Labor Relations Commons^™

Conceptualizing Labour Union Revitalization, Martin Behrens, Kerstin Hamann, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] Unions have engaged in revitalization efforts in all five country cases that form the basis of comparison of this book, though they differ in the strategies they have pursued and the level of success they have had. Some of the strategies have been promising or even successful in terms of their immediate outcomes; others are still waiting to be fully implemented; and still others have failed to live up to the original expectations. While in many countries union activists are eagerly developing strategies to turn their fate, they are also facing some doubt or even resistance by politicians and …

How Does Restructuring Contribute To Union Revitalization?, Martin Behrens, Richard W. Hurd, Kerstin Hamann

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] As we look cross-nationally at labour movement revitalization, we see a complex process of change that varies depending on the socio-political/economic context. Although we observe a diverse set of union strategies and outcomes, we find that structural adjustment is a common element of revitalization efforts. The mere presence of restructuring does not, of course, assure positive results. In this chapter we define various forms of restructuring, outline factors that shape and promote restructuring, and discuss the likelihood that restructuring leads to union revitalization by using examples from our cross-country comparison.

Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement's Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] As labor contests the dinosaur image it will find no easy answers. Hard work, careful assessment of options, and a willingness to take risks are all required. Without widespread experimentation and a significant reallocation of resources to organizing, extinction awaits.

Learning From Clerical Unions: Two Cases Of Organizing Success, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

This paper summarizes two successful clerical organizing campaigns. The first case describes the District 65 campaign to gain representation rights and contract protection for the clerical employees of Columbia University. The discussion reviews the tactics employed to win a representation election, to maintain rank and file involvement during an extended legal battle, and to conduct a successful strike for a first contract. The second case describes a campaign by Teamsters Local 364 to achieve recognition and bargaining rights for public school secretaries in South Bend, Ind. Already members of an employee association, the secretaries sought to affiliate with the Teamsters …

A Retrospective On The Patco Strategy, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The destruction of PATCO has been written off by most labor leaders as the inevitable result of an ill-conceived challenge to an anti-union U.S. President. Although there is widespread sympathy for the rank and file members who lost their jobs in an attempt to exercise collective bargaining rights in the best tradition of the U.S. labor movement, there is at the same time much disdain for the actions of the national officers of PATCO, most notably President Bob Poli. Although the criticisms of the officers are at least partially valid, it is important to recognize that the strategic miscalculations …

Progressive Union Organizing: The Seiu Justice For Janitors Campaign, Richard Hurd, William Rouse

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The Justice for Janitors campaign was conceived during a bitter labor dispute with Pittsburgh's Mellon Bank which started late in 1985. Mellon Bank, having just renewed an Service Employees International Union collective-bargaining agreement, replaced their former cleaning contractor with a nonunion company. The new contractor refused to honor the Mellon-SEIU labor accord and was willing to hire only half of Mellon's 80 janitors on a part-time basis with a substantial pay cut and no benefits. Mellon disclaimed any responsibility, stating that the dispute was strictly between the new cleaning contractor and the janitors. In response the SEIU called a …

Charting Their Own Future: Independent Organizing By Professional Workers, Richard W. Hurd, Elisabet Tenenholtz

Richard W Hurd

In 2000 a group of about 100 physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists, most of whom are employed on a contingent basis in the home care division of a Virginia-based health care corporation, performed a remarkable feat. They organized an independent union and won an NLRB election in the face of stiff employer opposition. The story of the Organization of Home Care Professionals (OHCP) is intriguing in its own right because these professionals initially and explicitly steered clear of affiliation with any established union, preferring to chart their own course aimed at blending aspects of unions and professional associations. …

Public Sector Unions: Will They Thrive Or Struggle To Survive?, Richard W. Hurd, Sharon Pinnock

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] There is emerging consensus among public sector union leaders at the national level1 that the threats they face today are eerily similar to those ignored by private sector unions 20 years ago. Privatization, reinventing government, a changing public sector work force, anti-government forces on Capitol Hill and in statehouses, union myopia, and member apathy all are taken with the utmost seriousness. The situation calls for a sophisticated strategic response. Because they are operating from a position of relative strength, public sector unions must be at the forefront of any effort to re-establish union influence in our society. With this …

