finds that unions stand up for ‘outsiders’

After joint actions by permanent workers and Polish agency workers, Dutch supermarkets have agreed to improve the position of temp workers. Workers at nursing homes are fighting for more stable jobs. The FNV has launched a campaign against precarious work in all sectors. These are examples of the ‘decent work’ agenda adopted by an increasing number of unions on the eve of the creation of the renewed FNV.

The recent national agreement between unions, employers and the government also contains measures to improve employment protection. At the much-praised new political scientists’ blog Stuk Rood Vlees, this caused some surprise. Academic Gijs Schumacher refers to research that would show that ‘in negotiations on labour market reforms, unions across Europe choose to defend the interests of so-called insiders at the expense of the interests of outsiders […] However, the current agreement seems to serve the interests of outsiders more than those of insiders’. Schumacher considers this a change of strategy on the part of the Dutch unions. Incidentally, he interprets this not so much as a choice unions make out of conviction; he suggests unions may hope to gain institutional power or new members.

One thing is certain: the focus on decent work doesn’t come out of the blue. For example, FNV Bondgenoten made decent work a priority of its bargaining policy five years ago. Since, an increasing number of collective agreements contain measures to reduce precarious work. Besides solidarity, this is motivated by the realisation that eventually, all workers will face pressure if employers increase their use of low-paid flex workers.

See also Strikes and the interests of temp workers

Our union and the environmental crisis

[By Patrick van Klink] – At the congress of the Netherlands Confederation of Trade Unions (FNV) in May, we will decide on the current renewal of the FNV. It’s about more voice and more involvement. The union belongs to the members! We have developed a clear social agenda to respond to casino capitalism, as outgoing president Henk van der Kolk called the current economic mess at the FNV Bondgenoten congress.
Still, I feel that we’re missing something if we want to be really prepared for the future and appeal to new generations. That is, our answer to that other big crisis: the climate crisis; the looming shortage of water, raw materials, in short: the environmental crisis. There are no jobs on a dead planet, so certainly no decent jobs.
The environmental crisis already has a large impact on our lives as union members, consumers and citizens. An economy that’s less dependent on carbon will have at least as large consequences for employment as the financial crisis. Jobs will disappear or be replaced. The environmental crisis further has its largest impact on people with low incomes. They will suffer the most from rising prices for energy and food as a consequence of, for example, growing crops for biofuel. People with lower incomes spend relatively much on food and energy.
This means that it’s not enough for us as a trade union movement to fight for green jobs: we’ll have to fight for solutions that are socially just. If jobs disappear or change, there will have to be a compensation for differences in income. There will have to be support for people to get other jobs. There will have to be good social facilities for people who need them. In short, regular trade union work.
In our answers to the economic crisis, we can refer to answers to the environmental crisis as well. It should be more than self-evident to invest in insulation of homes rather than in shiny offices for mailbox companies. The TUC took the lead in its ‘One million climate jobs NOW’ campaign. In its teaching materials for union reps, the British union Unite pays considerable attention to the new challenges the union movement is facing: globalisation and its excessive dependence on flex work; and an answer to the climate crisis and the growing divide between the poor and the rich. Solidarity and social justice go hand in hand.
The mission of the renewed FNV must be broadened. We’re not just in favour of a just distribution of work, welfare, wellbeing and power. We also want a socially just solution for the consequences of the environmental crisis. This will strengthen our own vision, just like our decent work agenda is doing. It will appeal to people to jointly discuss the issue and find solutions, rather than focus on problems. Solutions that do justice to our interest in decent jobs and a just distribution of work and income.
This contrasts with the green solution of, for example, the CEO of Unilever: doubling turnover by halving the environmental pressure. Here, money still comes first and social aspects come second. That’s why workers at Unilever in the Netherlands are currently on a five-week strike because the corporation refuses to discuss a socially just solution for workers who will be outsourced to Sodexo. With this kind of multinational, corporate social responsibility and sustainability are just a thin veneer.
Patrick van Klink is a union rep for FNV Bondgenoten at Unilever and a member of the provisional Member Parliament of the FNV.

