Towards an "Open Source Culture" in the U.S. Labor Movement
Over my first several weeks working for this blog's sponsor, Prometheus Labor Communications, I've had occasion to talk to quite a few web managers for various unions about how they'd like to make use of the growing array of technologies at our disposal to communicate with their members. And I've been somewhat dismayed to find that many unions are not especially interested in making use of the many interactive tools on offer to better facilitate two-way communication between union leadership and rank-and-file members.
This has caused me to puzzle until my puzzler is sore. I've been in the labor movement for 16 years already; so I'm certainly no noob to labor politics. But I've never quite gotten why modern American labor media rarely rises above the level of a events newsletter or PR sheet - and why the advent of the web hasn't changed that fact overmuch. My basic understanding is that: a) different unions operate differently, b) there are varying levels of rough democracy in each union, c) there is almost always a strong tradition of formal democracy in most every union, and d) formal democracies don't often see the need for much interactive media.
Readers will certainly be curious what I mean by "rough democracy" and "formal democracy" and why I bring these terms up in this fashion; so let me tease these thoughts out a bit before continuing. To me, rough democracy is the basic idea that all people are equals and that there should be discussion and debate about most important matters of the day before decisions can be agreed upon for collective courses of action.
Formal democracy is the democracy of representative government and Robert's Rules of Order - in fact, Gen. Roberts created his Rules to bring order out of the chaos of the rough democracy of the Union Army during the Civil War (where it seems that, as the war progressed, soldiers had a habit of debating out political and even military courses of action in a similar fashion to early unions ... sometimes using their fists ... but at least they had serious debates).
Upon considering this it occurs to me that what I find confusing may actually be fairly simple. That is, I've been confused why so many unions are interested in running their new websites just like they run their traditional print newspapers and magazines. But as I think about it, their attitude seems to be an outgrowth of the formal democratic process that is present in most unions.
Getting to my point here, I believe all trade unionists can agree that there is a fairly serious effort on the part of most unions to democratically elect officers and other representatives to carry on their day-to-day affairs. There is also an effort made to run local meetings using some form of Robert's Rules, and run periodic national and international conventions the same way.
However, we might also agree that - in many unions - once officers are elected, little need is felt by leadership to do much more than report their activities to membership now and again - and sometimes mobilize membership to help win specific organizing and political goals. This has been the way many unions have done things for decades. And this problem is certainly a two-way street. Many rank-and-file union members don't show much inclination to participate in union activities or politics - even when actively encouraged to do so. (Although one might opine that the manner and seriousness with which union leadership encourage rank-and-file participation has a great deal of bearing on the outcome of such efforts.)
Contrast that to earlier periods in American unionism when my understanding is that there was often much more ongoing debate and discussion between members and leadership. Over time, this practice seems to have been jettisoned by many unions in the same way it is dropped by governments and other social institutions.
According to the famous German sociologist, Robert Michels, this change from rough democracy to formal democracy - although he did not speak of it in those terms - describes an "Iron Law of Oligarchy." Now I'm not trying to do an academic paper here; so I'll spare you all the details, but suffice to say the "Iron Law" says that new organizations like unions (or political parties) are often started in a very democratic way, and then, once successful, create bureaucracies to manage their institution and preserve it for the long-term. However, after some years, these bureaucracies tend to lose touch with the membership and prefer to run organizational affairs without consulting members in any serious way. And so the once-democratic organizations become oligarchies. Members may still get something out of such organizations, but have very little say in their future, and lose interest and loyalty. Eventually, these groups collapse due to having become functionally irrelevant to their members, and due to their inability to change with the times. Which one might certainly pin to their failure to dialogue with their own constituents about the future.
That is precisely what I don't think should happen with American unions. And I think that one great way to avoid that fate is for union leadership to use these new technologies to communicate interactively with their membership. To see what people are thinking. To have regular discussion and debate. To allow for candidates for union office to talk directly to members during election periods. To take what's best from the old union tradition of rough democracy and reinvent it for the modern era. To create what we might call an "open source culture" for unions - in the same way techies have been fighting to open up software code for use and modification by everyone. In the hopes that genuine, long-term discussion and debate between union members and union leadership might be just the thing to help unions become more responsive and more relevant. And that this in turn would help spark a period of reformation and renaissance for the labor movement.
