How to revitalize the union movement?

[Teaser]

Gotta be some way to bring in new bodies.

Maybe more gradations of membership, something anyone can join and somehow benefit from, even if just a little...

[annabanana]

1. The unemployed must be engaged. . . n/t

[Teaser]

4. yeah...

it's hard to engage people who have been beaten down into learned helplessness.

gotta try something.

[Brickbat]

2. Gradations of membership can be used to provide gradations of wages.

However, here is an affiliate program of the AFL-CIO that sounds rather like what you are talking about: http://www.workingamerica.org/

And frankly, with all this talk on DU of people suddenly in love with unions, people should take a look at their buying habits. It's possible to buy a lot of things that are union made, but it takes a little bit of extra effort, and a lot of online shopping, and an understanding that impulse purchases at the mall will have to go way down.

[Teaser]

3. good point on that.

but I like the idea of an affiliate program.


Maybe I should start going about trying to unionize non-tenure track academic faculty at my institution.

I could bring, maybe a dozen people to the table. :/

[drm604]

5. What does someone like me, a sole employee, do?

My boss has a company - essentially he is a company - and I'm his only employee.

Is there some way I can help?

[Teaser]

7. Maybe we can set up a Daily Kos-like social media site

for labor. I know a couple of labor groups have tried this, but they've been (mostly) poorly implemented.

An organizational hub, a hub for donations, and solidarity would be a good start.

[drm604]

9. The AFLCIO has a blog

http://blog.aflcio.org/

[Teaser]

10. yeah, but not as extensive as what I'm looking for.

It needs to be more personalized, with diaries and workgroups and things. That's how people engage these days. The shift from in-person interaction to virtual interaction has hurt things like union organizing.

[Teaser]

6. I'm actually thinking of more like a superunion

Like the IWW only, you know, effective.

A truly large and union could have international reach, and could provide a break on the stick industry uses to beat down workers: by threatening to move jobs to non-unionized workforces.

[PATRICK]

11. Sounds necessary

Since the push back to the past brings us back to the same battle lines. A union big enough to strike and force a difference. One that has the political presence the unity of the AFL-CIO once had before the stupidity of division caused a lot of the weakness we see today. The primary realization must always be in union there is strength. Any force of division is predictably a cause to party on Wall Street but the worst is when splits occur because rot, complacency and complicity at the top builds when the battles seem "won". becoming the haves and the privileged is a soul killer for a union.

I can remember when really big strikes had an immense and well-covered effect. Now they seem ritualistic and castrated by media spin and the sectors they effect are small. When you can bring the big corporations to their knees with a strike you have the required clout. Most of the big guys are protected by their own octopus diversity and control of media. If strikes cripple anything the corporations have purchased the government to bail them out and punish the strikers. They consider unions passe but react always as if they are a real future to be feared and squelched. Maybe both workers and overlords seem soft and out of touch with the idea of union confrontation, but I notice the latter are always passionately practicing the old tactics and old ills constantly with shifting names and political permission.

The first big unions actually ran a candidate who, like the righteous third party campaign of Teddy Roosevelt challenged the typically straddling Dem party. The success of the Democratic party has always been in attracting those movements to itself because the party of money privilege just can't bring itself to even lie enough about it.

In union strength.

[drm604]

8. If there was some way that unions could provide good health plans

at affordable prices to "associates" (or whatever you want to call them) it could help gain membership and support. I'm not sure about the economics of doing that or how feasible it is, but if it were doable maybe it could become a sort of "public option" put together by the people themselves (since the government refuses to provide it).