Making networks and (re)making trade union bureaucracy: a European‐wide case study of trade union engagement with the Internet and networking

Lucio, Miguel Martínez; Walker, Steve; Trevorrow, Pip

doi:10.1111/j.1468-005x.2009.00223.x

Cited by 37 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Lucio et al . ; Pulignano ), social media have the potential to enhance unions’ ability to develop a broad‐based labour movement promoting labour rights through advocacy campaigns (Panagiotopoulos ). Given the open debate and fierce competition on social media, however, only users who are able to achieve social media opinion leadership — that is, those who are able to affect the attitudes and behaviours of others online and beyond through their dissemination of information (Lin et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tweeting and Retweeting for Fight for $15: Unions as Dinosaur Opinion Leaders?

Frangi

Zhang

Hebdon

2019

Brit J Industrial Rel

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Advocacy campaigns are central to unions' efforts to impact labour rights beyond unionized workplaces. Social media and on-the-ground campaign dynamics are intimately related. Thus, if unions can become leaders on social media, they could have more impact on campaign framing and mobilizing. Drawing on primary data and applying a sequential mixed method, we analyse unions' ability to emerge as opinion leaders in Twitter dialogues on the Fight for $15 (FF$15) campaign. We track FF$15-related activities of Twitter profiles over seven months and compare union actions to those of others along three dimensions: level of activity, prevalence of tweeting versus retweeting and endorsement within FF$15 community and in the Twitter universe. Regression results show unions prefer advancing their own ideas over supporting those of others, and their messages are more endorsed than others' messages in the Twitter universe. Indepth interviews and a focus group reveal that while their actions are slow and conservative, unions can count on internal support and institutional reputation to gain leadership. The article concludes by noting the implications of the findings for unions' strategies to become opinion leaders on social media.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tweeting and Retweeting for Fight for $15: Unions as Dinosaur Opinion Leaders?

Frangi

Zhang

Hebdon

2019

Brit J Industrial Rel

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“…A major challenge in terms of skills and training based approaches (communication) for trade unions' enhancing influence at the micro-level is that these are led by sets of professionals within unions who share a common practice across borders but who lack legitimacy within trade unions and within the constituencies they are trying to affect (Martinez Lucio, Walker and Trevorrow, 2009). This has the added advantage of providing a ready-made set of individuals and professionals who understand the barriers and challenges of communication across borders and communities, and in our research their presence is not to be understated.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper claims that trade unions appear to be adopting different strategies to establish coordination and transnational alliances, setting up internationalism as "constellations of practice". Accordingly, internationalism comprises distinct national, sectoral or functional "communities of practice" (Martinez Lucio, Walker and Trevorrow, 2009) with their own specific objectives. Establishing shared practices among trade unionists from different national, linguistic, political, industrial relations and other contexts cannot simply be taken for granted, but is a complex accomplishment (Walker and Creanor, 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Globalization, Restructuring and Unions: Transnational Co-ordination and Varieties of Labour Engagement

Pulignano

Lucio

Walker

2013

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Summary This paper considers the various ways in which unions respond to transnational restructuring in their longer-term planning and at different levels of action. To this extent, it avoids simply falling into a workplace-based view of mobilizing, or a national and state level view of union lobbying and mobilizing, but instead looks at how different (multi) levels of union action develop (or otherwise) a portfolio of sustainable longer term planning approaches. More concretely, it examines the way that unions activate their learning capacity at various levels in order to develop and use coordination and networking to respond to transnational restructuring. We approach restructuring not only from the point of view of unions’ external organizational relations (employers, members, community, etc.), but also their internal organizational requirements and relations that build a more proactive union response. To reframe the context in which union coordination capability is built up, transnational restructuring should be examined. We start from a conceptual distinction between “influencing” (external) and “communication” (internal) union strategies. Specifically, four different strategies, which take place at different levels of union action, are identified and presented in the paper. They reflect different dimensions of coordination as a feature of long term union learning and preparation in relation to restructuring: (1) lobbying and campaigning to influence the macro-level regulatory environment; (2) organizing and coordinating action in relation to influencing micro-level change; (3) developing informational and learning strategies about skills and training development to prepare individuals for negotiating change at the micro-level; and (4) developing communication and exchange of information with each other to create greater levels of awareness and focus in relation to restructuring at the macro-level. Conclusions identify that the structure and content of union coordination in the context of cross-border restructuring is a complex issue that cannot be reduced to simple historical binaries of bureaucracy-activist or employer facing versus membership facing. Our findings demonstrate that coordination works across various sets of dimensions (i.e. “influencing” and “communicating”), relations (internal and external) and levels (i.e. micro and macro). Therefore, it requires complex sets of organization and agendas.

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“…It is crucial to garner and bridge our understandings of the multi-level nature of international unionism to consider the institutional, structural and agency challenges of cross-border action and international labour solidarity across the global-local dichotomy and the North-South divide (Salt et al 2000). While the internet has greatly increased opportunities for communication through email and social media, research in this area suggests that unions still have much to do to utilize the full potential of two-way participatory exchanges that can be harnessed for learning (Hodder and Houghton 2015;Martínez Lucio et al 2009). Networks and other avenues of communication and information exchange are beneficial in developing cross-border activities (Erne 2008;Hyman 2005: 150).…”

Section: Figure 1: Trade Union Pedagogy and Cross Border Action: A Frmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, although the processes of communication have improved vastly in recent years, there are still issues and communication should no longer be considered to be the saviour to all international unionism problems (Geelan and Hodder 2017). While the internet has greatly increased opportunities for communication through email and social media, research in this area suggests that unions still have much to do to utilize the full potential of two-way participatory exchanges that can be harnessed for learning (Hodder and Houghton 2015;Martínez Lucio et al 2009). Nevertheless, channels of communication are vital for helping international union institutions become 'less like bureaucracies and more like network organisations' (Hyman 2002: 11-12) and for assisting at this stage of connecting.…”

Section: Figure 1: Trade Union Pedagogy and Cross Border Action: A Frmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade union pedagogy and cross‐border action

Niforou

Hodder

2018

Global Networks

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In this article, we examine the potential of global union pedagogy to address the structural and political challenges of cross‐border trade‐union action. We do so by proposing an analytical framework that draws on labour relations, political sociology and education to explain educational processes and outcomes as responses to the pitfalls of global labour campaigns and the inadequacy of global and local labour institutions. We proceed to assess the value of our framework by elaborating on its different dimensions – framing, synthesizing, connecting and regenerating – in relation to the educational work of a global union federation, namely the International Transport Workers' Federation. We find that an actor‐centred approach that combines top–down, bottom–up as and horizontal processes of collecting knowledge from different contexts and making links between different countries, industries and parts of supply chains can help actors realize that their seemingly diverse concerns are essentially different manifestations of the same problem.

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Making networks and (re)making trade union bureaucracy: a European‐wide case study of trade union engagement with the Internet and networking

Cited by 37 publications

References 37 publications

Tweeting and Retweeting for Fight for $15: Unions as Dinosaur Opinion Leaders?

Tweeting and Retweeting for Fight for $15: Unions as Dinosaur Opinion Leaders?

Globalization, Restructuring and Unions: Transnational Co-ordination and Varieties of Labour Engagement

Trade union pedagogy and cross‐border action

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