Interesting analysis of workers centers by the Chamber of Commerce which concludes with a number of observations some of which are quoted below. It also has a very detailed account of the foundation funding of workers centers which is useful in understanding the phenomenon. The recent growth of worker centers is not so much an autonomous movement as it is a creation of progressive activist foundations and community organizations. That is true not only of the centers themselves, but of the network of supporting organizations that nurture and sustain them • Proto-unionism, if that word captures the organizing and representational efforts of worker centers, is for many of these organizations but one activity among others, and it may well be subordinated to larger objectives. • For some of these organizations, and perhaps a majority, politics is a substitute for workplace organizing. • Community organizations masquerading as proto-unions, and worker centers for whom density is defined by community support rather than by the number of workers represented, employ a traditional labor lexicon but with different meanings and applied to different realities. So, for example, a “strike” against an employer may be less a real job action than a form of protest that is actually dominated by non-workers.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 05:09:41 +0000
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