OUR Walmart: a case study of connective action

Caraway, Brett

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2015.1064464

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Initially supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, OUR does not engage in formal collective bargaining, operate using traditional delegate structures or collect formal dues. Its leadership, deliberation and activist activity are overwhelmingly network‐led (Caraway, 2016). The union which adapted the chatbot for use in Australia, UWU, by contrast is one of Australia’s largest unions and represents over 150,000 members in a broad range of service occupations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can unions use Artificial Intelligence to build power? The use of AI chatbots for labour organising in the US and Australia

Flanagan¹,

Walker²

2020

New Technol Work Employ

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Artificial intelligence increasingly forms an essential context for the distribution of power within workplaces. Using the case study of an AI‐enabled chatbot initially created by IBM and subsequently developed by an alt‐labour network in the United States and a traditional union in Australia, this article outlines several distinctive ways in which the chatbot increased union resources and capabilities. Once reconfigured to reflect an ‘organising’, rather than ‘servicing’ ethos, the chatbot became an infrastructural resource that enabled otherwise marginal workers to receive basic information in a manner that reinforced union narratives of power and worker solidarity, and workplaces to be mapped more efficiently. The chatbot did not act as a labour saving tool, but stimulated wide‐ranging learning by bringing implicit tensions between ‘servicing’ and ‘organising’ conceptions of knowledge, power and expertise to the surface. Chatbots thus offer distinctive potential affordances to unions in enhancing their resources and capabilities as ‘orchestrators’ of worker power.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can unions use Artificial Intelligence to build power? The use of AI chatbots for labour organising in the US and Australia

Flanagan¹,

Walker²

2020

New Technol Work Employ

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“…In connective action, digital media facilitates communication and networks between individuals who may have different backgrounds. These individuals are connected, form interpersonal trust, shared belief, and solidarity, then participate in collective action (Caraway 2015;Heberer 2016;Ingrams 2017). Connective action forms interpersonal communication that rests on symbolic inclusiveness, a framework for action, and the use of technology that gives individuals the freedom to participate in action (Gromping and Sinpeng 2018).…”

Section: Connective Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Donation for Covid-19 as Connective Action in Indonesia and Vietnam

Effendi¹,

Xuan²

2021

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This study discusses how the internet facilitated the online donation movement to help deal with the Covid-19 in Indonesia and Vietnam. The internet has critical roles in online donations by spreading information, connecting individuals, and making an online donation movement. We use the connective action concept to explain how the social movement is developed by connecting people through the loose organizational or no-organizational platform. We find that the internet and social media have an essential role in informing, connecting, and simultaneously being a means of online donation activities of individuals from various backgrounds. In this action, individuals are connected emotionally and encourage their empathy and solidarity across identities. In other words, the online connection encourages people to gather and donate as social action. However, in contrast to the connective action concept based on real (offline) action, the online donation for Covid-19 shows that individuals are connected and act online. Therefore, conceptually, the online donation case could enrich the connective action concept in the context of online connection and online action.

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“…While unions working in the creative and cultural sector have arguably been slow to catch up with these networked campaigns and their ways of working, it is clear that some are now adapting in order to harness the power of indignation and agency for precarious workers, amplifying that indignation across online networks in order to generate increased mobilization. Brett Caraway has examined the US case study of OUR Walmart (an online network using connective action with arms-length support from an established union) to show how technological innovations in communication, which have increased exponentially since the TV WRAP campaign, have enabled workers to engage in struggles to improve working conditions and raise wages, even in highly anti-union environments (Caraway 2016). Echoing Saundry et al, Caraway explores the central question “whether personal interactions and fluid social networks are capable of producing the sustained political participation necessary to achieve genuine social change.” While clearly seeing evidence of incremental change at Walmart as a result of workers’ connective action, later analysis more pessimistically suggests that “While personalised forms of communication may enable horizontal forms of organization and collective action, their impact may be restricted to their capacity to influence public opinion” (Caraway 2018).…”

Section: Kelly’s Pre-requisites—still In Place?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Get Up, Stand Up? Theorizing Mobilization in Creative Work

Percival

Lee

2020

Television & New Media

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This article concerns individualism, collective awareness and organized resistance in the creative industries. It applies the lens of John Kelly’s mobilization theory (1998), usually used in a trade union context, to “TV WRAP,” a successful non-unionized campaign facilitated through an online community in the UK television (TV) industry in 2005, and finds that Kelly’s prerequisites to mobilization were all present. It explores previously unpublished questionnaire data from a 2011 survey of over 1,000 UK film and TV workers, which suggests that such prerequisites to mobilization are still present in the TV workforce. Finally it examines recent and ongoing mobilization by video game workers as a modern comparison, updating the relevance of Kelly’s theory to explore and consider potential models for a new politics of resistance in the digital age.

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OUR Walmart: a case study of connective action

Cited by 23 publications

References 10 publications

How can unions use Artificial Intelligence to build power? The use of AI chatbots for labour organising in the US and Australia

How can unions use Artificial Intelligence to build power? The use of AI chatbots for labour organising in the US and Australia

Online Donation for Covid-19 as Connective Action in Indonesia and Vietnam

Get Up, Stand Up? Theorizing Mobilization in Creative Work

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