Growing confidence in unions

Normally, there is a high level of confidence in unions in the Netherlands. In the second half of 2011, there was a decline, probably as a result of the internal problems the FNV experienced at the time. Currently, there confidence is rising again. At the end of last year, 61% of the population had confidence in the unions; by now, this has risen to 66%, according to the newest edition of the ‘Citizen Perspectives’ monitor of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP).
The SCP offers no explanation for this development. Over the past months, unions have made headlines because of speculations about a possible national agreement between employers, unions and the government; but also because of numerous actions for ‘decent work’, including actions for the quality of care at nursing homes and a joint strike of permanent workers and agency workers at the distribution centers of supermarket giant Albert Heijn.

Strikes and the interests of temp workers

A strike of distribution workers at Dutch supermarket giant Albert Heijn has resulted in an agreement with their employer. Among other things, 200 agency workers will get a contract with Albert Heijn. “In this strike, permanent workers and agency workers stood shoulder to shoulder to fight for more security. This is unusual”, Ron Meyer of FNV Bondgenoten commented.
Over the past years, many have criticised the unions for letting down ‘outsiders’, such as temp workers. You might have thought those critics would support the distribution workers, but that didn’t really happen.
This probably has to do with the fact that the distribution workers have gone on strike, while we Dutch have an aversion to social conflict. This culture of harmonious social relations has its value. On the other hand, change doesn’t happen by itself.
In this respect, it’s interesting to look at the rest of Europe. Most countries have more strikes than the Netherlands. But in various respects, temp workers are better off in countries where unions are more assertive. In those countries, fewer temp workers have low wages and there is better employment protection for temp workers (click on the graph for a larger version).
The data also shows that the position of temp workers in the Netherlands compares unfavourably to the rest of Europe. The distribution workers have shown that a strike can be an effective means to change this.

Source
Strikes: Eurostat, mean number of working days lost per 1,000 workers per year (average 2000-2007; cutoff at 35 days). Employment protection for temp workers: OECD. Low wages for temp workers: Eurostat.

Organising: strategy or toolbox

Over the past decades, British unions have struggled with the impact of Thatcherism. Between 1979 and 1996, union membership dropped from 13.3 million to 7.2 million. In 1998, union confederation TUC launched the Organising Academy, a training institute for organisers. At the individual level, organisers proved very successful at recruiting new members. Nationally, membership decline has slowed down, although it didn’t stop.
In a new book called Union Voices, a group of academics summarize years of research on the Organising Academy. The launch of this institute was quite a remarkable initiative. Previously, the TUC had been involved mainly in forming policies based on consensus among its member unions. Now, it took the initiative to ‘shake up’ the union movement.
The authors of Union Voices argue that organizing outcomes should be evaluated not just against the formal objectives, but ‘against a wider view of the changes that unions should make in order to (re)establish their roles as strong, independent voices of working people’. They find that individual campaigns have been very successful at recruiting new members, but that it has proven difficult to strengthen the position of workers in new sectors.
In part, this can be explained by the sometimes very aggressive responses by employers. In one-fifth of ‘greenfield’ campaigns (campaigns in sectors where unions have no established position), employers used antiunion consultants. For example, T-Mobile and Amazon used the Burke Group from the US. “These were classic unionbusting campaigns that were costly, sophisticated, and effective.” In other cases, UK-based consultants were provided by law firms or employers’ organisations. Their approach to union busting is less sophisticated and sometimes even counterproductive.
Internal factors also influence the outcome of organising efforts. While the TUC trains the organisers, it is up to individual unions how to use them. Unite has launched a number of successful large-scale organising campaigns in sectors like poultry, low-cost airlines and cleaning. However, it appears that these large-scale, well-resourced strategic campaigns were not the rule. More often, organising efforts would last a few months rather than years, and consist of a small number of organisers working rather independently of the officers who do the collective bargaining.
The evaluation suggests that the character of the organising efforts has something to do with the position of the TUC. As an umbrella organisation, it cannot tell affiliated unions how to run their organising campaigns. Therefore, it’s understandable that it didn’t present organising as a coherent model to be used strategically, but rather as a ‘toolbox’ of techniques to be used at will.
In the Netherlands, it has been considered to create something like the Organising Academy at the confederation level (in fact, we visited the Organising Academy in 2005), but the idea never took off. Instead, private sector union FNV Bondgenoten developed its organising activities in the cleaning sector into a broader organising programme, and public sector union Abvakabo FNV also launched an organising programme. There have been successful campaigns, for example in cleaning and in some of the nursing homes (despite highly aggressive responses from health care employers). The challenge is now to translate this into a broader effort to help workers across the economy stand up and strenghten their position.