Coalitions and Community Unionism: Using the term community to explore effective union-community collaboration
Abstract
Union-community collaboration is an increasingly common practice in industrialised nations where union power and density have declined. Purpose: This article proposes a framework for defining and evaluating community unionism, through a definition of the term ‘community.’ Findings and originality: It defines the term community in three discrete but mutually reinforcing ways, as (community) organisation; common interest identity, and local neighbourhood or place. The term is used to then define community unionism as three discrete union strategies, and finally to examine one type of community unionism – coalition unionism. The paper identifies three elements of coalition unionism. Successful coalition practice is defined by partner organisational relationships (coalition structure, bridge brokers and coalition offices); common concern (common interest operates as mutual direct interest of organisation and members), and the element of scale (where success increases as coalitions operate at multiple scales such as the local, as well as the scale of government and/or business decision makers). Methodology: I explore this framework drawing on campaigns in Sydney and Chicago.


Union-community collaboration is growing in industrialised countries as unions seek to align themselves with external community organisations, interest groups, or operate to dominate a geographic place in order to enhance their political and economic power. Yet, terms such as community and community unionism are ambiguous. They have loose meanings in union scholarship and practice. As Moody observes, community is a vague concept (Moody 1990).

This paper attempts to build a concrete understanding of one example of community unionism – coalitions between unions and community organisations. In doing so, the paper suggests a definition of the term community, and from this, the term community unionism. It then outlines an approach to understanding coalition unionism, suggesting three elements that define coalitions and measures that explain how they vary. This approach is explained using examples from long term coalitions in Sydney and Chicago.

Thus the purpose of the paper is two-fold. First proposing a concrete definition of community unionism, and second exploring what makes coalition unionism successful.

1.0 From Community to Community Unionism
The term community appeared in industrial relations scholarship as union renewal strategies such as union-community coalitions re-surfaced in the 1990s. Union density in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK has fallen over the last twenty years (Visser 2003; Frege 2006). Factors for the decline include international economic competition, anti-union legislation and shifts in local industries from unionised manufacturing to non-union services (Peetz 1998). Union decline has prompted national union movements to debate strategies for union renewal, where unions revitalise their internal structures and strategies, grow and develop their membership and rebuild their external relationships to increase their power in the workplace and in the political arena (Levesque and Murray 2002).

As Cranford and Ladd note, discussions of community have surfaced in times of union crisis (Cranford and Ladd 2003, p.51). In the 1990s in the US, the term community was commonly used to describe coalitions. Banks used the phrase community unionism to describe alliances, and Brecher and Costello’s inaugural book on coalitions, used the phrase ‘labour-community coalition’ to describe the strategy of coalitions between unions and community organisations (Brecher and Costello 1990a; Banks 1992).

Discussions of union ‘community’ strategies are also common across the industrialised world. Tufts work on hotel worker coalition in Canada, Ellem and Rainnie’s work on community unionism in regional Australia and Wills work on London Citizens all focus on the importance of unions campaigning on issues beyond wages and conditions and with community organisation partners to increase their influence against employers and the state (Tufts 1998; Wills 2001; Ellem 2003; Wills and Simms 2004; Rainnie and Ellem forthcoming).

While the term community is used to describe coalitions, it is also used elsewhere to describe other union and workplace organising strategies including worker centres, union’s campaigning on issues beyond wages and conditions, and to describe a complex set of networks based on place, identity and culture (Patmore 1994; Thornwaite 1997; Taksa 2000; Fine 2005a).

The competing uses of the term community unsettle the meaning of the term community unionism. Consequently, in Canada, the US and Australia, interest in union renewal has led to significant debate about the meaning of the term community unionism (ACREW 2006; Cranford, Das Gupta, Ladd et al. 2006; McBride and Greenwood 2006; UnionsNSW 2006; Tattersall 2006a; McBride and Greenwood forthcoming).

