Mobilistion Model = Capitalist Employment Relationship → Exploitation/Domination of Workers → Perceived Workers’ Dissatisfaction → Workers’ Perceived Injustice → Workers’ Perceived Threat to Their Collective/Class Interests → Strength of Workers’ Collective Organization → Strength of Workers’
Mobilization of Resources & Commitments to Engage in Struggle → Workers’ Collective Strength of Contestation Power vs. Suppressive Power of Employers/State → Forms & Breadth/Depth of Workers’
Collective Economic/Political Action to Redress Exploitation/Domination → IR Outcomes of Union Growth/Organizing/Militancy & Labour Strikes/Protests/Take-Overs.
Figure 3. Kaufman’s presentation of mobilisation theory (2018:580)
Explaining mobilisation theory in a step-by step fashion is particularly noticeable in the abridged ‘Anger-Hope-Action’ version of Kelly’s theory that is commonly taught on union training courses (UCU 2015; UNISON 2016).
Figure 4. Anger - Hope – Action from Unison (2016:9)
UNISON explicitly cite Kelly’s “highly influential mobilisation theory” (UNISON 2016:9) and explain the process to their shop stewards thus:
“Anger, Hope, Action.
We need to turn fear into anger. They [the workers] need to feel angry about the situation and feel the need to do something. We need to turn despondency into hope.
Anger is not enough. Organisers must provide a vision and show how things could change so that all the workers come together. We need to turn apathy into action. Get
a member to do a task and build on that - encourage members to work together towards collective action” Unison (2017:41)
Little and McDowell’s (2017) study of the transformation of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) reps training programme from a primarily servicing to a more organising approach is explicitly based on John Kelly’s mobilisation theory. The authors explain how the rewritten NUT training “mirrors the five stages drawn from John Kelly’s application of mobilisation theory to industrial relation” (Little & McDowell 2017: 189), and present the process of mobilisation in a flowchart, thus:.
“Five NUT steps to mobilisation. Drawn from Kelly’s Mobilisation Theory”.
Figure 5: NUT five step flowchart of mobilisation theory (Little & McDowell 2017: 190)
The quotes and figures from UNISON and the NUT above are simplified depictions of a complex process, yet they patently present mobilisation theory as a sequential process of
‘steps’or ‘stages’. To a large degree, this is how mobilisation theory is currently being taught to union stewards in the UK.
A sense of injustice
Members are confident that collective action will have an impact
Injustice is attributable to someone
The existence of local leaders There exists an organisation to
challenge injustice
In contrast to the above, Atzeni (2009) provides a valid critique of the way that mobilisation theory is often presented as a set of steps that need to be completed before progression to the next stage.
“According to the theory of mobilisation, workers have to pass through a certain number of psychological/ organisational stages before a collective action can materialise. Central to this construction are individual perceptions of injustice that something is ‘wrong’ or ‘illegitimate’, which are made explicit and framed by leaders attributing these to a specific agent. In this process and following this sequence, individual perceptions become collective sharing and thus opens, in the presence of a minimum level of organisational resources, the possibility for workers to take action collectively.” (Atenzi 2009:5-6)
Irrespective of whether or not Atzeni’s criticism of mobilisation theory for being
‘psychological’ is accurate, the sequential manner in which the process of workers’ collective action is often presented is undeniable. Atzeni (2009, 2010) has criticised this linear explanation of collective mobilisation, instead arguing that the various stages proposed by mobilisation theory can occur in a different sequence. Atzeni (2010), argues that mobilization events can create consciousness amongst workers, rather than the other way around and also that:
“the model proposed by Kelly (injustice–leadership–action) is inverted with leaders and a sense of diffused injustice as ex post product of the mobilisation. This fact has important theoretical implications … it places leaders as a product emerging from mobilisation rather than as a necessary precondition for mobilisation. Hence, cases of spontaneous collective action put into question the overall validity of Kelly’s model”
(Atzeni 2009:6).
Again, it is not necessary to agree with Atzeni’s overall conclusion, to acknowledge that the process of collective worker mobilisation does not always follow the same direct sequential pattern expounded by a step by step interpretation of mobilisation theory. This thesis contends that counter-mobilisation is another element of mobilisation theory where the often-presented linear stages, in which counter-mobilisation is viewed as a response to union mobilisation fails to reflect the reality of industrial relations.
