Work in the Global Economy • vol 1 • no 1-2 • 209–222 • © Authors 2021

Online ISSN 2732-4176 • https://doi.org/10.1332/273241721X16298849954295

Accepted for publication 25 August 2021

THEORY INTO PRACTICE

Mobilisation and me
Dave Smith, Dave.Smith@conel.ac.uk 
College of North East London, UK

To cite this article: Smith, D. (2021) Mobilisation and me, Work in the Global Economy,
vol 1, no 1-2, 209–222, DOI: 10.1332/273241721X16298849954295

This is the first in an occasional series we have called ‘Theory into Practice’.
The aim is to encourage academics and practitioners to reflect on the
myriad issues of translating ideas into outcomes, hereby producing a
labour-focused version of an impact agenda. Here Secretary of the Blacklist
Support Group and TUC tutor, Dave Smith, reflects on the utility of
mobilisation theory.

When I first studied employment relations in 2003 as part of my Masters degree,

I hated the subject: hated it with a passion. The employment relations module I
took was full of HRM managers keen to join the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development, so in lectures of over a hundred students, I was often the only person
with a union background. Once I had completed the module, I never wanted to go
near the subject ever again. When I submitted my dissertation about rank and file
activism in construction, John Kelly (1998) was the external examiner, yet his seminal
book, Rethinking Industrial Relations, that brought mobilisation theory into industrial
relations, didn’t even appear in my bibliography. A few years later, a friend gave me
a copy of Kelly’s book. I nearly cried when I read it. Where my MA employment
relations module said nothing to me about my own experience, mobilisation theory
seemed to say everything. I was an instant convert.

What is mobilisation theory?

Kelly summarises the central themes of mobilisation theory in three sentences:

Mobilisation theory argues that collective organisation and activity ultimately

stem from employer actions that generate among employees a sense of
injustice or illegitimacy. Employees must also acquire a sense of common
identity which differentiates them from the employer; they must attribute
the perceived injustice to the employer; and they must be willing to engage
in some form of collective organisation and activity. This whole process of
collectivisation is heavily dependent on the actions of small numbers of
leaders or activists. (Kelly, 1998: 44)

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There is of course a bit more to it than that. Mobilisation theory was developed by
researchers studying social movements (Tilly, 1978; Morris, 1984; McAdam, 1988;
Klandermans, 1997). Kelly draws upon this previous work to present a version
of mobilisation theory applicable to employment relations. The central theme of
Kelly’s theory is an attempt to explain how and why workers take part in various
forms of industrial action, by highlighting specific elements of the complex process.
Mobilisation theory sits within a Marxist conception of industrial relations (Hyman,
1975; Tilly, 1978) and certain initial assumptions are explicitly stated. Given the
capitalist mode of production, workers come into conflict with their employers over
issues related to the extraction of surplus value both in the workplace and society.
Very rarely do the struggles between classes manifest themselves specifically over
exploitation per se, but rather over workplace grievances, often relating to its unequal
distribution in areas such as profits and wages, but also concerning issues of perceived
fairness (Hyman, 1975; Tilly, 1978; Kelly, 1998).
Mobilisation theory contends that poor conditions alone (however bad) are not
sufficient to predict the likelihood that workers will participate in collective action
(Gamson, 1992; Klandermans, 1997). If an employer proposes a pay cut, most workers
may feel aggrieved, but that does not necessarily mean that they will be prepared to join
a union or go on strike over the issue. Mobilisation theory argues that workers need
to perceive any such grievance as an ‘injustice’, which is attributable to the employer.
Convincing a worker that a pay cut is unfair and that the boss is to blame is one thing:
persuading them that they should go on strike over it, is quite another. Feelings of anger
need to be transformed into feelings of hope. Hope that by joining with co-workers the
injustice can be mitigated. Mobilisation theory argues that collective action will only
take place if workers develop a shared group identity in opposition to their employer; at
the very least a ‘them and us’ outlook. Identifying as a group, allows workers to consider
any challenge to their employer from a collective, rather than individual standpoint.
For mobilisation theory, acquiring a collective consciousness is not a psychological
process located within the brain of an individual; it is a process developed by social
interaction with others (often during struggle), to be understood from a sociological
perspective (Fantasia, 1988). In an industrial relations context, the important social
interactions are discussions between fellow workers and arguments with management,
often initiated by workplace ‘leaders’ or activists; what McAdam (1988) describes
as ‘micro-mobilisations’. By framing issues in a particular fashion and fostering a
collective mindset among workers, activists are seen as playing an important role in
the process of worker mobilisation (Fantasia, 1988; Klandermans, 1997; Gramsci,
2007; McAlevey, 2016).
Klandermans (1997) argues that while ‘consensus mobilisation’ may explain
the struggle for the mind (turning people into sympathisers for a cause); ‘action
mobilisation’ is needed to turn sympathisers into active participants. Trade unions are
the usual organisational vehicle. Mobilisation theory suggests that the outcome of any
particular union mobilisation campaign is not determined solely by the actions of the
workers and union officials; employers can have a significant effect on the likelihood of
collective action. Workers consider the potential cost to themselves of participating in
collective action (McAdam, 1988; Kelly, 1998; Moore, 2004; Murphy, 2016). Financial
costs, possible dismissal and impact on career prospects or fear of arrest can also have
potential dampening effects on participation in collective mobilisation; thus the theory
predicts a counter mobilisation (Klandermans, 1997; Kelly, 1998; Murphy, 2016).