Organizing Clerical Workers, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] There are two organizing models that are effective among clerical workers. One model is the media-oriented, high-tech type of organizing. AFSCME does this very well; some other unions have also used it effectively. It starts with polling and opinion research on the work force that might be organized. This is followed up by targeted direct mail, telephone banks, radio and TV ads, campaign-specific newspapers and so on. This type of campaign is most appropriate for large public-sector units, especially when the clericals work in multiple locations. It is an important and successful means of organizing, but it has limited …

Unionization Among College Faculty - 1996, Richard W. Hurd, Amy Foerster

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] Unionization among college and university faculty continued its slow but steady increase in 1995. Academic unions now represent 246,207 professors, a growth of 3,986 (1.65 percent) from that reported in last year’s NCSCBHEP's Directory of Faculty Contracts and Bargaining Agents in Institutions of Higher Education. We can now report 504 bargaining agents on 1,115 campuses throughout the United States. These increases can be attributed to three sources. First, unions won 4 out of 4 collective bargaining elections during 1995 to determine new bargaining agents. Second, some existing bargaining units grew in size as institutions hired additional faculty. Third, the …

Non-Faculty Unionization At Institutions Of Higher Education, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The decade of the 1980's was a difficult one for the labor movement as membership and bargaining power declined for most unions in most industries. Higher education, however, provided a much more congenial environment. Faculty unionization expanded slowly but steadily at public sector institutions, although these gains were partially offset by private sector membership losses in the wake of the Yeshiva decision. In addition, there was a flurry of organizing activity among non-faculty employees, particularly clerical workers. The clerical worker organizing of the 1980's resulted in many highly visible successes for the labor movement. Particularly noteworthy were NLRB election …

Barriers To Union Organizing, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The current environment presents dramatic challenges for the American labor movement. Structural change in the economy has meant job loss in traditionally unionized sectors such as heavy manufacturing, and job gains in the less unionized service industries. Deregulation and increased international trade have created competitive pressures on unionized industries, resulting in significant concessions and a reduction in bargaining power. Simultaneously, unions have contended for twelve years with unfriendly government regulators who have displayed little commitment to timely and vigorous enforcement of protective labor legislation. In particular, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) of the Reagan and Bush administrations has …

The Unionization Of Clerical Workers At Large U.S. Universities And Colleges, Richard W. Hurd, Gregory Woodhead

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The unionization of clerical workers on college campuses is steadily increasing and becoming the subject of greater scrutiny. The National Center has long been interested in this facet of unionization and when we learned of the work of Professor Hurd in this area we expressed an interest in publishing his research. This article presents Hurd's and Woodhead's research on college and university clerical unionization.

The Unionization Of Clerical Workers In Colleges And Universities: A Status Report, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The 1980s have presented a myriad of problems for the labor movement as membership and bargaining power have declined in manufacturing, construction and transportation. Attempting to come to grips with the new reality of an economy dominated by the service sector, unions have expanded their organizing efforts among white collar workers. In the process, they have discovered a particularly receptive clientele among the clerical employees of colleges and universities. This paper identifies factors which influence the outcome of clerical organizing drives on campus, estimates the extent of organization among these workers, and summarizes recent developments including strike activity. It …

A Preliminary Report On Non-Faculty Bargaining At Colleges And Universities - 1993, Richard Hurd, Elizabeth O'Leary

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] Although we will present more detailed data in subsequent sections, we would like to present a few key pieces of information here. Public sector campuses are substantially more likely to be unionized than private sector, with 55.7% of public and 16.8% of private reporting one or more non-faculty bargaining units. Geographically, non-faculty unionization is notably more prevalent in the Northeast, the Midwest and on the Pacific coast than elsewhere. Among non-faculty employees, there are notable variations in unionization rates. Approximately 43.8% of blue collar employees are unionized (substantially more than reported two years ago), compared to approximately 31.1% of …

The Unionization Of Clerical, Technical, And Professional Employees In Higher Education: Threat Or Opportunity, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] Union organizing among non-teaching white collar employees of colleges and universities persists. To the discomfort of many university administrators, high visibility union successes at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Illinois were not isolated instances but part of a trend.