Yet even prominent Marxist theorists often appear to present the process as essentially sequential, in which counter-mobilisation appears at the end of the sequence. An example of which is seen from Darlington’s explanation of the role ascribed to activists by mobilisation theory:
“First, they carry arguments and frame issues so as to promote a sense of grievance or injustice amongst workers, persuading them that what has hitherto been considered
‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ is in fact unjust. Second, they encourage group cohesion and identity, encouraging workers to see their collective interests against management.
Third, they urge appropriate collective action; persuading others is essential because of the costs of such action and the inexperience of many people with its different forms and consequences. Fourth, they legitimize such action in the face of counter-mobilization by the employer” (Darlington 2006:500)
While the above quote is a list of roles carried out by activists it is seemingly described in a chronological order. Whether intentional or not, when presented in such a fashion, mobilisation appears as a sequential progression, with counter mobilization viewed as a late phase of a consecutive process. An employer’s response to union organising as opposed to a pre-existing element of an industrial relations framework. Gall (2005) goes as far as describing employer’s anti-union tactics as ‘retaliation’ for attempts at union organising.
The presentation of employer counter-mobilisation as a reaction to union organising is observable in Kelly and Badigannavar’s (2004) study of a union recognition campaign in Amazon, which repeatedly depicts the company’s counter-mobilisation as a “response by the employer” and describes an error by the union which,
“effectively served ‘advanced notice’ on the employer and gave management plenty of time to prepare what turned out to be a sophisticated anti-union campaign” (Kelly
& Badigannavar 2004:48)
This implies that Amazon’s counter-mobilisation was only activated once unionisation attempts had been initiated. Even if unintended, by repeatedly using such phraseology to describe the process, leading proponents of mobilisation theory can give the impression that
counter-mobilisation is primarily a reactive behaviour by management triggered by the agency of trade unions.
Occasionally in the literature counter-mobilisation is conceptualised differently; Logan (2006; 2013) highlights that employer counter-mobilisation activities in the US are often anticipatory in nature, while Dundon and Gall (2013) suggest that hostile anti-unionism can be against a hypothetical as much as an actual threat of unionisation. The concept of
‘inoculation’ where during union recognition campaigns workers and activists are pre-warned of management’s likely actions (Levit & Conrow 1993; Lepie 2016) is based on the implicit assumption of pre-existing employer hostility. Gall (2005) suggests that if attempts to inoculate took place earlier and more forcefully, workers may be better prepared to withstand management’s attacks.
In relation to employers’ covert surveillance of activists, Lubbers convincingly argues that such activities are not a response to specific campaigns, rather a pre-existing spying apparatus is often in place:
“Corporate spying and infiltration should not be considered as just another set of counterstrategies, grouped alongside greenwash or lobbying. Corporate spying and infiltration can be used as such, but there is more to it. Spying also precedes the development of corporate counterstrategy”.
(Lubbers 2012: 9)
Recognition that in environments hostile to trade unions, counter-mobilisation exists a priori to any union activity even having been conceived, has potential consequences for how mobilisation theory is theorised. This thesis proposes that where blacklisting is embedded into the culture of a particular sector, a conception of mobilisation as a sequential process is open to question. This thesis generates further empirical evidence on employers’ counter-mobilisation in the building industry, which is used to test the robustness of the various academic arguments and assumptions cited in the section above, specifically the robustness of sequential portrayals of the mobilisation process.
The duality of trade unionism
This chapter now moves away from mobilisation theory, to discuss broader academic debates of relevance to this research. This thesis recognises that the militancy of activists was often at
odds with their own union leaders and full-time officials, who adopted more conciliatory, business friendly strategies. This next section therefore starts by considering the contradictory nature of trade unionism under capitalism, before leading onto more contemporary literature on strategies for union renewal such as partnership, union organising and strikes as a means of building union power.
It has long been noted that there is a duality within trade unionism, in which radical rank and file activism sits alongside bureaucracy (Anderson 1967; Hyman 1971; Cohen 2006;
Darlington 2014). In one way, unions contest any employer’s right to manage unrestrained and act as the vehicle through which workers’ and employers clash over the allocation of surplus value, the central concept of exploitation in the Marxist analysis of capitalism. Yet at the same time, unions seek to gain recognition with employers and negotiate collective bargaining agreements, both of which legitimise the master servant relationship inherent in the capitalist employment relationship.
