[p2p-research] New Unionism... organizing 4 democracy at work

[Kevin Carson]

On 7/16/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> i'm already briefly covering this on the 19th, but I hope you can dig some more info and offer some comments:
>
> U-Cubed: A new model for occupational networking?
> Union geeks (you know who you are!) have been intrigued by the development of U-Cubed. It's unlike anything seen before. Unemployed people in the USA are signing up and then linking themselves (if & when they choose) to others with the same zip code. Together, six members form a cube. If they like, this group can then join up with eight other cubes to form a 'neighbourhood'. And three neighbourhoods can join to form a 'power block'. It's an ingenious way of bringing people together around occupation (in this case the unemployed) and location (per zip code). This builds community and voice in a natural way, and encourages activism at the base in a way that traditional representative structures find difficult. They're only a few months into the experiment, with about 2500 members, so it's too early to learn any lessons. But for those interested in building occupational or sectoral networks within their union, here's an intriguing experiment to follow. More: http://www.unionofunemployed.com/ucubed-resources/communicating_cubes/
>

I think this is definitely material for a post.  It reminds me a bit
of attempts to organize the unemployed into radicalized unions of
their own during the CIO's big strikes in the early '30s, which put
pressure on conservative governments from a second front and also made
the unemployed harder to recruit as scabs.

The I.W.W. and some radicals in the AFL-CIO and SEIU are also
proposing a different model of "minority unionism" where the
federation recognizes locals made up of a minority of workers in a
workplace even when they don't  meet the standards for NLRB
certification under Wagner; the same people are big on the French
model of labor federations and unions offering union membership (and
with it benefits like cheap mutual insurance and other forms of
networked mutual aid) to people who are unemployed or don't have a
local in their workplace.  The idea is to make union membership open
to anyone who wants it, without jumping through the NLRB's hoops. This
would also work well with labor tactics (like those in the old Wob
pamphlet "How to Fire Your Boss") other than conventional strikes,
aimed at fighting guerrilla war inside the workplace.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html