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Building sites
Mobilisation theory initially appealed to me, because it seemed to accurately correspond
with my experience as a union activist working on building sites. I had quickly learnt
that workers didn’t participate in industrial action just because they were treated badly.
Engaged by a sub-contractor on short-term contracts or on a bogus self-employed
basis and with little statutory employment protection, construction workers are often
treated like crap. But with only 7 per cent union density in the sector (LFS, 2020),
I found that rather than go on strike, workers are much more likely to just pick up
their tools to look for another start. If their financial situation is tight, they might,
alternatively, fatalistically accept their situation. Yet despite the very real difficulties for
union organising and long periods of apparent industrial calm, the sector is sporadically
punctuated by outburst of explosive industrial action, almost always unofficial and led
by ad-hoc rank and file networks rather than the official unions.
From my experience of standing beside construction workers on impromptu
picketlines or ‘cabining up’ in the site canteen, it seemed clear to me that collective
action didn’t simply occur because conditions reached a point where workers couldn’t
take it any more: there was more to it than that. I’ve worked on jobs where conditions
were from the dark ages and toilet facilities were non-existent, but when work was
scarce everyone kept their heads down, even if out of the earshot of management
they moaned a lot. Workers rarely needed convincing that they were suffering an
injustice, and that the firm they were working for was to blame. Their own lived
experience hammered this message home to them every working day.
From my perspective, what was stopping workers from taking some form of
industrial action, was the lack of belief that anything they could do would make
a material difference to the situation. Everyone working on a building site knows
the firm can sack you on the spot or ring up the employment agency and get you
removed from site at a moment’s notice. ‘Self-employed’ and agency workers cannot
win a claim for unfair dismissal. Yet as workers, we were also reliant on the very same
employers to pay our rent and feed our families.
What was needed for collective action to occur was for a group of workers to believe
that by working together, they could overcome the huge power imbalance between
themselves and their employer to win a pay rise or better safety conditions. Yet just as
mobilisation theory argues, this collective consciousness does not somehow fall from
the sky, especially so in a sector where supposedly ‘self-employed’ workers change
contracts every few months. In my experience, a collective belief developed through
the concerted effort of individuals, or groups of activists, talking to their co-workers
and on occasion visibly confronting the boss. Sometimes this was a process of gradual
drip feeding over time, on many occasions it was much more abrupt. A bricklayer I
campaigned alongside recalled how being vocal on an issue as seemingly insignificant
as the lack of tea-making facilities, helped muster support on a site near Ipswich:

‘This cup of tea became a totemic issue about where you stood. If you’d
just arrive on site, I’d talk to you saying “we’re entitled to a tea break, half an
hour and they’re supposed to provide tea making facilities and an oven, this
is just basic things”. Gradually we’d develop a climate of opinion that the
management would get to be in a fragile position. Over time, you’d have to
weigh up the balance of forces.At the tea break stage, I wouldn’t be the steward,
but then if a foreman sticks his head into the canteen and says, “what’s going

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on?” I’d say, “what about this tea break, we can’t work without a cup of tea”
and then cos we were all sitting in the canteen it became a show of opinion.’