Hyman (1971) highlights that classic Marxist philosophers, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Gramsci, have viewed trade unions from either an ‘optimistic’ or ‘pessimistic’
perspective, with changing sociological interpretations dependent upon material events and time periods. In a similar vein, Anderson (1967) also recognised the possibilities and limitations of trade unions; a position echoed half a century later, when Darlington (2014) identified the revolutionary potential and the limitations of trade unionism. Sewell (2003) and Davis’ (2009) historical analysis of British trade unions both identify reformist and revolutionary standpoints co-existing within the labour movement. Cohen (2006) argues convincingly that unions can be viewed as a bureaucracy reinforcing the existing social relationships within capitalism and as a social movement that are part of the wider movement for fundamental radical change. Given the contradictory nature of the labour : capital relationship, it is hardly surprising if trade unions and their activists display characteristics from different ends of the spectrum in different situations or different time periods (Cohen 2006; Fantasia 1988).
The most well known position on what Hyman (1971) describes as the pessimistic side of this argument about the nature of trade unionism is Michels’ ‘iron law of oligarchy’, a debate that almost every employment relations undergraduate and union activist has participated in (even if they didn’t realize it). Michels (1915) argues that regardless of intent, as workers’
organisations become larger and more complex, there is an inevitable pressure towards the formation of an elevated oligarchy that makes strategic decisions and eventually reinforces its own position (Eldridge 1977). Clarke asks, despite their radical roots how far have unions over time been transformed into a bureaucratic “component part of that very system of domination – the struggle against which was once the raison d’etre of their existence”?
(Clarke 1977:7)
From a pluralist perspective Batstone et al. (1979) also identified how senior stewards and conveners at the pinnacle of well developed workplace level union bureaucracy, often became incorporated into the employers industrial relations machinery, completely divorcing themselves from their membership. Donovan’s (1968) famous gendered and pluralist quote recognises that even local workplace stewards are interested in maintaining orderly industrial relations and in so doing end up accepting the status quo.
“For the most part the steward is viewed by others, and views himself as an accepted, reasonable and even moderating influence, more of a lubricant than an irritant”
(McCarthy & Parker 1968:56)
Partnership
Since the 1980s, partnership agreements, regularly described by opponents as ‘sweetheart deals’ (Sewell 2003; Murray 1999) are an even more overt mechanism by which trade unions are drawn into the employers apparatus, often in return for a quite limited concessions (Danford & Richardson 2016). Murray (1999) argues that the concept of partnership, often linked with single union agreements, is little more than the acceptance of the unitarist HRM ideology by trade unions, that is ultimately detrimental to the interests of the workforce (Kelly 1999). Danford et al. (2005) evaluated the six TUC partnership principles in their study of the high skilled UK aerospace industry, a sector seemingly fitting in with the supply side HRM concepts. The study found that the interests of the workforce were in direct opposition to that of the employer in the majority of the principles and even where the interests may coincide, they are based on fundamentally different concerns (Danford et al 2005).
In the construction industry, Druker (2016) highlights that virtually all of the main contractors complicit in the Consulting Association blacklisting scandal had union
recognition or partnership agreements with trade unions on major projects. This often including providing facilities for full-time convenors appointed by the union regional secretary rather than elected by workers on site. The appointed convenor role includes such tasks as delivering site safety inductions on behalf of the main contractor, carrying out checks on workers’ documentation and servicing individual members (Wright & Brown 2013). One union official described these convenors as “employment relations problem solvers”
explaining that “we have to show the client how the convenors will add value, because otherwise they won't be interested” (Wright & Brown 2013:31).
This apparent contradiction in employers’ tactics is referred to as ‘double-breasting’, a supposedly pragmatic approach in which companies will work collaboratively with unions whenever they are forced to or where it is likely to gain kudos with the client (Druker 2016;
Dundon et al. 2015; Cullinane et al. 2012). The outcome for unions is that their senior convenors become embedded into the very employment relations apparatus that is at the same time blacklisting the unions’ rank and file activists. As Danford et al. (2005:236) argue, regardless of the rhetoric, partnership “cannot mask the irreconcilable conflicts of interest that are the prime characteristics of capitalist workplace dynamics”, but trade unions and their senior officials can become incorporated into the employer’s machinery, an integral element of the system they are fighting against (Hyman 1975; Clarke 1977). Chapter 6 considers how rank and file activists view their own unions’ various partnership initiatives and the appointed convenor system.
