4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

Log In (/user/login)

(/)

HOME (/) ABOUT (/ABOUT) DONATE (/DONATE) STORE (/STORE)

EVENTS (/EVENTS) ARCHIVES (/ARCHIVES)

How Unions Can Lay the Ground for CONFERENCE

the Next Upsurge COUNTDOWN
October 15, 2020 / Mark Meinster enlarge or shrink text 10:03:08:47
login (/user?destination=2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge) or register
Days Hrs Mins Secs

(/user/register?destination=2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge) to

comment
MOST POPULAR
1286 403 Like 1.4K Strike Threat
Wins in
Post a Comment Confrontation
over Remote
Work
(/2024/03/strike-
threat-wins-
confrontation-
over-remote-
work)

Our Class Has No

Borders: Why the
UAW Is Standing
Up with Mexican
Auto Workers
(/2024/03/our-
class-has-no-
There are all kinds of moments in history where the right combination of forces could have
moved in a way that caused an upsurge. Photos (clockwise from top left): Joe Brusky, United
borders-why-uaw-
Electrical Workers, Joe Brusky, Jim West, jimwestphoto.com (https://www.jimwestphoto.com). standing-
mexican-auto-
workers)
I started in the labor movement in the mid-90s, when the fall in union
density from 23 percent of the workforce in 1980 to 15 percent in 1994 Steward’s Corner:
'There Aren’t
had created a crisis at the top. In response, the “New Voices” slate
Enough of Us’
(https://portside.org/2015-05-08/just-whisper-now-look-back-afl-cio-new-
(/2024/02/stewards-
voice-after-20-years) led by the Service Employees’ John Sweeney corner-there-
defeated heir apparent Thomas Donahue in the first contested election in arent-enough-us)
AFL-CIO history.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 1/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

The incoming team were evangelists for organizing UE Demand for

(https://againstthecurrent.org/atc067/p801/). They argued for applying to Ceasefire Was
the entire labor movement the militant tactics of campaigns like the Built on Decades
of Membership
Service Employees’ (SEIU’s) (https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/12/aramark-
Education and
georgetown-university/) Justice for Janitors Debate
(https://stansburyforum.com/2015/05/13/justice-for-janitors-a- (/blogs/2024/03/ue-
misunderstood-success) and the organizing methodology popularized by demand-
the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute ceasefire-was-
(https://aflcio.org/about/programs/organizing-institute). built-decades-
membership-
education-and-
The idea that unions needed to organize new shops in order to survive
debate)
became universally accepted. Several large campaigns were launched;
unions hired hundreds of recent college graduates to staff them, and
codified a specific methodology for organizing. LABOR NOTES
Since 1979, Labor
Many of these tactics (and certainly their essence) had been around
Notes has been the
since the dawn of the labor movement, but in the 1990s they were voice of union
polished, distilled, and disseminated widely among a growing corps of activists who want to
“professional” union organizers. put the movement
back in the labor
This detailed and methodical practice—the structured organizing movement. »
conversation, house visits, hard inoculation, workplace mapping, careful
assessments of support with numerical ranking of workers, building large GET EMAIL UPDATES
and representative organizing committees—has proven incredibly » (/EMAIL-SIGNUP)
effective (when properly applied) in uniting workplace majorities to win a
union in the face of intense employer opposition.

UNIONS GROW IN SPURTS

It seemed to many (or at least to me) that training more people in good (/store)
organizing tactics would only lead to positive outcomes for unions. And it
did, to a degree. Membership has grown slightly in a few unions with
more aggressive organizing programs, particularly in health care.
SUBSCRIBE!
But we’ve seen no overall growth in union density, the percentage of the Labor news from
labor force that belongs to a union—today just one in 10 workers overall, labor's point of view.
$30 for 12 issues. »
and in the private sector, 6.2 percent.

The problem is that even great tactics can’t overcome the social, political, SUBSCRIBE NOW »
and economic forces of capitalism, which combine to make organizing a (/STORE/LABOR-
gigantic challenge. In a free-market system, employers are under intense NOTES-
competitive pressure to resist workers’ demands—there’s no generous
SUBSCRIPTION)
“high road” for them to take; they won’t willingly give in to a union drive.
And employers are compelled to come together as a class to exert power
over the government, passing laws and using the courts to challenge
unions on all fronts.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 2/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

In addition, organizing tactics are labor-intensive. In a model where paid

staff do the lion’s share, they are expensive. And they were crafted to do
something that labor history shows has rarely if ever been done: grow
unions incrementally, outside of an upsurge.

Rather, as shown by authors like Dan Clawson in his 2003 book The (https://secure.actblue.com/donate/labornote
Next Upsurge (https://www.labornotes.org/2003/08/labor-edge-new-
upsurge), unions tend to grow in spurts, as part of working-class
uprisings that pose a deep challenge to the powers that be.