Building a definition of community can provide a conceptual foundation for the term community unionism and particular strategies such as coalitions. While there are competing interpretations of the meaning of community, there are some consistent themes (Tattersall forthcoming a). Most commonly, the term community is used as a short-cut for community organisation, for example in the term union-community coalition (Brecher and Costello 1990a; Tufts 1998; Nissen 2004). Secondly community is used to describe a group of people who have common interests or identities, such as a community of women or environmentalists (Taksa 2000; Cranford and Ladd 2003; Fine 2005a). Thirdly, community is used to mean place, as in a defined geographic area such as a local neighbourhood community (Ellem 2003; Wills and Simms 2004).

These three discrete definitions can be seen as complementary, not mutually exclusive. They emphasise different elements of community and providing a concrete anchor for exploring terms such as union-community coalitions and community unionism (Tattersall forthcoming a).

If community is defined as meaning organisation, common identity/interest, and place, then one approach to the term community unionism that it describes the set of strategies that consists of union collaboration with these elements of community. This conceptualisation of community unionism tries to concretise the multiple definitions of the term in existing literature.

The term community unionism was first used by O’Connor in 1964 and then by Students for a Democratic Society, in their creation of ‘community unions’ as community-based, worker focused organisations in the United States (O'Connor 1964; O'Connor 1964; Frost 2001). Similarly the United Auto Workers and the civil rights movement used the term community unionism to describe 1960s community organisations that sought to organise the urban working poor in the US (Flug 1990; Fine 2003). The term was revived in the 1990s to instead refer to alliances between unions and community organisations (Banks 1992; Tufts 1998; Lipsig-Mumme 2003; Tattersall 2006a). Later in the 1990s, the term community union has again been used to refer to community-based organising strategies that target workers on the basis of common identity, gender and ethnicity in a common geographic place (Cranford and Ladd 2003; Black 2005; Fine 2005a; Cranford, Das Gupta, Ladd et al. 2006). Labour geographers have also seized on the term community unionism, using it to describe the strategic importance of connections between unions and place, the spatiality of these relationships and thus the explicit spatiality of community (Wills 2001; Ellem 2003; Wills and Simms 2004; Ellem 2005).

Rather than debating the relative merits of alliances, place or concern as the ‘correct’ meaning of community unionism (Black 2005), I categorise community unionism as building upon each of these three components. I argue that community unionism refers to three different types of organising strategies, each representing a connection between unions and the three definitions of community.

Firstly, community unionism describes when unions work with community organizations in coalition, what I call coalition unionism. This is consistent with Banks, Tufts and Lipsig-Mumme’s interpretation of the term (Banks 1992; Tufts 1998; Lipsig-Mumme 2003; Cutcher 2004; Tattersall 2006a). Coalitions develop when ‘community’ organizations and unions work together.

Secondly, community unionism also describes the strategy of seeking to organize workers on the basis of common non-workplace identities, interests or place. This interpretation connects to interpretations of community unionism as an organizational strategy, whether operating as worker centers, union organizing strategies or coalition strategies. Here, recruitment strategies, commitment and political activity to engage workers connects to community-based identities rather than craft or industry (Cranford and Ladd 2003; Urano and Stewart 2005; Fine 2005a; Cranford, Das Gupta, Ladd et al. 2006).

Thirdly, community unionism describes place-based organizing strategies. These are union strategies that seek to increase a union’s impact at any particular scale: local, city-wide, state, nationally or globally. For instance, the term community unionism was used to describe the practices of mining unions in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, when unions worked with local organizations and individuals to improve hospital services and gain support from the town in their fight against mining giant Rio Tinto (Ellem 2003; Rainnie and Ellem forthcoming). It also describes the desire for unions ‘to go global’ and strengthen global federations and global union partnerships, where unions act at the scale of the global community (Tattersall 2007b). Peak council strategies are also place-based community unionism strategies (Colburn 2004; Reynolds and Ness 2004; Wills and Simms 2004).

This three pronged definition of community unionism seeks to capture the different historical and contemporary meanings of the term to describe various union practices and forms of union renewal.

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