⏩ WORKER-TO-WORKER COMMUNICATIONS
Computer networks, satellite transponders, e-mail, Web pages,
mobile devices, and fax machines have enabled labor organizations to expand
their communications capabilities internally, inter-organizationally, and
toward the wider realm of the public. The ability of electronic technologies to
travel instantaneously, transcend physical space, duplicate infinitely, and
share information globally has been a tremendous boon for the ability of
workers to communicate with other workers, whether they are in the next cubicle
or across the globe. Instantaneous communications among individuals as well as
large groups can help to bypass official channels of corporate or state
censorship, disseminating information to interested parties around the world.
Computer networks help ameliorate the bottleneck presented by older,
established forms of media such as broadcast television and radio, in that any
site on the network can send as well as receive. One disadvantage of electronic
communication is of course, the lack of computers, technology, and
infrastructure, such as adequate phone lines, in many parts of the world. This,
however, is not as significant a problem as is assumed, as labor communications
are primarily horizontal communications, between organizations and movements,
and while individual members might not have computer access, grassroots
organizations often do. The distinction should be made that labor
communications is primarily horizontal communication between individuals
affiliated with organizations and institutions, not only between private
citizens or from a media group to the public. This is an important difference,
particularly when dealing with communications technologies, which are often too
expensive or too technologically complex for many people to utilize on an
individual level, but may be accessible for those affiliated with an
organization. Furthermore, the migration of media platforms to cellular and
other handheld consumer devices has greatly increased the availability of such
communications. Thus, the developers of new labor communications tend to be
influenced by the tenets of appropriate technology, taking into consideration
logistical, technical, or economic limitations with the use of certain
technologies. New forms of horizontal communications offer the possibility of
greater democratic participation in labor union members’ message and
information sharing. Communications can flow between members as easily as
between offices and organizations, in a nonhierarchical fashion, allowing
entire memberships, not just leaders, to communicate with one another.
Socialnetworking applications make this goal much more feasible, allowing for
increased personal participation and thus a stronger sense of membership and
purpose. In some cases, these have helped memberships become more deeply
involved in union affairs.
THE REVOLT OF THE RANK AND FILE
It is important to realize that the US labor movement is not a
monolith; it is often fractured into numerous factions and tendencies. One of
the most significant occurrences in the labor movement within the last few
decades has been the rise of union reform movements, built by rank-and-file
members who seek to revitalize and democratize unions saddled with
bureaucracies grown complacent or corrupt over the years. In fact, many of the
recent changes in the AFL-CIO and other federations are a direct result of
battles between traditionalists and reformers. The challenge union reformers
face is heightened by the unrestrained attacks on union organizations led by
corporations in recent years and by the massive export of union jobs overseas.
New communications technologies have created certain advantages for
strengthening a union but can also have the side effect of illuminating a lack
of democracy, poor representation, or a lack of transparency within the labor
organization. Labor activists shoulder the double burden of maintaining decent
working conditions while also struggling against their own entrenched
leadership, which is often threatened by change. It is often within the membership
of these rank-and-file movements that many of the most committed and active
union members were formed. From the 1970s onward, union reform
organizations—such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Miners for Democracy,
Ed Sadlowski and Steelworkers Fight Back in the Steelworkers Union, and New
Directions (in the United Auto Workers Union)—have had various degrees of
victory and success, ranging from defeating bad contracts to electing an
international president. In any case, these reform efforts helped create a new
generation of labor activists who brought a more vital vision of a modern,
global labor movement. With a fresh urgency brought by the pressures of
globalization and access to new communications tools, these labor activists
contributed to the formation of new types of unions that fuse concepts of
community organizing, new social movement activism, and traditional industrial
unionism.
In the 1990s, groups such as Justice for Janitors, La Mujer
Obrera, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the Black Workers for Justice, the
United Farm Workers, the Asian Immigrant Workers Association, and the Toronto
Homeworkers Association developed new strategies for responding to the
difficulties faced by labor. The ability of decentralized communications to
undermine traditional authority is shaking the foundations of traditional union
bureaucracies, as its two-way/interactive capacity can serve to bypass the
authority of union leadership. This can be extremely effective in strengthening
the solidarity of the rank and file of a union, as well as bridging the gap
between workers of different unions and of different countries. Democratic
means of communicating among union membership can often be perceived as a
threat by an incumbent union leadership out of touch with the rank and file.
Some union leaders prefer that new communications be used for transferring
orders from the international officers to the local leadership rather than be
used by rank-and-file workers to stimulate debate or establish contacts with
workers in other countries. A more open, democratic communication
infrastructure allows greater interchange among union member reformers in many
different unions, as well as in many different countries. E-mail has helped to
organize different insurgent caucuses in many different unions; listservs keep
interested workers current on newly breaking information; databases offer newly
researched findings; concerns of the rank and file are published on Web sites.
Electronic networks help reform-minded union members to collaborate in writing
newsletters and keeping an often geographically dispersed membership in touch.
Web sites help to reach new converts to union reform and can serve as public
fronts for reform organizations. This is not to suggest that the only union
reform activity is at the rankand-file level. There are often situations where
the international leadership may be more in tune with the rank and file than
the local leadership. For example, Teamster reformers who have worked at the
level of the international office have found electronic networks useful to
reach the membership directly, bypassing the local leadership who may still be
under the control of older, corrupt Teamster elements. Sometimes the
independent media activity of workers is not oppositional but more social in
nature. An independent network of union members interested in collecting labor
movement pins and paraphernalia exists among workers of many unions. Some
workers have built their own Web pages to share their own views on their working
lives and to build a sense of camaraderie. Cookbooks have proven to be quite
popular on the Web sites of union members. The innovative use of communications
by rank-and-file workers is an important indication that unions can gain
tremendously by increasing the involvement of the members. Indeed, many union
activists believe that the only way unions will survive is by democratizing and
unleashing the power of the rank-and-file workers. Many activists see the
present leadership structure as too bureaucratic, too constrained by old
paradigms of business unionism, and too rigid to adapt to quickly changing
circumstances. Labor activists believe these changes must be more than simply
structural adjustments in the bureaucracy but should lead to a radically different
labor movement, one that is organized and led by the working millions, not
highpaid, “professional” labor leadership. To many, the modern labor movement
needs to review the lessons learned during the 1930s. According to one
organizer interviewed for this research,
Problems of scale and mass approach by unions is one that is only
going to be solved by the massive participation of workers and union members
[sic]. And if you look back at our history, as a movement back to the 1930s and
1920s, and at the times when the labor movement really did grow by leaps and
bounds, it was because ordinary working people carried the load. They did the
work of organizing unions. The CIO didn’t get organized because they had
thousands of organizers out there in the field, it was because workers
themselves did it. That’s the problem that the labor movement has to answer,
how to do that under the conditions of today.
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