This simple example, no doubt repeated countless times on building sites around the
globe, explains how by framing a workplace grievance from a particular perspective,
a small number of workplace leaders (whether in the union or not) can be crucial in
fostering a shared ‘us and them’ outlook among their co-workers. It is an example
of the ‘micro-mobilisations’ described by McAdam (1988).

Mobilisation theory and trade union education

Looking back, another reason why I embraced mobilisation theory so readily was
probably because I became a TUC tutor in 2001. This was around the time of the
‘turn to organising’ among UK unions and just after the establishment of the TUC
Organising Academy (Simms and Holgate, 2010). What was being taught on union
training courses was being rewritten to place greater emphasis on union organising
and much of the new teaching materials had clearly been influenced by mobilisation
theory and I soon discovered a shared interest in the approach among fellow tutors.
I have taught an ‘Anger–Hope–Action’ version of mobilisation theory on numerous
TUC courses, and this abridged version is now widely used on union training courses
in the UK (UCU, 2015; UNISON, 2017; PCSU, 2020). It is used to help new reps
develop an organising approach and to identify issues that are more likely to encourage
the active involvement of their members in tackling workplace problems. In some
courses this is done as a literal tick box exercise, but it still works.
Little and McDowell (2017) indicate that the National Union of Teachers (NUT) reps’
training programme was explicitly rewritten to ‘mirror the five stages drawn from John
Kelly’s application of mobilisation theory to industrial relations’ (Little and McDowell,
2017: 189), and present the process of union mobilisation in a flowchart, thus:

‘Five NUT steps to mobilisation. Drawn from Kelly’s mobilisation theory’

A sense of injustice

Injustice is attributable to someone

Members are confident that collective

action will have an impact

There exists an organisation to

challenge injustice

The existence of local leaders

(Little and McDowell 2017: 190)

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Academic activist
Gall and Holgate (2018) identify a new generation of left-wing academics with
previous union experience who have championed mobilisation theory. I was one
of these people. I wrote and taught union education courses that used the Anger–
Hope–Action template and spoke at labour movement meetings about Kelly’s theory.
On reflection, I was probably rather too comfortable in my support. Then within
a few years, two unexpected events happened that changed the course of my life
and my relationship with mobilisation concepts: the building industry blacklist was
discovered, and I started my PhD.
The blacklisting of union activists in construction by the UK’s largest contractors
with collusion by the police is now widely reported (Smith and Chamberlain,
2016), I do not intend to retell the story here. What is relevant for this article is that
in 2009, I was elected as the secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, the justice
campaign for workers unlawfully kept under surveillance by the Economic League,
the Consulting Association, and UK’s undercover political police. Over the next few
years, the Blacklist Support Group campaigning resulted in new statutory legislation,
test cases at the European Court of Human Rights, record compensation in the
High Court, but also direct action, high-profile industrial disputes and protests. The
campaign successfully mobilised tens of thousands of people who were not themselves
blacklisted to participate in action in support of our cause.
Not only was I a central figure in the campaign, alongside the investigative journalist
Phil Chamberlain, I also started to document the experiences of my fellow blacklisted
workers. It was at this time that my supervisor suggested that my interviews with some
of the leading industrial militants of the past three generations, could be used not just to
tell their story, but to test and critique mobilisation theory. Their collective experience
of being blacklisted and their atypical rank and file model of union organising moulded
by a hostile employment relations landscape, would form the basis of my doctoral
thesis. From this point on I was transformed into an ‘academic activist’ (Chatterton et
al, 2007) in the tradition of being engaged in participatory action research (Brook and
Darlington, 2013) and public sociology (Mills, 1959; Burawoy, 2005). Unapologetically,
my activism and academic research became completely intertwined.
The original working title of my PhD was ‘Union mobilisation and employers’
counter-mobilisation in the UK construction industry’. I was researching the
organising techniques of rank and file union activists who led successful mobilisations
of supposedly ‘self-employed’ and sometimes even non-union workers; but I was just
as interested in the methods used by the major employers to suppress this unofficial
industrial action.
I re-read Kelly’s Rethinking Industrial Relations plus various academic articles suggested
by my supervisors. Almost straight away, primarily to clarify my own understanding,
I wrote a 10,000 word, ‘Idiots guide to mobilisation theory’. Looking back on it, the
title was fitting. Reading it again in preparation for this article, I’m slightly embarrassed
by it, but a doctorate is intended as a time to question theoretical assumptions, and
I had six years of research and self-reflection to sharpen both my analysis, and my
own activism. The first thing that came as quite a shock to me was that not everyone
agreed with Kelly’s presentation of the process of collective mobilisation. I was and
remain a union activist and a trade union tutor; although I had read Kelly, I had no
understanding of the radical critiques of mobilisation theory, especially the ‘structure
versus human agency’ and the overlapping ‘organisation versus spontaneity’ debates.

