Organising outsourced workers in UK’s new trade unionism - emotions, protest, and collective identity

The tail that wags the dog: lessons from the UK's independent unions for class struggle trade unionism

“…The article proposes that in order to revitalise the trade union movement we need re-encourage a culture of fighting unionsrather than putting too much emphasis on trade union recognition and negotiations. This builds on previous writings that analysed the organising and campaign strategies of independent trade unions (Pero, 2020;Pannini, 2021, Weghmann, 2022Petrini and Wettergren, 2022). In this paper, I developed the acronym CARE (Collectivising individual grievances, Action, Relations of trust and care, Escalating confrontations) to analytically frame this approach to class struggle trade unionism and to examine in what ways these strategies have been (re)-learnt by established trade unions through the inspirations of independent trade unions.…”

“…. we ought to be becoming more in the face of management and employers (Interview 22) Building on previous writings by others that analysed the organising and campaign strategies of independent trade unions (Pero, 2020;Pannini, 2021, Weghmann, 2022Petrini and Wettergren, 2022) I use the acronym CARE (Collectivising individual grievances, Action, Relations of trust and care, Escalating confrontations) as an analytical framework for exploring class struggle trade unionism, and examine in what ways these strategies have been (re)-learnt by established trade unions through the example of independent trade unions. The CARE organising approach is not a step-by-step guide but offers a tool to frame the debate on class struggle trade unionism.…”

“…The rise of these new, independent trade unions has attracted increasing scholarly attention. Several studies examining at the successful organisation of low-paid migrant workers within independent unions in the UK have started to address a gap in the literature that has hitherto overlooked the grassroot worker initiatives outside of established trade unions (see Kirkpatrick, 2014; Moyer-Lee and Lopez, 2017; Shenker, 2019; Pero, 2020; Hardy, 2021; Gall, 2020; Cant and Woodcook, 2020; Pannini, 2021; Weghmann, 2022; Smith, 2022; Petrini and Wettergren, 2022). Understanding workers’ experiences in these new trade unions have global significance in terms of understanding the emerging phenomenon of organising outside of the traditional structures of established trade unions (Ness, 2014; Rizzo and Atzeni, 2020; Webster et al.…”

“…Petrinia and Wettergren (2022) argue that “two new grassroots unions, Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) and United Voices of the World (UVW), formed by precarious and migrant workers, are now leading the movement against outsourcing”. Such unions offer learning opportunities for established trade unions.…”

Emotion Work in Tabligh Jama’at Texts

“…While each of these factors are important for a movement's ability to engage in activism, in the past few decades, social movement scholars have researched the emotional dynamics of mobilisation (for a review of this literature, see Van-Ness and Summers-Effler 2019), exploring emotions that lead to participation (Pickard and Bessant 2018;Hu and Wu 2021;Weiss 2021;Asún et al 2022;Nikolayenko 2022;Petrini and Wettergren 2022), emotions that sustain commitment (Feigenbaum et al 2013;Ransan-Cooper et al 2018;Pirkkalainen 2021), and emotions that hinder mobilisation (Summers-Effler 2010; Østbø 2017). These studies support Jasper (1998, p. 407), who observed, early on, that emotions play a role in individuals being drawn to a particular movement, and in their subsequent decision to remain in the movement and to participate in its activities.…”