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Cluster analysis is applied to the union and employer tactics used in a sample of Ontario organising campaigns to identify the combinations of tactics or strategies that are used most often. Seven union organising strategies and five employer resistance strategies are revealed. Contingency table analysis shows that the union and employer strategies are not independent of one another. More active campaigns by one side (in terms of more tactics used) are met by more active campaigns by the other side. Regression analysis is used to estimate the effects of the strategies on the outcome of the organising campaign. The most active strategies, including intensive communication with workers and worker committees, work best for the employers. For unions, strategies emphasising personal communication through house calls are the most effective.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate different approaches to effective campaigning in support of the Living Wage and so this paper contributes to the broader debate over the nature of the union movement’s engagement with community groups in pursuit of workplace and social issues.

The paper presents a systematic comparison of a union-led and a community-led campaign, drawing primarily upon interview and survey data.

Though different, both campaigns met with a measure of success in improving employee pay and in increasing union membership suggesting a pragmatic approach to the building of union-community relationships.

The paper shows the need for campaigners to adopt a strategic approach in identifying the target for their campaign, and also the importance of shaping a persuasive argument.

The paper reaffirms the importance of traditional union-led campaigning alongside campaigning through engagement with community groups and so offers a broader framework for exploring the relationships between union and community groups.

This paper examines the attempts by trade unions in Britain to gain organisational rights for their members and for workers in organisations operating within the hitherto non‐unionised “new economy”.

By using data drawn from fieldwork interviews with full‐time union officials and supplemented by secondary sources, the paper assesses the genesis and progress of these campaigns, suggesting a combination of employer hostility and worker indifference explain the limited advances made to date.

In particular, the paper considers the configuration of the inter‐relationship between employer action, union strength and sudden grievances as the major explanatory variable in accounting for the variation in the outcomes of the eight union recognition campaigns. Finally, the high degree of dependence and reliance on full‐time union officers, contra the “organising” model, is examined.

Further research on union presence and activity in the “new economy” are needed to critically examine these conclusions, given that the research was based on a study of eight employers.

The implications for trade unions are that not all campaigns for union recognition can be expected to be equally successful, that campaigns are likely to take a relatively long period of time before significant advances are made and that greater scrutiny of potential campaigns is needed.

Provides lessons for trade unions attempting to gain organisational rights for their members.

The purpose of this article is to provide analysis of organizational communication used by one major US airline during a Teamsters unionizing campaign as a means for readers to examine what airlines do when faced with the threat of unionization, how they prepare front‐line management for communication with employees, and what role these managers play in unionizing campaigns.

A range of corporate communications from the airline were gathered within a seven‐month period and qualitatively analyzed, including management training manuals, e‐mails, and conference calls between line managers and regional directors.

Anti‐union communication strategies position front‐line managers in the key persuasive role of controlling and disseminating essential top‐down information in the effort to keep employees union‐free, utilizing a complex and multi‐layered organizational approach to train managers for employee communication during a unionizing campaign.

While granted access by America West to observe conference calls and view internal documents the authors were not granted access to listen to Teamsters Union conversations or view Teamsters' internal documents. As a result, the authors realize that their study is limited to an analysis of only one side of the story. Additional research into this topic could include data from both campaigns.

Analysis of organizational anti‐union campaigns and the role of front‐line managers in these campaigns identify key areas of interest for both organizations and unions. This analysis, in conjunction with assessment of the overall results of a unionizing campaign, provides information that organizations can use when selecting strategies for internal communication in times of potential change.

This paper provides useful information about the complex function of line management in supporting and promoting the organization when external factors are perceived as endangering internal infrastructure. It also offers a practical glimpse into a unique type of managerial communication whose aim is to be both cautious and persuasive.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value that UK trade unions now place on the living wage.

The author is the TUC’s Pay Policy Officer and examines the issue from a practitioner’s perspective.

The living wage now has a well-established place within the hierarchy of pay demands adopted by UK trade unions. This continues a tradition of unions supporting norms and regulations as an adjunct to collective bargaining. However, support had to be achieved through a process of negotiation with the broader UK living wage campaign.

The paper concludes that there are good prospects for the living wage, and thus for the continued trade union support.

The living wage standard is seen as having a strong moral basis, which often helps to win agreement with good employers. This results in a steady stream of workers out of in-work poverty. The credit for such pay increases is often shared between employers and trade unions.