Rank & File-ism
The sometimes conflictual relationship between the union hierarchy and rank and file activists’ is a research topic for this thesis. While top down bureaucracies are commonplace (Clarke 1977; Eldridge 1977), so are periodic bottom up explosions of rank and file militancy that provide an impetus for greater union democracy that challenge the ‘iron rule’ (Lipset et al 1972; Hyman 1975; McAlevey 2016). The supposedly new forms of worker organisations that champion a more direct democracy, class struggle concept of trade unionism (Ness 2014) are not particularly new; rather they appear to be a reappearance of the grass-roots tradition harking back to ‘new unionism’ (Davis 2009; Mann 1988; Callinicos 1995), syndicalism (Sewell 2003; Darlington 2008) and the rank and file tradition of the 1960s and 70s (Lyddon 2007; Jefferys 1980). Whether inside or outside the official union structures, rank and file networks have often been instrumental in leading some of the UK’s largest industrial battles
(Hinton 1973), including in construction (Lyddon 2007; Fawbert 2016; Warren 1980; Smith
& Chamberlain 2016).
In the Australian context, the Builders Labourers’ Federation during the 1970s, saw rank and file victories in elections that resulted in policies that restricted elected union officials staying in position for an extended period (Burgmann & Burgmann 1998; Mallary 2000). In the UK, it is not uncommon for rank and file candidates for union election to stand on a ‘workers wage’ platform as a direct challenge to the incumbent leadership (Sewell 2003; Crick 1986;
Taaffe 1995). Both of the above tactics are conscious attempts to overcome Michels’ iron law.
The nature of rank and file union activism has been debated for decades (Gramsci 2007;
Hinton 1977; Gallacher & Campbell 1977). Holton (1976) argues that because new unionism in UK had been inspired by, and in turn influenced French syndicalism, in the British historical context, the rank and file syndicalist tradition was born within the existing trade unions rather than via ‘dual unions’ as in the DeLeon inspired American IWW or Spanish CNT models. Hinton (1977) identifies a ‘theory’ of rank and file activism overwhelmingly adopted by the shop-stewards movement during the 1910s.
“The rank and file movement coordinated and led militancy through a local Workers’
Committee representative of the organisation of the workshop. Because of their delegatory character these committees were capable of initiating and carrying through strike action independently of the trade union official” (Hinton 1977:116).
The Clyde Workers’ Committee famous statement during the period of Red Clydeside illustrates the strategy:
“We will support the officials just so long as they rightfully represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them”.3
3 Leaflet published by Clyde Workers Committee in 1915 www.marxists.org/archive/gallacher/1915/clyde-committee.htm
Hinton (1977) argues that the shop steward movement did not seek to replace existing unions, either their structures or officials, but instead created organisations inside and outside the official movement to unite workers on a class basis. While not universally applied in practice, this generally meant prioritising the building of rank and file networks of workers, as opposed to trying to capture official’s positions within the existing unions.
There was a rebirth of rank and file union activism in the 1960s. Yet distinct from the early shop-stewards movement, Hyman (1991) claims that from the 1970s onwards even the most left-wing rank and file agitation has been primarily aimed at pushing official unions to organise more combative strikes rather than groups attempting to organise unofficial action in their own name. McIlroy & Daniels (2009) go further by arguing that despite claiming to represent rank and file interests, the majority of the ‘left’ factions within British trade unions at the start of the twenty-first century are little more than a machinery for electioneering, producing campaign literature aimed primarily at influencing existing activists rather than leading industrial action independently from the official unions. Cohen (2006:165) describes these ‘electoral slate organisations’ as “a series of anaemic Broad Lefts which tended to concentrate on electoral and resolutionary issues” [correct spelling].
Yet Ness (2014) argues that there has been a resurgence of direct action class struggle in the era of austerity, most visible in the reappearance of various syndicalist inspired ‘alternative unionism’, including amongst migrant workers in the UK (Kirkpatrick 2014, Gall 2017). One strand identified by Ness mirroring that identified by Hinton (1977), is described as ‘Council Communism’, where workers committees exist “within the interstices of traditional unions”
and operate as virtual parallel unions engaging in direct resistance “when bureaucratic unions become detached from the day-to-day lives of workers” (Ness 2014:7). Another common approach, are stand alone autonomist formations such as the operaismo in Italy, who advocate a direct action approach to both industrial and community politics in staunch opposition to existing trade unions that are viewed as ‘illegitimate defenders of privilege’
with ties to employers (Ness 2014:9).
This thesis investigates the approaches adopted by various rank and file campaign groups in the UK construction sector from the mid 1980s onwards. Empirical evidence gathered during
This thesis investigates the approaches adopted by various rank and file campaign groups in the UK construction sector from the mid 1980s onwards. Empirical evidence gathered during