This new book focuses on the efforts and progress of union revitalization and organizing, and documents the renewal initiatives undertaken by unions in Canada. Unions, separately or in coalition with other unions or social groups, have begun to re-examine the basis of their organization and activity in the face of a harsher economic and political climate. Signs of union renewal include increased rank-and-file participation in the life of the union, increased democratic decision-making, evidence of new horizonal union structures, the development of a worker-centred societal vision, and a new emphasis on organizing both internally and externally.

Paths to Union Renewal addresses a subject of consideral political and social importance about which there have been a number of debates. A key impetus for this re-examination has originated in the United States where the decades-long union decline has engendered new ideas adopted by a number of unions and the national central labour body the AFL-CIO. This in turn has led to debates on renewal strategies in Western Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries from Britain to Australia.

Despite this, little detailed research of the processes, structures, and implications of union renewal has been undertaken across Canada. Paths to Union Renewal fills this gap by critically examining union renewal in a variety of unions, providing a basis for informed discussion and debate on the role and place of trade unions in contemporary society.

www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2006/01/PathsToUnionRenewal/index.cfm?pa=3BB76202

www.justlabour.yorku.ca/index.php?volume=1&page=hyman_ab

This article was published by Just Labour, www.justlabour.yorku.ca, an on-line journal that addresses the culture and activities of Canadian workers and their unions as they face new challenges. The journal, published by the Centre for Research on Work and Society (CRWS), brings the work of leading academics and trade union researchers to a broad readership in popular, accessible language.

Richard Hyman explores what the future holds for labor movements-or indeed, whether they still have a future. For many critics (academic observers as well as trade unionists themselves), unions in most countries appear as victims of external forces outside their control, and often also of their own conservative inertia. In this article, Hyman examines the factors that can influence future directions: the choices to be made in terms of who unions represent, what interests they emphasize, how they are constituted as organizations, and how they mobilize resources for action.

Available by subscription or from your local university or community library.

Labor Studies Journal
How Unions Renew? Paths to Union Renewal
Volume 31, Number 3, Fall 2006
Guest Editors:
Christian LÉVESQUE & Gregor MURRAY

Table of Contents

Article 1
How Unions Renew? Paths to Union Renewal
Christian LÉVESQUE & Gregor MURRAY

Article 2
Why Do Members Leave? The Importance of Retention to Trade Union Growth
Jeremy WADDINGTON

Article 3
Renewal in the United Faculty of Florida: Class War in Paradise?
Jack FIORITO & Vickie COLEMAN GALLAGHER

Article 4
Local Unions and the Restructuring of Work within the Multinational Company: Internal Solidarity and Local Context
Jean-Noël GRENIER

Article 5
Expanding the Union Zone: Union Renewal through Alternative Forms of Worker Organization
Larry HAIVEN

Paths to Union Renewal: Challenges and Issues
Relations industrielles/ Industrial Relations, 2006, Vol.61, No.4
Guest Editors: Larry HAIVEN, Christian LÉVESQUE & Nicolas ROBY

CRIMT announces the publication of a special issue of Relations industrielles/ Industrial Relations on the theme of union renewal. Drawing on the CRIMT International Colloquium on Union Renewal (November 2004), this issue is co-edited by Larry HAIVEN, Christian LÉVESQUE & Nicolas ROBY, CRIMT Coresearch and Domain Co-ordinator, CRIMT Coresearch and Co-director and CRIMT Scientific Co-ordinator, respectively.

Table of contents:

Introduction
Paths to Union Renewal: Challenges and Issues
Larry HAIVEN, Christian LÉVESQUE & Nicolas ROBY

Article 1
Powerful Cummunity Relationship and Union Renewal in Australia
Amanda TATTERSALL

Article 2
Still “Regime Competition”? Trade Unions and Multinational Restructuring in Europe
Valeria PULIGNANO

Article 3
When Corporations Substitute for Adversarial Unions: Labour Markets and Human Resource Management at Magna
Wayne LEWCHUK & Don WELLS

Article 4
Building Democracy for Women and Sexual Minorities: Union Embrace of Diversity
Gerald HUNT & Judy HAIVEN

Article 5
Syndicalisme critique et défi institutionnel: vers l’individualisation du militantisme?
Ivan SAINSAULIEU
Critical Unionism and Institutional Challenge: Towards the Individualization of Militancy?

