Brock University

LABR4P21
The Unique Power of Labour-Community Coalitions
Curtis Morrison

Professor: Dr. Simon Black

November 26, 2018

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Since the 1970s, the creeping tide of neoliberalism has incrementally weakened the rights

of labour unions and the workers they represent, reducing their membership, their collective

bargaining capabilities, and in general, their strength. Presented with forty years of incremental

attack, many groups in the labour movement have sought to alter their tactics to hold on to their

collective power; while industrial unionism was the magnum opus of the labour movement in its

early stages, opposing forms of organizing known as social unionism, social movement

unionism, and community unionism have evolved in the age of neoliberalism as alternative union

ideologies and structures. With these new forms of unionism come new tactics including the

labour-community coalition, an organization which brings together two or more groups from

across the proverbial progressive aisle to accomplish particular goals, share resources and ideas,

and create lasting bonds within the progressive community.

This paper will argue that this coalition building between labour unions and community

groups is a uniquely powerful form of organizing that enables both bodies to tackle issues they

could not effectively approach on their own. This power exists due to the complimentary tactics

and strengths that these groups utilize, their ability to do the necessary work of reaching both

workers and non-workers in the neoliberal era, and their equal collaboration structures for joint

decision-making and contributions to organizing efforts. In evaluating these three areas, this

paper will conclude by drawing upon North American case studies from previous literature,

particularly in the areas of retail, healthcare, childcare, and manual labor, to illuminate how these

coalitions function successfully when they are properly built.

Before introducing the arguments in favour of these coalitions, it is important to flesh out

the very definition of the term through the literature. Krinsky & Reese utilize a definition from
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prior literature, approaching labour-community coalitions as “discrete, intermittent, or

continuous joint activity in pursuit of shared or common goals between trade unions and other

non-labor institutions in civil society” (2006:625). Camou takes a similar tone, defining them as

“stable alliances of organizing-focused unions and community-based activist organizations”

(2014:624-625). Most of the definitions take similar tone to these, outlining that the coalition is

multiple organizations from across the progressive spectrum working together to achieve some

agreed-upon goal (Black 2012; Ashby 2018; Black 2018). Ashby also positions these coalitions

within the context of ‘alt-labor’, along with worker centres and other new forms of organizations

created by innovative progressive organizers.

Extending our definition to look specifically at successful labour-community coalitions, a

number of criteria for achieving positive results are given in the literature. Krinsky & Reese

stress the importance of union ideology in effective labour-community coalition-building, stating

that unions who shift towards social movement unionism have more incentive to actively

participate and encourage strong coalition-building with community groups (2006). This is likely

because community organizations can take a more radical lens than a traditional labour union,

and have a far wider focus than industrial unionism’s focus on the workplace and collective

bargaining. As Sen describes, a coalition is only worth building if it “produces more in political

action than it takes up in trouble and resources”, and coalition partners that share a number of

interests can avoid having a bland and broad coalition ideology which produces negligible

political action (Sen 2003:135). Therefore, an ideologically progressive union which embraces

social movement unionism is far more likely to seek and find common interests and goals with a

community organization, an essential factor in successful coalition-building (Dean & Rathke

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2008; Tattersall 2009). Overall, the major key to a strong coalition is starting with mutual

interests and then building upon those interests using the areas of power described in this paper’s

thesis: complimentary tactical strength, a broad reach to workers and non-workers, and a

power-sharing structure which stresses organizational equality within the group.

The first benefit that these coalitions can reap together is that labour unions and

community groups often have different strengths in organizing and tactics. While critics charge

that this weakens the ability of the coalition to agree on a tactic as one group, proponents discuss

how these tactics are actually often complementary to each other, rather than adversarial,

allowing coalitions to take on adversaries through multiple different means (Ashby 2018; Black

2018). Additionally, both community organizations and labour unions can have access to

extensive social networks, which they can utilize to empower their joint actions (Camou 2014).

One example of this came from a coalition between the Illinois AFL-CIO, the Chicago

Federation of Labour, and a group of Illinois worker centres. Before the worker centres joined

the two labour bodies, the labour bodies utilized traditional lobbying techniques to attempt to

pass new worker classification laws in the state legislature, but had trouble due to distrust

between labour unions and the race-based Hispanic and African American caucuses. However,

once the heavily-racialized membership of the worker centres got involved in lobbying, they

were able to gain the trust of these caucuses and get the law passed (Avendano & Hiett 2012).