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Structure versus agency

While advocates of mobilisation theory have praised it for bringing worker agency
into the spotlight of employment relations research (Darlington, 2002; 2006; 2018;
Moore, 2004), it is also criticised for understating the structural factors that shape
workers’ resistance (Fairbrother, 2003; Cohen, 2009; Atzeni, 2009). Both Fairbrother
(2003) and Atzeni (2009) argue that the inherent exploitative nature of capitalism
inevitably leads to explosions of workers’ anger. They suggest that concentrating
more on structural factors allows for assessment of the likelihood or otherwise of
industrial action. Fairbrother (2003) goes as far as criticising Kelly’s mobilisation
theory for being ‘vanguardist’, as opposed to being based upon class structure or
workplace relationships.
Atzeni (2009; 2014) suggests that mobilisation theory fails to take account of
supposedly spontaneous action and that worker mobilisation can take place without
the need for any ‘organisation’ or ‘leaders’, arguing that ‘a more structurally grounded
conceptualisation is needed’ (Atzeni, 2009: 15). This shared viewpoint places objective
factors at the centre of research and appears to relegate the role of human agency to a
marginal consideration: when the stars of the structural factors align, collective worker
mobilisation will happen without the need for any form of conscious leadership or
organisation.
Taking a position, diametrically opposed to the overtly structuralist approach
advocated by Fairbrother and Atzeni, Darlington suggests that industrial relations
researchers may have actually deliberately underplayed the role of union activists in
their findings as a political response to the ‘agitator theory of strikes’ regularly put
forward in the media and by right-wing politicians. Claiming that while agitator
theory is a distortion of reality, it contains a grain of truth because ‘workplace militancy
is usually far from spontaneous and unorganized. There is always conscious leadership’
(Darlington, 2006: 502). Darlington argues that there is a dynamic interplay between
structural factors and human agency that leads to collective industrial action: even if
activists do not create the material conditions that cause industrial unrest, they act as
a contributory catalyst. My experience as a union activist and researcher on London
building sites shaped my analysis.

Knocked
One of the common causes of industrial disputes in construction, and one which
helped shape my analysis of mobilisation theory, is non-payment of wages, commonly
known as being ‘knocked’. Workers are often knocked for two or three weeks’ pay
by a sub-contractor for whom they’ve only recently started working. All workers
instinctively view being knocked as an ‘injustice’. Unpaid wages tend to have that
effect. Yet even in those circumstances, workers often appear unsure how to proceed,
often from fear of upsetting the main contractor on the project. Instead, they often
individually turn up to site, trying to appeal to the better nature of the site manager,
who invariably can’t do anything for them. In my experience, what was needed for
collective action to occur was for someone to gather the workers together as a group
and say, ‘Look, we’ve all been knocked, we all deserve to be paid, if we blockade
the main entrance and stop materials coming onto the job, that’ll make them talk
to us. But that will only work if we do it together.’ On more than one occasion, I
have been the individual who gathered workers together and made that small speech.