Article 6
Le renouveau syndical au Mexique sous le premier gouvernement de transition
Graciela BENSUSÁN
Opportunities for Trade Union Renovation in Mexico during its First Change of Government in over Seventy Years

Learning to Change?
Union Renewal and the challenge of intentional organizational change


Summary of some of the key points
by Morna Ballantyne:

This research essay by David Orfald (Director of Planning and Organizational Development for the Public Service Alliance of Canada) explores the question of how unions (particularly Canadian unions) are managing the internal organizational change required to be meet current day challenges.

Orfald wrote the paper in partial fulfillment of requirements for a MA degree in political economy. He covers quite a bit of organizational theory, and draws on the research of others. The paper concludes with an impressive bibliography—by itself a reason to download this document.

The paper explores efforts by Canadian unions to engage in “intentional” organizational change and concludes that their capacity to do so is weak. Several unions have voted to pursue new strategies for union renewal (to activate members, to expand social unionism, organize more workers, be more inclusive of women and other marginalized groups), but these strategies have been held back by the failure to make changes in organization.

…it is clear that these strategies challenge the capacities of unions. Their financial capacity is challenged as new resources are demanded for organizing, education, services and mobilization. Their human resource capacities are challenged as staff, leaders, activists and members are asked to take on new or altered roles, for example staff taking on roles as facilitators and organizers, and members taking on more representation work. Thirdly, unions’ structural capacities are challenged because these renewal strategies require significant changes in culture, practices, and in organizational planning and development. Lastly, the democratic and mobilization capacity of unions is challenged, as members face more complex choices over direction and programs and as these strategies come into conflict with each other. For…unions often face the challenge of pursuing several of these renewal strategies simultaneously. …[This] requires strong and consistent leadership and good facilitation and communication skills from senior elected officers and staff. (p. 32)

Some of the elements of union culture and structure that limit the capacity of unions to change include the “sink or swim” approach to staff training and development; the “cowboy” approach to organizing; the atmosphere of intense internal politics; the tendency to over commit, or try to do too much; the reluctance to interfere with the freedom and autonomy of leaders, activists, local unions, and staff; the legal restrictions on union activity; unprepared leaders who assume responsibility for large complex organizations without adequate training or experience; and weak organizational management systems. (pp. 44-56)

How might unions develop better capacity to engage in intentional organizational change?

“The extent of change required cannot be achieved simply by moving boxes on an organizational chart, or working policy resolutions through a convention, or finding ways to eke out resources from tight budgets for one new initiative or another,” writes Orfald. (p. 67). He identifies four possible approaches to strengthening organizational capacity in unions, drawing from the broader organizational change theory and literature:

(1) Developing a more comprehensive understanding of organizational change. That is, understanding that organizations are made up of inter-related components and functions, all influenced by various inter-related internal and external pressures; and understanding that change cannot happen without a strategy that addresses this complex reality.
(2) Finding ways to put in place “high-performance” without being “lean and mean.”
(3) Engaging in strategic planning/strategic management without becoming centralized and rigid
(4) Developing organizational learning capacity (that is, becoming a “learning organization”).

It is this last approach that Orfald appears to find most appealing. As Orfald explains, a “learning organization,” as popularized by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline, is one that has “the capacity to continuously learn and adapt.” (p. 85)

…learning organizations are found to have a number of characteristics. They encourage leadership from many different levels, and…find ways to openly debate and learn from failures. They reduce hierarchy, strengthen team work, and place a high emphasis on how workplaces function……the concept of the learning organization has much to offer unions who seek to democratize their structures, engage their membership, and find a renewed commitment to social movement unionism. (p. 86)

Orfald reports (p. 87) that Tracy Fitzpatrick and Weezy Waldstein make a similar point in “Challenges to Strategic Planning in International Unions.” (IRRA, Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting, Madison, WI: Industrial Relations Research Association):

…[change in unions] requires shifting from a rule-based organization to a learning organization; from a formal, standardized method of operating to flexible methods of operating; from being threatened by evaluation and change to welcoming it; from focusing on tasks to thinking about results and multiple, creative ways of achieving those results. (Fitzpatick and Waldstein: pp. 73-84)