This is indicative of how a carefully-considered division of labour within a

labour-community coalition can best utilize the greatest strengths of each involved group. Rather

than taking on short-term partnerships in which each organization performs a small task of
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solidarity on their own grounds before disbanding from the collective group, a long-term

coalition allows organizations to share and spread their resources, “expertise, contacts, and

reputation to benefit more people” (Sen 2003:135). Although the prior example focuses on how a

community used its membership base to empower the tactics of a labour organization, more

often than not it is labour unions, who have access to political, financial, and organizational

resources, deploying resources to contribute to community-led campaigns (Black 2018). In one

situation, labour organizers within a coalition organized education workshops for community

members, utilizing Freire’s technique of critical pedagogy to show workers how their situation

and experiences are inherently political and connected to the broader societal problem (Freire

2000; Avendano & Fanning 2014). This approach would be particularly effective for

encouraging those taking a seemingly non-political class to join in on the political actions of the

coalition, fulfilling some of the organizing goals of social movement unionism.

Concluding upon the discussion of coalition strengths and resources, it is apparent that

unions and community groups, when working together with mutual interests and goals in a

coalition, can contribute together in complementary fashions to empower each others tactics, and

this goes against critics who believe that labour unions have nothing to gain from contributing

resources to community groups.

The second factor that grants labour-community coalitions power in the 21st century is

the neoliberal attack on unions and workers and how this necessitates broader forms of

organizing people towards political goals outside of the workplace. Labour unions can no longer

afford to stick simply to industrial union tactics, where the focus is on gaining wins for workers

through legal collective bargaining actions. Instead, they must embrace the undeniable
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politicality of their position as the representatives of the working class, working with community

organizations to take collective action to reverse the neoliberal agenda.

Neoliberalism has displaced the impacts of the crisis of capitalism onto the working class

since the 1970s, if not even earlier (Avendano & Hiett 2012; McKinlay 2015). Through

processes of offshoring, deindustrialization, deskilling of work, exploitative free trade

agreements, anti-union campaigning and lobbying, increased cuts to welfare programs,

right-to-work laws, a trickle-down approach to economics, et cetera, neoliberal policymakers

have demolished the middle class, the welfare state, and the ability for traditional union tactics to

give workers a voice (Avendano & Hiett 2012; Avendano & Fanning 2014). Private sector union

membership has fallen to dismal levels in both Canada and the United States, and while public

sector unions in Canada maintain somewhat strong membership, they are constantly under attack

(Krinsky & Reese 2006; Avendano & Hiett 2012; Campolieti, Gunderson, & Hebdon 2018).

Defending against this neoliberal tide, it is clear that the traditional labour unions must

take on a new tack in their organizing. Black suggests that unions “must devote resources to

long-term grassroots community organizing and coalition building” in the context of 21st century

neoliberalism and the failing industrial union (Black, cited in Ashby 2018:103). Coalition

building allows labour unions to stretch the reach of their influence beyond their own

membership, reaching into the community around the workplace. This is increasingly important

under the neoliberal symptoms of high underemployment and precarious work, as those most

impacted by neoliberal policies are those who are not sheltered by a secure job in a strong union.
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In some literature, this increased reach to non-traditional non-worker communities is

described as the new essential goal for labour unions adjusting their tactics. Organizing their own

respective members is not enough to maintain union strength, and by forming labour-community

alliances they can reach out and engage all workers and non-workers (Avendano & Hiett 2012).

There is also a particular lens of immigration status and race that takes place here: community

groups are more likely to have racialized membership and members with immigrant status, and

these groups are often left behind by labour unions, especially those immigrants who are

undocumented; labour-community coalition which organize these groups can provide essential

benefits like education and secondary group identification to those who are undocumented

(Avendano & Hiett 2012; Avendano & Fanning 2014).

Within these coalitions, it is important to unions that they are able to maintain their

“authority over representing workers at the workplace”, meaning that community organizations

cannot threaten or challenge this (Krinsky & Reese 2006:653). This is because the main benefit

for labour unions to partake in coalition-building is the expansion of labour movement solidarity

and the eventual expansion of their formal membership; a community organization which

doesn’t recognize the end-goal of broadening labour’s base will struggle to cooperate with a

labour union to achieve mutual ends (Krinsky & Reese 2006; Simmons & Harding 2009). As this

paper will later discuss, community organizations also reap significant benefit from these

coalitions, and should refrain from compromising the benefits that labour unions seek by

overextending their position within the coalition into the union’s workplaces.