The paper is written by a practitioner with inside knowledge and experience of the entire course of the living wage campaign in the UK and how it has been adopted and integrated by trade unions.

Trade unions, like many other membership‐based social movement organisations, are confronted by the challenge of growth and revitalisation. Declining membership numbers, an increasingly restrictive legislative framework, and dramatic changes in modes of employment have combined to challenge many unions to rethink the way they work. In response to these challenges some unions adopted what has been referred to as the “organising model”, comprising new methods of recruiting, campaigning, educating, fostering activist members, and developing community and international alliances. It is changing the way union staff work, and requires a new understanding of their roles. The purpose of this paper is to examine an organising campaign conducted by one of Australia's largest unions.

The paper draws on semi‐structured interviews with a pivotal group of lead organisers, union reports and planning documents, participant observation, and published data on the major private child‐care employer.

The efforts to organise the child‐care workers proved successful and a new collective agreement was endorsed, confirming for the union that its approach could work. However, the model remains new and whether it achieves the desired outcomes of changing the culture and ways of union work, creates new learning opportunities and activates new layers of workers, is yet to be seen.

There is a burgeoning literature on new organising approaches. There are fewer detailed descriptions of the practice of organising and its impact on organisational change and learning. Therefore case studies such as this, which locate the decision to organise this sector, reports on how the campaign unfolded, and discusses the union's interest in understanding the learning associated with these new ways of working, provide an opportunity to examine connections between the theories and practices of organising.

The concept of an “organizing model” of trade unionism has shaped union strategies for revitalization in a number of countries in recent years. This article examines the transfer of “organizing unionism” to the UK in two ways. It presents findings from a survey of unions to identify the extent to which the organizing model is influencing national recruitment policy and presents case studies of three union campaigns which have drawn upon the organizing model, in an attempt to assess its strengths and weaknesses in a UK context. The survey results indicate only limited take‐up of the organizing model, though there is a group of vanguard unions which have embraced it with enthusiasm. The case studies demonstrate some success in applying the model, though identify employer resistance and internal opposition as significant constraints.

This chapter considers the provocative yet unexplored idea that a relationship exists between the nature by which a union wins recognition from an employer and the collective bargaining outcomes that are produced. Since at least the Ronald Reagan Administration, many trade, service and industrial unions in the United States have deployed alterative means to win recognition. Unions have negotiated a host of neutrality and card-check agreements as alternatives to petitioning for elections under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board. The use of these diverse organizing mechanisms has been well documented by numerous authors writing in the “union revitalization” genre, but what has not been done is the evaluation of the bargaining outcomes – effects – of different organizing tactics. The critical questions that have not been answered until now are, “What difference does it make how a union wins recognition?” Are the fortunes of newly organized union workers influenced by the way that they are brought into the labor movement? Based on a ten-year review of several successful union organizing cases, the findings from this chapter suggest that the key variable in gaining certification and ultimately a first contract is the ability of the union to leverage power and to do so in a timely manner.

As trade unions have continued to decline in membership and influence across the developed economies, so academic attention has turned to the prospects for renewal and a search for the conditions under which it might plausibly occur (Fairbrother, 2000; Martin & Ross, 1999; Turner, 1999). One leg of this search has been directed towards the changing context which unions face and has resulted in the prescription that unions must change their policies, structures and culture to accommodate a “new workforce” (Cobble, 1994; Heckscher, 1988; Wever, 1998). A second leg has been directed within unions themselves and has been concerned more with the internal processes through which renewal can take place (Fiorito et al., 1995; Hurd, 1998; Pocock, 1998). In the U.K., two distinctive theories of change in trade unions have emerged along this second line of inquiry, one of which, the “rank and file” model, holds that significant change occurs from the bottom-up and requires the mobilisation of members against a conservative leadership (Fairbrother, 1996). The other, the “managerial” model, claims the opposite is true and that renewal is conditional on effective systems of union management and occurs from the top–down (Willman et al., 1993). Both theories are venerable and in Britain their roots can be traced on the one hand to the Webbs and their conviction that effective unions required professional leadership and on the other to the apostles of industrial syndicalism (Fox, 1985, pp. 66, 256–260). They continue to structure debate, however, and the purpose of this article is to provide an empirical examination of each with regard to an issue, which seemingly is critical to the internal renewal of unions, the development of organising activity.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.