However, the research on unions that Orfald reviews suggests that moving to a learning organizational model might be a difficult transition. Although unions embrace critical thinking when it comes to employers, and believe education to be an important element in developing membership workplace militancy, they are not as eager to engage in open debate on internal union matters. Tom Nesbit’s review of staff training programs in Canadian unions (whose research is summarized elsewhere on this web site) reports that:

Unions tend not to encourage, provide, or support educational opportunities in which their administrative practices and approaches might be critically examined. The pragmatic and reactive nature of much of union activity combine with unions’ inherent insularity and traditionalism to hinder much education or training that might challenge or question dominant tendencies. (Tom Nesbit, “Learning for Change: Staff Training, Leadership Development, and Union Transformation.” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 28, No.1 (Spring, 2003): p. 122)

Orfald points out that unions are equally resistant to evaluation and discussion of problems. “Debate about failures, or even about lessons learned, can easily be perceived as challenges to existing political leaders who must come up for reelection every two or three years.” (p. 88)

Another problem is lack of know-how in carrying out constructive evaluations, whether they are of staff or programs. Orfald quotes D’Arcy Martin on this subject: “the skills of participatory decision-making, of democratic communication, of simple good listening are spread thin.” (Thinking Union: Activism and Education in Canada’s Labour Movement, Toronto: Between the Lines, 1995, p. 136.)

Yet there is nothing that prevents unions from addressing these challenges. Orfald writes that the political environment of unions “can sometimes encourage group learning, and…contestation can lead to organizational development.” In the words of Fitzpatrick and Waldstein, “the political environment can be made to serve the planning and change process by creating a forum for major debates.” (Fitzpatrick and Waldstein, pp. 79 and 83)

Orfald cautions against thinking that applying any of these theories to the labour movement is necessarily the solution to building capacity for organizational change. The diverse empirical evidence canvassed in his paper confirms that “unions face more complex processes of intentional organizational change than other types of organizations.” (p. 96).

There is clearly reason to raise serious concerns about the organizational capacity to manage change within union, given that unions are lead by officers who are usually elected for their political and mobilization skills rather than their organizational management capacities and staffed by “rebels, agitators and cowboys” who are mission-driven and used to taking direction from the members more than the organization. Caught between a mountain of mundane routine work on the one hand, and an almost unending list of insurmountable challenges on the other, and with the process of choice subject to ongoing debate and contestation within the membership, there is no reason to be surprise that unions are having difficulty renewing. (p. 96)

Although much can be learned from organizational theory, any approach to building capacity for change must recognize the unique aspects of unions, writes Orfald. Making intentional organizational change will require:

a process of developing techniques and practices within the union setting. If they have not done so already, unions wanting to improve their ability to manage change will have to carve out resources and “space” to engage in the process of organizational development…investing in leadership and staff training on organizational management is critical. Developing broader strategic planning processes which engage membership structures, and looking to other organizations for program planning and evaluation techniques would also help. Working to develop forms of democratic debate that encourage learning and strategic thinking is important. (p. 99)

If this seems to daunting a task, Orfald suggests that individual unions need not do it alone. They could work together by “encouraging cross-union research and training projects, and encouraging a better diffusion of strategies across organizational boundaries.”

Challenges facing the Canadian Labour Movement in the context of globalisation, unemployment and the casualisation of labour
By Geoff Bickerton and Jane Stinson

This article by Geoff Bickerton and Jane Stinson explores both the external and internal factors contributing to the weakening of the Canadian labour movement. The authors give evidence that unions in Canada have maintained a "significant level of unionization and a union advantage of higher wages, benefits and workplace rights for union members over the past twenty-five years." However, Bickerton and Stinson conclude "there is a crucial need...to extend these benefits to a broader group of workers." They suggest that "the Canadian labour movement needs to collectively develop coordinated strategies to address the problems concerning organizing, political action and collective bargaining rights." To do this, they say, will require changes to the movement's current institutional structures, and it will require a program to advance real alternatives to neoliberalism.

In this paper, Jan Gainer argues that those concerned with union renewal should start to pay attention to the contribution that women have made over many years to the revitalization and strengthening of the labour movement. Kainer_Gendering_Union_Renewal