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Papers
Fraternally,
Art Shostak,
Emeritus Professor of Sociology,
Drexel University;
Author - CyberUnion: Empowering Labor Through Computer Technology
(1999); Robust Unionism: Innovations in the Labor Movement (1974)
Building
Tomorrow¹s Trade Union Movement Today!
Our
ever-increasing reliance on cutting-edge ITC gadgetry (particularly
the new PC, available now in the form of an upgraded cell phone)
makes likely the evolution of a New Union Member. This 21st century
man and woman will expect his/her union, along with the Labor Movement,
to master a wide range of ICT innovations that draw on the chip¹s
exponential ability to outdo all that has come before. This, in
turn, requires four institutional changes by AFL-CIO and Change
to Win affiliates intent on endlessly upgrading their employ of
cutting-edge Information and Communications Technology tools (ICT).
1) First, every labor union could create a small permanent Membership
Study Group (MSG). This new research office would explore the actual
unvarnished needs and wants of current and prospective members,
the better to zero in on helping to meet them. Members might include
grass-roots activists very close to the rank-and-file, along with
university social scientists who specialize in working-class studies
(including the frontier use of ethnography software). The Internet
could be used to conduct waves of user-friendly surveys, and volunteers
could be grouped in Panels that would agree to answer probing questions
over long period of time (the better to identify baseline data and
chart changes in attitudes and behavior). A special effort could
be made to disaggregate data in terms of significant blocs of members
(age, education, gender, hobbies, nationality, political orientation,
skills, etc.).
No longer would leaders discussing the membership sound like a gathering
of Blind Men discussing parts of an elephant: Instead the Labor
Movement would possess timely, exacting, and revealing data (behavioral,
attitudinal, etc.) on which to base its next moves (and, not incidentally,
counter mean-spirited media and employer propaganda). As well, it
could begin to fine-tune its Internet messages to the vital characteristics
of the message-receiver, and even begin to offer membership in virtual
affinity groups to its members (hobby groups, singles groups, travel
groups, etc.), the better to buttress the time-honored notion of
Labor as a community-building, ally-making social movement.
2) Second, the unions could create a small permanent Work Futures
Study group (WFS). This new research office would explore near-future
(next 10 years) what-if scenarios guiding the actions of American
and global employers, the better to help Labor anticipate and rapidly
respond to change. It would scan the vast long-range forecast literature
online and in print, and interview top forecasters. Naturally it
would disaggregate information by industry, and then again by company
size, locale, specialization, and the other critical variable for
assuring forecasts have on-the-ground real time applicability.
The WFS group could offer labor leaders alternative policy proposals
likely to help mitigate, if not even eliminate dangers posed by
foreseeable corporate and governmental developments. Members might
include rank-and-filers with a keen interest in forecasts, along
with allied university specialists, the better to earn the synergies
that good forecasting thrives on.
3) Third, the unions could invite affiliates to join it in creating
a small permanent Information and Communications Technology Study
Group (ICTS). This new research office would anticipate, track,
and assess fast-moving changes in ICT hardware, software, groupware,
and thoughtware, the better to help Labor stay abreast and maximize
its return on investment. For example, with giant software packages
fading away, Labor must rapidly learn how to best employ Web 2.0,
an array of fresh Internet tools that make likely a sea change in
use of the Internet. Drawing on blogging, Wikipedia, mash-ups, MySpace,
and related bottom-up, user-driven services, Web 2.0 requires active
participation and social interaction. Already popular with young
union members, Web 2.0 promises to help flatten boundaries in bureaucracies
like labor organizations, much to Labor¹s gain.
Composed of grass-roots digerati, union ICT professionals, and campus-based
allies, as each has a unique contribution to make, the ICTS group
could sponsor far-flung, low-cost, frequent users courses at all
levels, both virtual and on the ground. It could hold an annual
Contest for the Most Innovative Uses of ICT by locals of AFL-CIO
and Change to Win affiliates. It could offer scholarships to help
grass-roots digerati attend conferences on ICT uses (especially
the Annual LaborTech Conference).
Looking ahead, the ICT group could study the implications of the
rise of a new bloc of voters (³Netroots²) whose online
political action efforts (as by MoveOn) are already roiling party
realities in the USA (many conservative unions are in opposition).
It could help unions begin to use upgraded ³next-generation
dashboards,² or software that mimics Excel spreadsheets in
intuitive, distinct ways. It could scan the uses of ICT being made
by Labor (and business and NGOs) around the world (as by using LabourStart.org),
the better to quickly profit from creative adaptation. Above all,
it could help Labor appreciate the refusal of users to settle for
the lowest common denominator interfaces (such as stodgy or out-of-date
Labor web sites): Rather, unionists want a very tailored ICT experience,
and the ICTS group could help TUC affiliates achieve this.
