Workers find a way: Using markets to build democracy – Nonprofit News

Have you ever been in a long, air-conditioned meeting and realized, “Wait, are the decisions made here actually going to be implemented?” Many of us — organizers, workers, activists — have felt the same way in our own organizations and state and federal committee meetings. Too often these spaces seem disconnected from the real-world dynamics that shape workers’ lives.

As the global economy has been reshaped over the past three decades, we have seen the power and size of today’s companies grow significantly. As a result, today’s labor struggles too often evoke a feeling of being out of place, using strategies and tactics that worked decades ago—as if companies were being forced to make concessions. It’s as if we haven’t evolved a way to escape.

As two longtime union organizers, we’re done wasting time in rooms that can’t keep up. So do most workers. Today, we need strong investments in building an organizing infrastructure in strategic markets where worker engagement can quickly adapt to changes in corporate power.

In building this infrastructure, the labor strategies of the 1930s were not planned into funding proposals, and the legal doctrine of the time did not protect the ways workers needed to organize and bargain collectively. It’s important to keep that in mind. Next, workers, movement leaders, funders, legal strategists, and policy makers had to work together to build a framework that met the new conditions. And that’s what many employees at large multinational companies need right now.

workers find a way

Some days it’s hard to believe that over the past 30 years, the company has been able to grow to the size and scale we see today. For example, Amazon and Walmart have a combined workforce of more than 3.6 million people and currently employ more workers than the U.S. federal government. They also employ more personnel than the Chinese military, the largest military on earth.

Confronting this reality should not be a deterrent, but an incentive to organize and expand democracy. To truly achieve the lasting change that our country (and the world) needs: narrowing the gap between rich and poor, these companies must be transformed and democratized from within. There is a need. This type of organization also has the advantage of reducing the possibility of corruption and preventing domination by the wealthy (also known as plutocracy).

So the question of how to challenge corporate wealth consolidation and rule-setting and instead democratically distribute the collective wealth created by decision-making and shared labor is perhaps the most important question for movement leaders in this era. This is the most important issue.

Most large corporations act as if they are invincible, but when workers do so, as Starbucks, United Parcel Service, and the Big Three automakers did during their “Stand Up” strikes, have recently proven that by coming together and acting strategically, we can win. Each of these campaigns employed company-specific strategies to maximize the power of employees.

Even as the economy changes, workers do not lose their power. It will shift. And to leverage it effectively, it needs to be articulated in the context of the global economy. Regardless of where organizing occurs, it is important to build campaign infrastructure in specific markets where workers can exercise the most direct influence over corporate decision makers.

A story of three companies

Every company has an Achilles heel. Workers’ anger and courage to organize may spread far and wide, but those emotions should be directed and strategically amplified in ways that transform the companies that employ them. .

The responsibility of labor advocacy organizations like Jobs With Justice is to build the infrastructure that allows workers to leverage the greatest possible power to win. We call this a “strategic market approach,” and we pay close attention to the structure of markets to increase worker power and leverage. There are many examples of how this works. Here are some of them:

Target: A joint partnership between Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (Workers Center United Struggles or CTUL) and SEIU Local 26 has taken on the task of organizing cleaners at Target stores in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. In the end, the union won an unprecedented victory against the cleaners who clean Target stores as well as retail spaces in other metropolitan areas.
Organizers at the center of the campaign spoke about how they were able to place a different level of pressure and responsibility on Target’s management team, since the Twin Cities was Target’s headquarters and home to its top executives. Ta. Target stores’ victory prompted other retailers to follow suit. The key to that campaign was a strategy that pitted the company against targets in the cities where it was headquartered. Walmart: When Walmart employees founded OUR Walmart, they faced the challenge of how to build an organization that could compete with the largest private employer on the planet. In a multi-year movement, workers and organizers say that when workers organized an action at Walmart’s home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company’s response compared to other large cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. I noticed a marked difference.
Actions at home and at Walmart’s annual general meeting provoked very different reactions, with the company taking a more proactive approach by locking down the annual meeting to protect itself from any negative challenges from outside. . Labor and organizers also perceived differences in targeting board action.
The focus on Bentonville and other cities where board members lived resulted in significant workplace improvements, including higher wages and changes to national leave policies. And like Target’s wins, these wins weren’t limited to just the companies directly challenged through the campaign. It caused ripples and affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of retail workers. Taking on Wal-Mart and its executives in its home city has made it difficult for the company and its management to avoid workers’ demands. Amazon: While there are various approaches currently underway to counter Amazon, the HQ2 process, which ended with Amazon being reprimanded by New York City, contains important lessons.
Amazon is using the HQ2 process as a “Hunger Games”-like exercise, with various cities trying to figure out which cities can further damage themselves and their tax bases in order to lure the giant corporation. I outsmarted him. A coalition formed in New York City to fight Amazon says that even with a $3 billion “promise” from the company, elected officials, community members and other key segments of the community We demonstrated that it is possible to mobilize people to demand improvements. And the community won.
Amazon still has its eyes on New York, and the ability of residents to challenge Amazon on issues that require change is likely to present a strategic opportunity. Knowing and building campaigns in markets that are important to a company’s growth strategy provides significant leverage and benefits.

Applying a strategic market approach across industries

Strategic markets can also go beyond a single metropolitan area or state. For example, the political economy of the American South includes a set of industries that organized and reorganized themselves in ways that promoted economic growth and development almost without limit except for brief periods during Reconstruction. Most of the southern state governments are organized around these industries, including auto manufacturing, aerospace, and chemicals, giving the region a reputation for being “open for business.”

Business orientation toward the labor market in the South, home to the majority of the nation’s black population, is best summed up by one state’s slogan, “Alabama Discount.” This refers to the fact that wages, which have been relatively subdued across the region, are still stuck at the lowest common denominator. The legacy of chattel slavery.

Recent battles in this strategic market center are taking place in the field of automobile and electric vehicle manufacturing. Black workers are pushing back against employers who are taking advantage of federal investments to produce more climate-friendly products at the expense of southern workers, natural resources and communities. .

Taking on corporate giants

Taking on big business is critical to the future of our democracy and the future of the people who work within it. To do this successfully, you need to be strategic and learn from previous experiences. It is important to understand which markets a company wants to grow, expand and control in order to maximize profits.

Unions need to be where corporate leaders live and where they want to go. This requires accessible tools that allow workers to talk to each other when their employers don’t want them to.

How do they have access to those tools? Even people who don’t participate in active union organizing activities (the vast majority of U.S. workers) face retaliation when discussing their rights with each other. You can benefit from existing legal protections from: Worker centers invest in organizations and technologies aimed at subsuming workers into larger movement hubs, activating them as organizers of their own establishments, and educating each other about fundamental rights and conditions. You can support these workers by doing so.

Labor advocacy centers such as Jobs With Justice can help by conducting the necessary research to clarify unrecognized strategic markets, perhaps different in different sectors and industries.

And how the organization is done is also important. By organizing at the intersections of worker identities, we can build stronger campaigns in strategic markets. For example, in Dallas, the interests of Black Amazon consumers may align with the interests of Black Amazon workers at nearby facilities, who are subject to unfair police surveillance.

Ready for takeoff

Imagine the moment when the Wright Brothers finally got the engineering right, put the right parts on the right parts, and flew the first airplane. That is the design stage of today’s labor movement. There is much to be gained by helping workers design and test innovative new organizational infrastructures and build the right scale of power in strategic markets.

Identifying a company’s Achilles heel reveals that what was once thought impossible is possible. Establishing a campaign infrastructure in your company’s core markets makes your ability to compete against larger organizations more realistic.

History shows that workers can achieve amazing results through common struggle and democratic action. We all have a stake in democracy. Without economic democracy in the workplace, political democracy is at risk. It is important to support workers as they challenge corporate power. Don’t let them do it alone.