The upsurges in the private sector from 1934 to 1939, when the CIO
organized industry-wide, with sitdowns when necessary, and the AFL
tried to catch up, and in the public sector from 1962 to 1972, when a
wave of illegal strikes (http://www.igpub.com/strike-back-2/) established
the right to bargain (https://labornotes.org/2014/06/inspiration-look- (https://labornotes.org/coronavirus)

history-public-worker-strikes), were rooted in militant worker action. The

system began to lose legitimacy and workers got a sense of their
collective power. Similar dynamics played out during the 1897-1904
upsurge in the U.S., 1910-1914 and 1933-1940 in the U.K., in France
1935-1937, in Italy in the early 1970s, in Brazil in 1978-1979, in South
Africa 1982-1985, and in Korea in 1987.

During an upsurge, new possibilities emerge: what was inconceivable

yesterday is suddenly possible today.

As the system seeks to stabilize in response, reforms become possible

that allow unions to grow and consolidate. For a period after the upsurge,
union membership may stay constant or even grow. Inevitably, though, at
some point post-upsurge, membership begins to decline as employers
resume their attacks.

Organizing between upsurges can produce incremental growth for some

unions at some points, or at least slow the decline. But it doesn’t lead to
substantial increases in overall union density.

SEIU, for example, grew by 183 percent during the 1934-1939 upsurge.
In contrast, it grew by around 8 percent from 2009 to 2019 despite
spending a large portion of its budget on organizing. The structural
challenges facing unions are such that only the big numbers brought in
through an upsurge can move density rates by double digits.

WHAT COULD’VE BEEN

What does this mean for our organizing strategy? While many strategists
have studied the conditions leading to an upsurge, most would agree that
they are difficult to predict and even more difficult to manufacture.
However, it’s also true that before and during each upsurge, union
militants took specific actions that helped to spark, build, and sustain it.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 3/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

There are all kinds of moments in history where the right combination of
forces could have moved in a way that caused an upsurge, but didn’t.
Even in the past 20 years there have been such moments. On March 10,
2006, a half-million immigrants took to the streets of Chicago to protest a
proposed anti-immigrant law, shutting down hundreds of workplaces.
Soon millions of people across the country
(https://labornotes.org/2006/05/millions-march-immigrant-rights-virtual-
strike-some-cities) flowed into the streets too.

Like most protest movements, these so-called “mega-marches”

eventually dissipated (though it took a few years). But what if a network
of activists, rooted both in workplaces and in the struggle for immigrants’
rights, had been able to use the momentum of the walkouts to sustain
those strikes for economic or political demands?

What if organizers in strategic workplaces throughout the country had

started to spread the strike movement to other sections of the working
class? What if the march participants had had a map of the logistics
chokepoints in Chicago and decided to disrupt commerce? What if
insurgent teacher unionists had joined the effort? Who knows what could
have happened?

The financial crisis in 2008, Occupy (https://labornotes.org/2011/11/what-

can-unions-learn-occupy-movement) and the mass worker pushback in
Wisconsin in 2011
(https://monthlyreview.org/product/wisconsin_uprising/), the Red for Ed
strike wave (https://www.versobooks.com/books/2955-red-state-revolt) in
2018-2019, and the uprisings for Black lives this year all presented
similar opportunities. And the people in the streets during those events?
Few of them got there because they’d had a structured conversation with
an organizer.

The point is that moments like this come and go all the time, historically
speaking—but they aren’t sustained and multiplied, because the forces
aren’t aligned to make that happen.

SPARK INTO AN INFERNO

Working-class upsurges often happen in the context of deep changes in
society as a whole, such as abrupt and widespread economic dislocation,
a profound loss of legitimacy by ruling elites, or abnormal political
instability. Many of the factors contributing to an upsurge are not under
our control, but some are. If we’re ready at these moments, we can turn a
dust-up into a strike, one strike into several, one plant occupation into
five, into 10. And then maybe that spark turns into an inferno.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 4/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR
Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build
the Union" T-shirt. (/donate)

You never know when that moment will come. There’s no structure test
for an upsurge.

What does being “ready” mean?

While upsurges look different across times and countries, certain

common elements increase the possibility that an isolated labor struggle
will spark the sort of upsurge where unions grow dramatically. Certain of
these elements can be affected by union activists.

1. More strikes: Dramatic growth in unions is almost always linked to a

strike spike, both before and during the upsurge.

The 1934-1939 upsurge was kicked off by several large and militant
strikes, including by teamsters in Minneapolis, auto workers in Toledo,
longshoremen in San Francisco, and textile workers throughout the
South. These came after several years of bitter strikes, such as the 1931
miners’ strike throughout Appalachia and the 1933 strike at the Briggs
auto parts plant in Detroit.

The public sector organizing wave of the 1970s included hundreds of

illegal strikes, such as the postal workers’ national strike in 1970
(https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/postal-strike-1970-wildcat-rank-
and-file-unions), and the routine defiance of injunctions.