Typical of the cutting-edge possibilities the ICTS group could evaluate
for Labor is the so-called thin computer. Union members, rather
than own an expensive PC, could use a disk-less, processor-less
³dumb² device to access files and programs, stored on
some remote server, via the Internet. Lauded as one of technology¹s
holy grails a computer cheap enough for the world¹s PC-less
masses, the user of a thin computer could pay a phone company or
Net service provider only for minutes of actual computer use, rather
than for a monthly contract. Able to use only 5 percent as much
power as a PC, and with little inside that can break, the device
may have great appeal to unionists who have long awaited an affordable
way into the Information Age.
4) Fourth, the unions could invite affiliates to join it in creating
a small permanent Innovation Promotion Group (IP). This new research
office would draw on the burgeoning Internet and print material
that seeks to help modern organizations, especially businesses,
make more of the creative ³smarts² of employees and relevant
others. Companies are accelerating efforts to change their cultures,
foster improvements, become better at what they already do, and
imagine entirely new enterprises (some even have created a ³Chief
Innovation Officer²). These firms seek to make innovation routine,
rather than random; central, rather than marginal; exhilarating,
rather than foreign; and profitable no question! Innovation
has overnight become the new currency of competition, the key to
organize growth, and the lever to advances without which utter failure
threatens. Labor must rapidly match this effort with one of its
own (allowing for vast cultural differences), for unions that do
otherwise court organizational sclerosis and fatal obsolescence.
Typical of brow-arching ideas the Innovation Promotion group could
help assess is Andy Stern¹s vision of a new type of union:
³Imagine the union as an outsourcing vehicle that will take
a whole series of services from employers not just for one
employer, but for a whole sector or whole industries, so that there
are common benefits, common training plans.² The IP group might
hold hearings, solicit expert opinions, run focus groups with rank-and-filers,
and in 101 other informed ways, give the idea a neutral and constructive
forum, the better to encourage more such promising out-of-the-box
notions. (McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 1, 2006)
A similar innovation worth assessment involves a controversial corporate
technique known as word-of-mouth marketing. Using samples, coupons,
and other goodies companies lure customers into spreading a good
(Internet) word to family and friends about the company¹s products.
Under appropriate fire from the Federal Trade Commission in America
as an ethical ³lapse² (failure to disclose affiliation),
this state-of-the-art method helps cut through advertising clutter
to reach a highly desirable target audience. Organized Labor, careful
to insist on ethical disclosure, could adapt this powerful form
of PR, an advocacy message from a trusted friend, and use it to
great organizing campaign advantage especially after a new
Labor group, the IP group, first field tested, vetted, and improved
the operation.
Discussion. Cynics will undoubtedly raise doubts about the efficiency
and effectiveness of the four well-intentioned committees above.
To be sure, the risk is considerable, as we sadly learn over and
again that ³a camel is a horse designed by a committee.²
They may under-perform and disappoint, this a time-honored tendency
in mismanaged bureaucracies. Even as a trend, however, is not a
law, this sort of bureaupathic behavior can be assiduously guarded
against. Given how high are the stakes (nothing less than Labor¹s
survival), all sorts of preventive measures can and should be built
into the reform process.
Likewise, cynics will undoubtedly warn that computers, which emphasize
clarity and defined boundaries, are the natural enemy of creativity,
which thrives on ambiguity, the borders between ideas, and fuzziness.
To be sure, there is some merit in their diagnosis, but it has more
value as a warning than as a quarantine judgment. Computers remain
only as constricting or as creative as those who program, and/or
employ them permit: Organized labor can readily guard against the
computer¹s many limitations, while maximizing use of its unique
assets.
Critics would move into the future looking only into the rear-view
mirror, as Alvin Toffler noted scathingly years ago in Future Shock
(1972). They would blithely kill constructive ideas like the four
above, failing to understand that there is more than a kernel of
something good in each of them, something that can be salvaged and
morphed into a better formulation. Buttressed by metrics, and posted
early on the intranets of the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and their
affiliates for constructive comments, the four ideas warrant small
beta tests, diplomatic and creative improvement, and serious consideration
for full-scale adaptation.
Summary. At the end of the day the creation of the four new computer-based
committees proposed above may prove inadequate to the challenge,
so great are the obstacles in the way of any rapid and significant
gain by Organized Labor. This much, however, seems certain: If the
four change campaigns the committees represent are not soon undertaken,
a precious reform opportunity will have been lost, and generations
of unionists hereafter are unlikely to have the high quality of
trade unionism they will need and most certainly deserve.
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