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Figure 1: McAdam’s (1988) model of mobilisation theory – taken from Kelly (1998)

Assertion of
rights

Breach of
existing rules

Social Social attribution

Perceived injustice identification

Breach of Collective action Cost-benefit

consensual calculations
social values

Personal efficacy

No ballots for industrial action, no submitting a collective grievance, just ‘who’s

prepared to help stop the concrete wagons?’ It was that stark. If we agreed to act
collectively by stopping deliveries getting onto site, we almost always managed to
cause enough disruption that a settlement payment was negotiated relatively quickly.
The person who called everyone together didn’t need to be an officially accredited
steward or trained in union organising, in fact they very rarely were, but someone
needed to take a lead and the action did need to be organised. Kelly’s explanation
of how and why collective worker mobilisation took place completely chimed with
my own experience on building sites. Although immediate individual responses such
as violence or theft were common, the idea that a collective response by workers
would spontaneously occur in such circumstances without some form of leadership
or organisation still seems fanciful.
Given that the union activists I interviewed for my PhD were people I had stood
alongside on picket lines and campaigned with against blacklisting, it is hardly
surprising that we had similar experiences and a shared outlook regarding union
organising. A carpenter and shop steward from Hull, active throughout the 1980s
and 1990s voiced a widely-shared opinion:

‘Industrial action always occurred from how badly workers were treated,
there is no doubt about that in my mind… but in my view it all depends
on how strong you are at convincing workers. I found out very quickly you
had to step up and be a leader to get things done.’

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Figure 2: Tilly’s (1978) mobilisation theory model – taken from Kelly (1998)

Organization Interest

Mobilization

Repression/
facilitation

Opportunity/
Power
threat

Collective
action

There are literally thousands of construction projects across the UK where workers
are being treated appallingly, but only a small number of building sites ever witness
any form of collective action. The difference is not the underlying conditions, but
the presence or absence of someone prepared to organise the action. The evidence
from my academic research only reinforced my own assessment based upon practical
experience as a union activist that while structural factors may explain the most
likely form of worker mobilisation, specific instances of industrial action are heavily
dependent upon human agency (Kelly, 1998; Moore, 2004; Darlington, 2006).
Structural factors and human agency are not alternative explanations for worker
mobilisation: for collective action to take place both are required.

Counter-mobilisation
Collective worker mobilisation is the frontline of the class struggle between labour
and capital, and it is important to keep in mind that there are two sides involved. Both
academic knowledge (theory) and union organising (practice) can fall short when
there is a lack of appreciation of employers’ malign, and often deliberately hidden,
counter-mobilisation strategies. Yet even radical employment relations scholars, union