Professional, technical, and clerical employees' desire for a more effective voice, has combined with the economic insecurity associated with stubborn budgetary pressures, to encourage these workers to pursue union representation. Unions have responded to this opportunity with enthusiasm, experimenting with innovative organizing and bargaining strategies in the relatively open environment offered by institutions of …

[Review Of The Book We Can’T Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard], Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] In 1988 the fifteen-year campaign to organize office and laboratory workers at Harvard University ended with an NLRB election win. We Can't Eat Prestige is the most comprehensive examination to date of this compelling story, offering new detail and sufficiently bold assertions to re-ignite a smoldering debate about what this victory means for the future of unions. The author is a highly regarded journalist with thirty years of experience reporting on labor issues. Predictably, the book is extraordinarily well written, weaving a fascinating story of the union's evolution.

Organizing And Representing Clerical Workers: The Harvard Model, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The private sector clerical work force is largely nonunion, simultaneously offering the labor movement a major source of potential membership growth and an extremely difficult challenge. Based on December 1990 data, there are eighteen million workers employed in office clerical, administrative support, and related occupations. Eighty percent of these employees are women, accounting for 30 percent of all women in the labor force. Among private sector office workers, 57 percent work in the low-union-density industry groups of services (only 5.7 percent union) and finance, insurance, and real estate (only 2.5 percent union). With barely over ten million total private …

Beyond The Organizing Model: The Transformation Process In Local Unions, Bill Fletcher, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The ideological foundations of traditional U.S. trade unionism have been called into question by world and domestic events. The post-World War II labor movement, founded on a social truce with capital and the apparent inevitability of a rising living standard, has hit a bulkhead-piercing iceberg of dramatic proportions. The global economy, economic restructuring, deregulation, and privatization have wrought destruction on U.S. unions. In the wake of this devastation, it has become common, even for union leaders, to define unionism in objectively negative terms (e.g., without a union, you have no protection from arbitrary management). As a movement, we have …

Patterned Responses To Organizing: Case Studies Of The Union-Busting Convention, Richard W. Hurd, Joseph B. Uehlein

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] In June 1993, the Industrial Union Department (IUD) of the AFL-CIO initiated a project to gather cases from affiliated unions that would highlight aspects of the National Labor Relations Board process deserving attention from those shaping labor law reform proposals. Based on the cases submitted, we conclude that in its current form the National Labor Relations Act serves to impede union organizing. Particularly problematic are NLRB policies that allow employers to wage no-holds-barred antiunion campaigns. Even where there are legal restrictions on specific actions, the penalties for violations are so meager that they serve no deterrent effect. The cases …

Introduction: The Context For The Reform Of Labor Law, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] It has become increasingly clear that the U.S. system of collective bargaining is no longer a realistic option for a large and growing proportion of American workers, and the situation will continue to worsen absent a major redirection of public policy. The decline in union density rates in this country is alarming to those who value and promote unionization. The extent to which this decline is due to management resistance and the failure of the law to promote collective bargaining is an important question that requires continued study and debate. Opinion polls reveal that for millions of nonunion American …

Organizing To Win: Introduction, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, Ronald L. Seeber

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The American labor movement is at a watershed. For the first time since the early years of industrial unionism sixty years ago, there is near-universal agreement among union leaders that the future of the movement depends on massive new organizing. In October 1995, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, and Linda Chavez-Thompson were swept into the top offices of the AFL-CIO, following a campaign that promised organizing "at an unprecedented pace and scale." Since taking office, the new AFL-CIO leadership team has created a separate organizing department and has committed $20 million to support coordinated large-scale industry-based organizing drives. In addition, …

The Failure Of Organizing, The New Unity Partnership And The Future Of The Labor Movement, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The New Unity Partnership (NUP) has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in union circles. Its inception can be traced to the July 4th holiday in 2003 when five national union presidents gathered for a candid private discussion about the future of the labor movement. The motivation for the summit was concern about the collective inability of unions to reverse their fading fortunes. At this and subsequent meetings the unions considered structural and strategic options to promote union growth, ultimately committing to a form of mutual aid pact to pool resources for coordinated organizing initiatives and to support each …

Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement’S Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] But the increased effectiveness of labor's political activities has not resulted in major improvements legislatively, and now there is a hostile President who opposes nearly every aspect of the union policy agenda. The promise for the future lies in the demonstrated ability to mobilize at the grassroots. But there are recent signs that national unions are breaking ranks and pursuing narrow self interest. The USWA joined with the steel industry to persuade the Bush administration to restrict imports, and even hinted at a possible endorsement for his reelection in 2004 (Murray). The UMWA has praised the president's energy policy, …