So I encourage every union leader reading this piece to take a hard look at your union's website. Ask yourself if you are providing your members easy ways to interact with leadership, and if not, consider talking to your IT staff (or your pals here at Prometheus Labor Communications, if we're running your website) and seeing what can be done to open up more two-way communications on your website and in other media you may use. It may seem like a small thing, but I think you'll find this simple improvement to your communications strategy can have some very positive consequences for your union, and for the labor movement in general.
I'd really like to hear some back and forth on this post; so Communicate or Die viewers should by all means chime in now. Our lines our open.
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the case for a bit of rough...
That's a nice way to position the difference. It's not hard to understand why unions often don't like to reach beyond their rigid representative democratic structures.
One thing at the top of their minds on our side of the pond at least is always that less than 70% of the UK population are online, which means over 30% are automatically excluded from anything you provide online only. This means online is seen as legitimate only when used an enhancement to union comms rather than a replacement, and in the case of democracy it's doubly so - helping to improve the efficiency and relevance of the formal process (improving turnout and lowering costs), rather than seeing where other totally new opportunities lie.
I only half agree with this. On the flipside, maybe 10% of union members actually go to branch meetings. Is that discriminating against the 90% who don't, and depriving them of their democracy? No, of course not, but I think it can be argued as well as it can for online.
For activists, the democratic structure of a union is pretty straightforward. For most people though, it's arcane and scary. A lot of people who don't yet strongly identify with the union get spooked by the thought of going to a meeting and arguing their case - it's just something outside their comfort zone.
Look at industries where there is very little history of unionism, or amongst the digitally-native generation-M now coming into the workplace. There are whole swathes of people, never members of a union, for whom our tried and tested democratic channels are totally alien. By coincidence, many of these people are also entirely at home with online social networking for example, which is the first place they turn to to run any aspect of their personal (and increasingly professional) lives.
A digression by way of slight example, the TUC's online community for shop stewards, www.unionreps.org.uk, is home not just to the most committed reps who
want to network and improve their skills, but also to new reps in their twenties from non-traditional union workplaces. They've never been in a union before and now find themselves catapulted into a frighteningly responsible position. Where is the most natural place for them to go to work out what they need to do? An online social network run for reps and by reps.
In this case it could be argued that sticking to the formal ways of doing things is discriminating against n00bs or the overwhelming majority who just don't work that way. If it's fair enough to say "But that's a cop out - if they really want the benefits that a union brings, they should at least put themselves out to attend a meeting on the other side of town and learn to debate publically, even if it makes them feel a bit uncomfortable", then isn't is also fair to say "they should be willing to go to a computer in their local library or any of the other UK Online centres the Government has made available for them, and learn to debate online"?
We need to engage everyone in unions, and also everyone who could be in them. I don't see it as a case of one size fits all, either online or off, it's about trying to make the most of what everyone is able to bring to the table.
Goes Hand in Hand with this study
I really like this post, Jason. I believe that you are exactly right. I conducted a study in 2003 about the percieved effectiveness of traditional vs. technological grievance procedural systems within a unionized environment. The findings were great because both methods were highly regarded, but the technological grievance procedure was ranked better by the union officials. You can read the complete abstract on my blog, but the point is that I believe unions are really starting to see the benefits of online services and communication with members. There just need to be more services, or better yet, more education to officials and members about services that already do exist online for more efficient communication!
A broader view of unions online
This basic problem comes up again and again for CorD, doesn't it? As it should, I think. One suggestion: let's broaden our view of unions'
"silicon footprint" to include the efforts of rank-and-file unionists. If we look only at the official union sites, we miss a lot of the action, and certainly overlook the people who are most enthusiastic about using tech to make unions both stronger and more democratic.
I'm curious if doing so would change the way you frame the issues?
Two places to begin, for people who want to see some of the rank-and-file side: http://www.bloglines.com/public/UnionDemocracyFeeds and http://uniondemocracy.org/AUDLinks/RNFLinks.htm.
Bang-on!
Bang-on!
good points
Glad you all like the piece, and good points by all.
Justin, do you have a link to your 2003 study?
And Matt, it's true that there are lots of union-related websites by rank-and-filers, but I'm focusing on the official union websites because I'm addressing a particular point about how the way they run their online presences could clearly stand improvement - and if they improve online it could lead to a more open culture in unions in general.