The third way in which labour-community coalitions maintain power is through an equal

structure of decision-making and contributions. This does not necessitate that all organizations
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within a coalition contribute the same resources to the same decisions, but rather that they all

agree upon where resources are distributed regardless of the source (Sen 2003). However, this

also doesn’t mean complete segregation of resources: all associated organizations should be

responsible for bringing some membership to the table, some social networks, some financial

power, et cetera (Sen 2003). That being said, each group has its strengths: as previously

mentioned, community groups may have more informal access to unorganized workers or

militant tactics in comparison to a union, whereas a union usually has more formal power of

financial and political means (Sen 2003; Black 2018). Establishing a cooperative and transparent

decision-making apparatus within the coalition, so that the views of each organization within are

heard, is essential to effective coalition building. One example of this was the CLEAN Carwash

Initiative in South LA, a case study which will be discussed in more detail later; this initiative

has a steering committee with representatives from multiple labour bodies and community

organizations tasked with overseeing financial resource allocation and the development of the

initiative’s projects and campaigns (Avendano & Fanning 2014).

Another aspect of a successful cooperative coalition structure is having multiple honest

evaluations of how the coalition is working throughout its organizing effort (Sen 2003). It is

essential that these evaluations include the views of all organizations within the coalition, even

those who have less organizational capacity to develop resources, in order to grasp where the

coalition can improve and how well it is including all members in organizing (Sen 2003). This

process brings additional power to a coalition in comparison to an individual union or

community group, as it allows for multiple perspectives to be heard and for organizations to
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learn from each other and innovate new organizing tactics that cross the boundaries of the

progressive spectrum.

The process also avoids situations which Nissen terms ‘vanguard coalitions’, where a

labour union with substantial resources dominates the decision-making process of the coalition,

utilizing community groups as little more than outreach vehicles with no say in strategy or

resource allocation (Black 2012:153). While Black outlines that some community groups may

not want equal decision-making power over resources, it is still important for a dialogue to be

had within the coalition to determine which members are more intent on equal participation

(2012). Overall, a decision-making structure which stresses equal partnership and conducts

frequent collaborative review of coalition actions is an important contributor to the eventual

success of a coalition’s political actions, as it gives each involved organization more reason to

‘buy in’ to coalition tactics, and fosters a more collaborative progressive community.

Tying these three major arguments into real-world scenarios, this paper will utilize four

North American case studies to illustrate how complementary tactics, broader organizational

reach, and collaborative decision-making structures have aided successful coalitions in the past.

The first such case study is that of the Retail Action Project (RAP), a worker centre based in

New York City originally created by a coalition between the Retail, Wholesale, and Department

Store Union (RWDSU) of United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the Good Old

Lower East Side (GOLES) community organization (Coulter 2013; Ikeler & Fullin 2018). RAP

tailors its organization to a particular sector of retail that is more likely to have young,

non-unionized, and precarious work, and used the GOLES identity to appear “spontaneous,

fashionable, and cool” to attract membership (Ikeler & Fullin 2018:177-8). This allows the
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coalition to rely on the constructed identity of GOLES while getting financial resources from

RWDSU and a small membership dues base (Coulter 2013:56).

In terms of covering a vast array of workers, not only does RAP focus on workers in

precarious situations, but it tactically maintains communication with former retail workers even

when they are between jobs: “workers can join the network to keep informed, attend events of

their choice, commit to being contributing members of RAP” (Coulter 2013:56). These workers

are encouraged to partake in political actions or take an organizing leadership role within the

coalition’s decision-making body, even if they were originally brought to RAP through a work

training course. New members are also introduced to union members at group events to translate

RAP membership into support for unionization, one of the core goals of the union in forming a

coalition (Coulter 2013:57). This has also empowered RAP to launch at least four successful

organizing efforts at workplaces, including the unionization of the Shoemania chain under

RWDSU and the reinstatement of 20 fired employees at another workplace (Coulter 2013:57;

Ikeler & Fullin 2018:180). In concluding on the RAP case study, it is clear that RAP has

combined the resources and tactics of both GOLES and RWDSU to form a strong long-term

labour-community coalition that benefits and plays to the organizing strengths of both groups, in

order to expand the power of the progressive labour movement.

The second case study particularly relates to the arguments of resource allocation and

division within a coalition, and how finding mutual goals to build around is a significant boon to

coalition capacity. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is one of more than 400

organizations, both labour and community-focused, involved in the Ontario Health Coalition

(OHC). The OHC includes groups from across the progressive spectrum, including “seniors’
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advocacy organizations, immigrant health centres, women’s groups, and anti-poverty

organizations” (Black 2012:153). CUPE, being the largest union in Canada, has taken a

significant role in contributing financial resources to the OHC’s organizing efforts (Tattersall

2009). One such organizing effort took place in 2002, where a campaign for healthcare

privatization greatly aligned the interests of CUPE, concerned with maintaining public sector

jobs, and the OHC, concerned with Ontarians receiving quality healthcare services (Tattersall

2009:499). While CUPE already considered itself a “left, nationalist, social union” at the time,

this alignment of interests meant that CUPE was more willing to dedicate substantial resources to

the OHC campaign against privatization (Tattersall 2009:496-7).