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organising strategists and union tutors can all be guilty of understating the role of
counter-mobilisation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you want to
look at it, my campaigning on the issue of blacklisting meant that employers’ counter-
mobilisation was always at the forefront of my mind. Although mobilisation theory
predicts a counter-mobilisation, my doctoral research put me in a position where I
needed to explain blacklisting in a theoretical framework. It was while attempting to
position the collective experience of blacklisted union activists within mobilisation
theory, that I returned to the ‘agency versus structure’ debate.
In many respects, blacklisting in construction could credibly be presented to
support a structuralist view of employment relations. The Economic League and The
Consulting Association were organisations with employees, premises, constitutions,
management structures, subscription fees and regular meetings. Police units expressly
set up to spy on union activists routinely supplied information to the blacklisting
companies. Blacklisting in construction is systematic: integral to companies’ internal
recruitment procedures. The process of blacklisting continued for decades, regardless
of changes to personnel in senior positions within the corporate hierarchy. Blacklisting
may be covert and unlawful, but for decades it has been a central part of the pre-
existing industrial relations landscape in which trade unions are operating. It could
reasonably be argued that this is almost the definition of structure.
Yet, it is equally possible to view blacklisting as a result of human agency.
Construction companies, whether SMEs or multinational corporations are not
decision- making entities in their own right, to view them as such is the ‘reification’
warned of by Hyman (1975). Instead, decisions are actually made by individuals or
small groups of people in senior positions within the corporate structures and the
police. Individual managers attended Consulting Association meetings; whether
or not to employ a worker whose name is flagged up during a blacklist check is a
judgement call made by human beings not automatons incapable of reflective thought.
When undercover police officers infiltrate trade unions, senior officers approve that
covert strategy.
To explain the actions of the senior executives who operated the blacklist purely
as a function of their corporate role is bordering on determinism. Keat and Urry
(2011: 193) argue that while a structuralist view can provide an explanation of macro
effects, it is less effective at explaining micro events. A wholly structuralist approach
also has the effect of absolving those who carried out blacklisting of any responsibility.
Over many decades, a stratum of senior executives in major construction companies
and senior officers in the police had a choice, and they chose to covertly blacklist
union activists.
Moreover, activists did apportion blame to particular key individuals, both in their
on-site propaganda and during interviews for my thesis. The Blacklist Support Group
repeatedly ‘named and shamed’ leading figures in the blacklisting operation in press
releases and by producing ‘Blacklisting Wretch’ posters of individuals such as Cullum
McAlpine, which were printed and distributed on building sites and shared on social
media. In the case of Gerry Harvey, the poster was widely circulated among Balfour
Beatty workers via text messages and WhatsApp groups whenever the HR director
attended various Crossrail sites during periods of industrial unrest. This also appears
to be an example of how activists frame an issue and attribute blame, another feature
highlighted by mobilisation theory.

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A theory of stages?
Another aspect of mobilisation theory that blacklisting forced me to reconsider is the
way the process of collective action is presented in a sequential manner. While Kelly
does not use the terminology ‘stage’ or ‘step’ anywhere within Rethinking Industrial
Relations, he does reprint flowcharts from McAdam (1988) and Tilly (1978). While
not being purely linear, Tilly’s and McAdam’s flowcharts both unambiguously
indicate a direction of travel, starting with an injustice (or interest) and ending with
collective action. It is therefore difficult to view the various components within the
flowcharts as anything other than a progression route towards the final destination
of collective action.
When writing my ‘Idiots guide’, I was particularly keen to devise a flow chart
of my own. Having been used to using the Anger–Hope–Action version of Kelly’s
theory that is commonly taught on union training courses, my initial attempt at a
flowchart looked as in Figure 3.
It was at the very moment when drawing this flawed flowchart, that the penny
dropped in my brain. That is not how employers’ counter-mobilisation in the
construction industry works. My search to explain the phenomenon in a flowchart
gives the impression that counter-mobilisation is a response by employers to workers’
mobilisation, when in reality the anti-union blacklist has been in operation decades
before many of the new generation of union activists whom I interviewed were
even born.
The flaw in my flowchart is not merely about where to position employers’
counter-mobilisation in relation to collective action by workers. It highlighted the
difficulties of presenting collective mobilisation by workers in a step-by-step sequential
manner. It is not necessary to accept a mechanistic approach (commonly used in
trade union education courses) to acknowledge that a general direction of flow is
fundamental to mobilisation theory. Unfortunately, the presentation of employer
counter-mobilisation as a downstream response to union activity is common in the
academic literature. An example is Kelly and Badigannavar’s (2004) study of a union
recognition campaign in Amazon. The company’s counter-mobilisation is repeatedly
depicted 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
and Badigannavar, 2004: 48).
The implication is that counter-mobilisation by Amazon (one of the world’s most
high profile anti-union companies) was only activated once unionisation attempts
had been initiated.
Alternatively, Logan (2006; 2013) highlights that employer counter-mobilisation
activities in the US are often anticipatory in nature, arguing that hostility by employers
engaging aggressive (and often unlawful) anti-union busting experts, combined
with weak legal protection ‘is the single major cause’ of the demise of trade union