ABOUT DEMOCRACY AND UNIONS
What seems to be missing so far from the debate- is the lack of realization of what has happened to unions over the last few decades. Democracy depends on INFORMED voters/members. Unions are touted as being one of the few truly democratic organizations still around. problem is that it *may* apply to the smaller unions and locals who escape the radar of the biggies - AFL_CIO, SEIU, IFPTE, etc. Unfortunately, and as noted, the bigger orgs devolve into more like a fifedom, and an informed membership is absolutely the VERY LAST THING the "leaders" want.
I'll post a a few queries here as an example - and I'll predict that a small - less than 30 percent of the responses will be able to answer in the affirmative.
1) Does/has your union informed YOU ( collectively) of the "Bill 0f Rights of Union members " as mandated by federal statue
2) Has your union made available the annual IRS 990 forms ?
3) Has your union notified you how to get the lm-2,3,or 4 forms ( size of union determines specific form )
4) Did you know that AFL_CIO fought improved disclosures of those forms ?
5) Do you know what an LM-30 form is or have you ever enquired about same ?
6) Do you know if your Governing Documents are in compliance with State or federal laws ?
here are a few links that may help
http://www.dol.gov/libraryforms/FormsByNum.asp
http://www.dol.gov/dolfaq/go-dol-faq.asp?faqid=474
My point again is that despite all the hoorah- the larger unions and their affiliates work verey hard to keep the rank and file uniformed.
it is a very rough road to get the message out using union PR pubications simply because they dont want the message out unless controlled by the rulers.
What is the solution ? - this blog/site is a start- but how to get it even listed on a major union site is still a problem
Don
wish list
Don is right about the problem of information control. I would add that it is not uncommon to hear that union officers make it hard for members to get the union constitution and the contract and side agreements. Many unions, though, are adding at least the constitutions to their websites.
Some unions are informing members of their rights under LMRDA, but often by means of a tiny notification in the footer, usually something like light blue on a darker blue background...
What I think this blog can bring is a fresh look at the potential: what would a union website look like if the goal was to have an educated, informed, active membership and to encourage open discussion and debate? What content would we see? What tools would work best? Now that websites are just one part of the picture (along with social networking, video, blogs, groups, etc.) -- what combination of approaches works best?
One reason I am such a big fan of rank-and-file sites, despite their uneven quality, is that they offer some answers to these questions.
Matt, you might be interested
Matt, you might be interested in a rank and file site I built for Railroad Workers United: http://railroadworkersunited.org
About union web sites
You might check two sites with which I am familiar - SPEEA - which is essentially the Boeing Engineers and Techs union - and the IAM751 site which is the Aeromechanics union currently on strike
http://www.speea.org/ which I belong to - sort of !
http://www.iam751.org/
Of the two - I think the IAM is more informative for the average union member. Try to find the LMRDA bill of rights however
While the SPEEA site does have provisions for members to obtain certain meeting minutes, and links to governing documents, it also lacks links to Bill of rights
If one looks hard enough, one can find a bastardized version in the SPEEA spotlites in the fall of 2003 and 2004 - the difference however is VERY subtle . . . . only applies to full members "-
And since minutes of some meetings are now available to members - guess what happens to the minutes - VERY sparse does not begin to cover what really happened.
And so it goes
public sector unions don't do democracy
Just a depressing note here: those rules only apply to private sector unions. The majority of todays union members are in the public sector.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
The bottom line is that if there is no way to enforce any democratic principles, via an impartial third party, and/or there
are no limits to what kind of changes can be made to the constitution and bylaws,
the only thing that is a lifeline to democracy is the membership. And that may not be enough. No matter what feel good stuff could be
in the constitution, if there is no one you can complain to when it isn't followed, it's meaningless. Secondly, if the local is free to put in any kind of language they want in
the constitution, once they do that there is little hope now and in the future of changing anything. In my opinion, where
the union has an absolute "blank check" to put in anything they want in the constitution, it is a deeply deeply flawed system.
There really needs to be some kind of checks and balances on the constitution changing gig. (And to state the
obvious it can't be something in the constitution because they can just change it.)
All it takes is once perfect storm of megalomania to lock out any vestiges of democracy forever.
I found in 7 years of trying to make my former local be more democratic that it's not likely to work and you can actually make things worse.
My rocking the boat seemed to cause the leadership to get stronger in a couple different ways,
reinforcing the culture of privilege and favoritism and reactive and proactive constitutional changes to keep out the bad ol riff raff challenging the
"expert leadership".