Unlike other unions, CUPE’s internal financial decision-making is more decentralized to

individual locals, allowing local bridge-builders between the union and the OHC to have more

sway over the dedication of financial resources (Tattersall 2009:498). This allowed better

collaborative strategizing and decision-making within the OHC, especially in later campaigns

against the privatization of hospital services where CUPE and the OHC’s community

organizations had already built a previous organizing relationship, because local leaders could

dedicate resources without relying on approval from the central office (Tattersall 2009:497).

The third case study returns to the United States, focusing on the Community, Labor,

Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Initiative in southern Los Angeles, an area

considered by some organizers to be the “major research & development center for 21st-century

unionism” (Milkman et al., cited in Avendano & Fanning 2014:110). CLEAN is a

labour-community coalition between the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers (USW), and

numerous community organizations and worker centres. As it relates to this paper’s main
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arguments, CLEAN emerged out of the neoliberal context of increasingly low-wage workplaces

employing a majority-immigrant workforce (Avendano & Fanning 2014:102).

Beginning in 2008, CLEAN has found success in organizing workers at multiple car

wash facilities into unions, as well as facilitating a new approach to comprehensive community

health in southern Los Angeles (Avendano & Fanning 2014:107-9). They have achieved this

through using the complementary tactics of community organizations and unions, including

“targeted litigation, administrative complaints, mobilizations, and public education” (Avendano

& Fanning 2014:107-8). Their public education efforts are in line with Freire’s approach,

addressing the societal problems and oppressive structures that prevent these workers from

receiving healthcare, among other human rights; via this approach, car wash workers not only

look to solve their individual healthcare problems, but take a broader societal lens to these issues

and are encouraged to take political action through CLEAN to remedy them (Avendano &

Fanning 2014). Evaluating the theoretical literature and case studies of labour-community

coalitions, this Freirean approach to worker education is an effective tactic to building

politically-active membership, and encouraging eventual unionization. This achievement would

be far more difficult without the joint contribution of union resources and community tactics.

The final case study focuses on a campaign in Toronto, Ontario, to cease the privatization

of a city-run child care centre, and greatly informs how coalition partners can take greatly

different contribution roles but still achieve success through political action. In this case, the

previously-discussed CUPE aligned with organizationally-strong parent groups, feminist

organizations, and child care advocates to fight against privatization (Black 2018). However,

instead of being a vocal and visible coalition partner, the union took the role as an
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‘unacknowledged legislator’, providing financial, organizational, and political resources but

stepping back and allowing community organizers to be the face of the campaign (Black

2018:119). This was a political decision made by all members of the temporary coalition: while

unions have tenuous trust with the public at best, child care advocates and parents are seen

overwhelmingly positively and were a far better choice to act as the campaign’s public voice.

Even in their published literature and demands, the union agreed to not include any rhetoric

regarding “union jobs”; instead, messaging was focused on how privatization and cuts would

reduce spending and spaces in child care facilities, and how this would hurt parents (Black

2018:126).

Due to this cooperative facilitation of the union’s resource-contribution role by the

members of the coalition, the group succeeded in preventing the privatization of these centres.

However, as Black explains, a similar campaign in the nearby Peel Region failed due to a

“different structure of political opportunities” in which “labour-community ties were

undeveloped” and fewer community allies existed to aid in coalition building (Black 2018:119).

It is important to reflect upon the criteria for labour-community coalition success as argued in

this paper by recognizing the substantial role that context can play, and by stressing that

labour-community coalitions should ideally be built to be long-term, to avoid weak

labour-community ties in the future. This means only investing effort into coalitions with allies

who are aligned not only on one conveniently-mutual issue, but on the very basis of progressive

ideology itself.

Labour-community coalitions have a unique power in 21st-century organizing, offered by

their broad and complementary array of potential tactics, their ability for their organizing to
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reach beyond only workers and the workplace, and the ways in which they include all

organizations in effective decision-making and contributing to campaign efforts. As indicated by

the examples of RAP, OHC, and CLEAN, as well as the public child care campaign in Toronto,

these coalitions are most effective when partners are transparent in what they can offer the

coalition, and when the coalition plays to the strengths of their members in order to build broad

support in their communities. With an eye for innovation, a focus on fairness, and a shared

ideology, labour-community coalitions are the new source of power for progressive change.
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