Don't forget to take our Salary Survey!
Answer Paywizard:
Building solidarity within the labor movement as a whole is one of the
most important (if not the most important) concern. Solidarity is the
foundation of any organized movement but especially important to the
labor movement, where much of the power that workers use to counter
management’s power comes almost exclusively from workers’ ability to
identify and cultivate unity, cohesion, and shared aims amongst each
other.
That said, to answer your first question, one of the best
ways to get your workforce to recognize the value of a union is to
launch a public awareness and outreach campaign stressing the benefits
of union membership and to honestly address the concerns and drawbacks
that potential members may have. Keep in mind that most organizations,
whether public or private, will do everything in their power to prevent
a labor union from forming.
Indeed, though this is primarily
motivated by concerns about increased costs, institutions and
organizations also oppose unions because they lose a great deal of
their muscle over their workforce, and this, quite frankly, can terrify
management.
Because of this fear, institutions and
organizations will pay consulting firms and other agencies to spread
exaggerations and outright lies about labor unions. These organizations
are VERY good at tapping employees’ fears about joining unions and will
adapt their PR campaigns to the environment in which a union aims to
organize. One example of an extremely successful anti-union campaign a
few years ago was at Cornell University, where the United Auto Workers
(UAW) tried to include graduate students.
Amazingly, even
before union campaigns began, “student groups” and organizations of
“concerned staff” at Cornell popped up, complete with slick
“informational” websites about why unions are to be avoided at all
costs. The strategy that these particular anti-union groups used was to
tap into a science/humanities graduate student divide at Cornell.
At
Cornell, graduate students in the sciences make significantly more than
their humanities counterparts make. There were also far more graduate
students in the sciences than in the humanities at the time. So, in
order to divide graduate students at Cornell, thereby disrupting
efforts to establish solidarity, anti-union activists spread lies such
as 1) having a union as a science graduate student would decrease your
stipend (which is false because stipends in the sciences come primarily
from federal grants), and 2) that humanities graduate students would
“leech” off of the money that science graduate students were bringing
in if they were all in a union together. Needless to say, when it came
to vote for the union, the majority of science graduate students voted
against while the majority of humanities students voted for the union.
Indeed the Cornell Daily Sun (the
university’s newspaper) mentioned that a student named John Sebastian,
an antiunion activist noted that “…he does not think that unionization
will be passed because many science students ‘are not interested in
eligibility.’”
What you should take away from all this is
that, in successful organizing, you must be thoughtful and strategic in
your approach while also conducting opposition research to counteract
likely responses. That is, you must make sure you know what particular
situation exists at Rutgers that anti-union activists will exploit to
use against forming a union and also make sure that everyone who will
be voting knows the benefits of being a union member while also being
able to see through misinformation and disinformation.
Also, when it comes to unionizing a workforce there are several concerns and myths that must be dispelled:
(1) Ensure workers that voting in favor of a union will not have any
negative repercussions (i.e. they will not be fired or suspended for
voting for a union).
(2) Make sure
potential members know that joining a union does NOT result in an
equalization of salaries. Believe it or not, many people at Cornell
thought that joining a union meant that everyone will get equal pay,
regardless of position.
(3) Joining a
union does NOT mean that workers will always (or even ever) go on
strike. As you well know, the chances that a union will go on strike
are extremely low. Strikes are always a last resort which usually
entail severe consequences for workers. Give your members some
statistics on what percent of contract negotiations actually ended up
in strikes which I’m sure will convince them how unlikely going out on
strike is.
Go to Washtech.org for some more myths that you should address when organizing professionals. (Provided by the Communications Workers of America)
Regarding
your second question about structuring your local to meet the needs of
the unit and be appropriate to an institution of higher ed, if you are
successful in organizing Rutgers employees, some things that you may
want to focus on are offering (if you don’t have them already)
healthcare, dental, educational opportunities for employees and their
dependents, scholarships and where available, flexible hours. Other
than that, you’ll just have to listen carefully and learn what the
members of your specific bargaining unit need and want.
I hope this information was useful to you and wish you success in your efforts.