Here's what happened: you have an all powerful iconic leader with decades
of experience in unions who picks people specifically for power positions in the union. Often this was based on
who they knew or were associated with and not any personal attributes. A strong climate of favoritism developed. It's very
clear who the president likes and who he doesn't like. The president reinforces it by making sure to make it very
plain all the time. He calls people he likes and asks their advice, he invites people he likes to meetings, he
invites people he likes to social events around town and at his home. He nominates people he likes for delegateships and
union offices, he promotes people he likes to the local labor federation, and the
state level union organization. He makes it very plain at all meetings who he likes, who get favorable public mention, and who
he doesn't like who can get literally publicly yelled at and sweared at. If he didn't like someone who tried to nominate themself for an office or delegateship, he would denounce
them publicly in front of the membership about why they should not be nominated, right then and there. (Happened to me several times.) When people who
were not in favor try to get delegateships they just get "forgotten" off the list, over and over, they can't get on committees, they get dropped off committees, they
"accidentally" not informed of meetings, etc . So would be reformer comes along and complains about this favoritism, did it stimulate people to back
reform or entrench the favoritism? Well the answer is the latter. The problem is, complaining about this just reinforces the power of this technique. It's like you're
saying "hey listen up. everyone who gets on the wrong side of the president gets screwed, and everyone who is on his right side gets rewarded. "
The result of that can be that the inner circle decides it's good to stay in the inner circle, even better than they thought, and they feel
superior to the outcasts and hope they just go away and stop wasting people's time.
Bringing it up with no real remedy in place like some labor board to complain to just reinforces the 'specialness' for the inner circle.
They're the chosen ones, the ones that will get all the goodies. And as this progresses, the inner circle learns that they can
get extra points for going on the offensive against the outter circle complainer(s). The inner circle bonded together against their common enemy the horrible
rank and filer who would argue with the president.
And his inner circle people really did get some career boosts from sucking up
and they knew better than to mess it up.
Secondly they made all sorts of constitutional changes to remove any democratic
loopholes, and consolidate all the power in the Steering Committee. The union became formally
much more top down and this became fossilized in the constitution, to plague any future
would-be reformers.
A lot of what the president got out of this was to the detriment of the union because it didn't take much
to be in the inner circle. It wasn't performance based. Agreeing with the president and going
along commiserating how awful any would be reformers were didn't really do
anything for organizing. These people were getting some pretty nice rewards and
not having to stick their necks out with the employer. You can't come up with any
good quality messages for organizing when the only people who are in the position to
be allowed to draft any messages are just there cause they are suckups. So this union got to the
point that they are lacking officers in key positions because 1. they'd suppress anyone not
in the inner circle from being an officer, and 2. the inner circle didn't see it to their
benefit to be in very visible top offices where they might be targets of hostility from management.
Actually most FEDERAL unions are now covered by LMRDA
and perhaps some states have also embraced the CSRA regs
http://www.dol.gov/esa/olms/regs/compliance/complcsra.htm
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) applies to labor organizations which represents employees in most agencies of the executive branch of the Federal Government. The regulations implementing the standards of conduct provisions of the CSRA incorporate many LMRDA provisions, including those related to labor organization reporting requirements.
On June 2, 2006 OLMS published a final rule that requires Federal sector labor organizations to inform members of their democratic rights including, among other things, the right to inspect collective bargaining agreements, to participate in officer elections and other union activities, and to exercise free speech rights without fear of retaliation. Notice must be given by hand delivery, U.S. mail, e-mail, or any combination as long as the method is reasonably calculated to reach all members.
This rule requires labor organizations to inform members of their rights by October 2, 2006. Notice to new members must be given within 90 days of their joining the labor organization. All members must be given notice of their rights in writing once every three years. - goes on
great!
Now if only something could happen for State and municipal employees!
In the Soviet of Washington State
most state employees do belong to a union - and they negotiate directly with the governor
of course in Washington state - the State Supremes overruled a state law that says union members do NOT have to pay for non union issues like politics ..
State supremes said UNION first amendment rights overrule members rights !
Then SCOTUS unanimously overruled the Washington State Supremes- and told them to go back and fix it. For some strange reason - its been over a year - and the state supremes just havent got around to doing so
Oh did I mention that the State Speaker of the House - Frank Chopp has bragged that the UNIONS got their governor- Christine Gregoire in to office a few years ago ?
This state is the poster child second only to new york for corrupt unions and politicians.