Figure 3: Flawed flowchart from my ‘Idiots guide to mobilisation theory’

ANGER HOPE ACTION COUNTER-MOBILISATION

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influence (2013: 21). Dundon and Gall (2013) also suggest that hostile anti-unionism
can be against a hypothetical as much as an actual threat of unionisation. In relation
to employers’ covert surveillance of activists (a theme close to my heart due to my
experience of blacklisting) Lubbers convincingly argues that such activities are not a
response to specific campaigns; rather, a pre-existing surveillance apparatus is often in
place: ‘Corporate spying and infiltration should not be considered as just another set
of counterstrategies… Spying precedes the development of corporate counterstrategy’
(Lubbers, 2012: 9).
Such observations changed how I perceived mobilisation theory and made me
reconsider the sequential way in which it is widely presented. Collective worker
mobilisation is a dialectical, often contradictory process with fluid interplay between
structure and agency, between mobilisation and counter-mobilisation, between labour
and capital. Every instance of collective mobilisation does not start from ground zero,
requiring every stage to be rerun anew. The work process plus historical mobilisations
may have already built a sense of collective consciousness among the workforce
(Batstone et al, 1977; Beynon, 1984; Moore, 2004; 2006; Atzeni, 2009) and led
to long standing counter-mobilisation mechanisms being established by employers
(Lubbers, 2012; Smith and Chamberlain, 2016).
A more explicitly dialectical presentation of the mobilisation process allows a more
rounded understanding of the phenomenon and provides nuance. A question that
I am still grappling with, is whether the ‘step-by-step’ way of explaining collective
action by workers is a fault of mobilisation theory or a problem with the way in
which it is presented? At present, I am of the opinion that the fault lies with the
presentation. All sociological theories that seek to explain processes involving human
beings are by their very nature a generalisation and simplification of a more complex
real-world phenomenon. They identify key components of a process and allow for a
better understanding: mobilisation theory is the same. However, using flowcharts or
metaphors to explain a complex dialectical process can often be a simplification too far.

End thoughts
When approached by the editors to write ‘Theory into Practice’, I was told that it should
involve self-reflection and an explanation of how my practice as a union activist and
educator informed, or was informed by, understanding of theory. I found the task
more difficult than I first imagined. Since becoming aware of mobilisation theory,
my role in the blacklisting campaign has meant taking personal responsibility for
organising protests, producing agitational materials, writing press releases, speaking
to workers at union meetings and picketlines. My role as a trade union educator saw
me writing and delivering union training courses where mobilisation theory either
underscores the materials or is taught explicitly. To what extent my messaging was
consciously infuenced by the approach, or whether mobilisation theory was accurately
reflecting my pre-existing mode of activism is still uncertain to me. As my activism
and research overlap so extensively, it is probably a combination of the two.
In a very practical teaching setting, I try to avoid using the Anger–Hope–Action
flowchart on training courses as much as possible nowadays, prefering to explain the
different components of mobilisation theory and then asking reps to discuss their
thoughts on the debated aspects, such as ‘leadership versus spontaneity’. During the
COVID-19 lockdown, I have worked with the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) to develop

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a new training course for their experienced lay officials: ‘Understanding Industrial
Relations’ is part trade union history and part employment relations, covering a wide
range of topics including colonialism, hegemony, Chartism, syndicalism and union
organising. The activity on mobilisation theory on the last week of the course has
repeatedly been the session which generates the most debate. During feedback, one
FBU brigade official described the discussion as ‘the most important and relevant
part of the entire course’. The perspective clearly continues to appeal to union
representatives and rank and file activists as well as to academics, as it both reflects
and reshapes practice (including my own).

Conflict of interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

References
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Atzeni, M. (2014) Workers and Labour in a Globalised Capitalism: Contemporary Themes
and Theoretical Issues, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
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