Does the organising means determine the bargaining ends?

In the United States, conventional wisdom amongst many union organisers is that the style of organising campaign waged has a significant impact on both the probability of getting a first contract and the quality of the contract. Yet little research has been done either to support or challenge this. Based on the research that does exist, the card-check process appears to increase the odds of union certification and the likelihood of a first contract. However, our review of successful union organising suggests that the key variable in gaining certification and, ultimately, a first contract rests on the ability of the union to leverage power and to do so in a timely manner. By leveraging power or ‘levers of power’, we mean ways in which the union brings pressure on a company from within the political, economic and social context that collectively supports production, distribution and exchange. Unions’ ability to exercise power in this context is critical to mobilising pressure against hostile employers. Understanding the relationship between organising strategies, bargaining outcomes and worker participation in terms of levers of power draws, in part, from Kelly’s (1998) application of ‘mobilisation theory’ to industrial relations. The validity of his emphasis on the balance of power between capital and labour, and union capacity to mobilise workers’ ‘collective interests’ into forms of oppositional action is borne out in our research. The primary strength of the card-check process is its ability to leverage power on its own timetable, and to limit some of the problems of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections. But unions recognised through NLRB elections, no less than card-check recognition, rely on the capacity to mobilise enough power to compel the employer to agree certification. Unions that successfully win first contracts can usually identify and exploit an employer’s inability to resist making a deal. Sometimes employers’ vulnerability originates from demand for labour, other times it comes from third parties outside the immediate employment relationship, and on still other occasions the state provides a helpful hand.