The willingness of at least part of the labor movement to take risks in the
form of sustained, militant, and sometimes illegal action appears to be a
necessary component in turning a “moment” into an upsurge.

2. Large numbers of workplace leaders ready to move: An upsurge

can’t be driven by union staff. You need politically conscious working-
class leaders who have experience in militancy (see #1) and a view that
the existing system is illegitimate.

We saw this in the 1960s and 1970s, when the civil rights, women’s, and
anti-war movements were all challenging the core of the system. Much of
this movement organizing was then reflected in the booming public
sector as rank-and-file teachers, state employees, and municipal workers
built unions.

3. Independence from the mainstream: It’s unlikely that large,

established unions will support the type of militant, risky action that
characterizes the beginning of an upsurge.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 5/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

Many union officials simply aren’t willing to run open-ended, majority

strikes, outside of rare circumstances. Others don’t want to risk legal
sanctions.

So where does organizing capacity come from in an upsurge?

Historically, three places: a) the minority of unions willing to take militant
action, b) new formations that come together during the upsurge, such as
the new CIO industrial unions in the 1930s, and c) people fighting for
profound changes in society, such as the civil rights movement of the
1960s, socialists in the 1930s, or anarchists in earlier periods.

Waging more strikes and developing thousands of new workplace

militants will take a lot of work, and at times will require exactly the type
of sophisticated organizing methods discussed earlier. But it will also
require something else: a labor movement with a class-struggle
orientation.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
What if the tactics needed to spark or fuel an upsurge aren’t the same as
those needed to win a tough private sector union election during a low
period in working-class consciousness? If they’re not, how many
potential upsurges have passed us by while we were grinding it out in
organizing efforts that only resulted in marginal gains?

What if the key to union growth isn’t simply more “smart organizing” but
an entirely different strategic approach?

While some of the tactics honed in the 1990s and 2000s had their roots
in earlier labor upsurges, they were largely divorced from a class-struggle
strategy. A string of valiantly fought but ultimately losing strikes, running
from PATCO in 1981 to the Detroit Newspapers in 1995, had convinced
many unions that the strike tactic was futile.

So union campaigners often stressed “comprehensive” strategies that

focused on developing pressure outside of the workplace: convincing
supportive politicians to pressure an employer, media campaigns
designed to impact a firm’s brand, or leveraging union pension funds to
change a company’s behavior—rather than developing worker
organization. If these strategies employed workplace militancy at all, it
was often in the service of producing “content” to be used in media
campaigns, rather than to actually affect the employer’s operations.

Within a few years, the early energy of the New Voices victory ran
headfirst into the realities of business unionism. Affiliates were interested
in growing their numbers, but less interested in taking risks. The most
ardent apostles of organizing were marginalized and eventually cast

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 6/7
4/9/24, 6:51 AM How Unions Can Lay the Ground for the Next Upsurge | Labor Notes

aside, as the whole project devolved into meaningless goal-setting. The

AFL-CIO announced a goal of 1,000,000 new members per year starting
in 2000, a number that proved well beyond its reach.

The push to organize in the 1990s-2000s never seriously challenged the

post-World War II status quo adhered to by most labor leaders, which
was cemented by the purges of the left-leaning CIO unions in 1949-1950.
Unions improved in other areas: race, gender, even foreign policy, but the
core goal to rebuild the ranks of labor ultimately washed up on the rocks
of business unionism.

Outside of the few unions with left histories, few in the labor movement at
that time spoke of alternatives to capitalism. The Democratic Socialists of
America (https://www.dsausa.org), now at 70,000 members, was then a
small organization with strong ties to mainstream labor leaders, and
Bernie Sanders was not a name on the national scene.

Unions must do what’s necessary to survive. But we need to be doing a

lot more to lay the groundwork for turning the next moment into an
upsurge.

Mark Meinster is an international representative with the United Electrical

Workers (UE).

A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes # 500

(https://labornotes.org/archives/labor-notes-500). Don't miss an issue, subscribe
today. (https://labornotes.org/store/labor-notes-subscription)

RELATED
Toyota Workers at Critical Engine Plant Launch UAW Union Drive » (/2024/03/toyota-workers-

critical-engine-plant-launch-uaw-union-drive)
Starbucks Workers Win Breakthrough Promise of Real Negotiations » (/2024/02/starbucks-

workers-win-breakthrough-promise-real-negotiations)
Book Reviews: Fighting Wall Street’s War on Workers and the Corporate BS that Protects It »

(/blogs/2024/02/book-reviews-fighting-wall-streets-war-workers-and-corporate-bs-protects-it)

CIO’s History Inspires Podcasts » (/blogs/2024/02/cios-history-inspires-podcasts)

Sticking It to Nickelodeon » (/2024/01/sticking-it-nickelodeon)

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 250-480, Brooklyn, NY 11225; (718)

284-4144 (tel:7182844144).
Labor Education and Research Project © 2005-2023.

https://labornotes.org/2020/10/how-unions-can-lay-ground-next-upsurge 7/7