Skill Building as Organizing - Power Through Servicing

Keywords: racial justice, training programs, public sector unions
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 31

Abstract

The work of unions is vital in an era of successful challenges to worker power and union struggles, coming from both corporations and the State. Unions need to work on building and sustaining power in order to challenge the current anti-worker landscape. As a structural power, unions understand the need for a collective power that can force openings and shift changes/cultures away from individuation that society forces upon the worker. Unions hold a structural position in the labor market, which is able to identify the needs of workers and structure this into union jobs, while building solidarity within the workplace. Unions oscillate between “service” and “organizing” models, but both are essential for the labor movement to thrive and for unions to further incorporate workers from precarious backgrounds. Through a study of a union-led Utility Pre-Craft Training Program, we argue that by utilizing a service as organizing approach, the union was uniquely able to to build union power while advancing a cause for workers of color. The results highlight the importance of the public sector for workers of color, the role of unions as a key labor intermediary, and the necessity of unions to utilize unique ways of organizing to strengthen the labor movement in the 21st century.