In New Delhi, a BPO [call center] employee’s “e-union” has come about with the intention of taking the worker’s fight out of the streets by bringing it directly to share-holders. The group, only a month old, has chosen to remain anonymous for the time being because of negative stigmas that are attached to unions in the country.

According to this article, the BPO union plans to talk directly to shareholders in hopes their conversations will directly affect stock prices. Further, they claim they will go straight to clients to let them know about the repression of employees in the companies. The anonymous union head explains, ‘‘Clients should know the negative PR against the vendor could spill over to their own brand. Also, it could affect them if we ever suspend work with the vendor.”

The group is not presently actively looking for members, but they will soon start an email registration collection where they can collect a database of supporters. Further, while they have taken their fight offline, they have not written off entirely the possibility of taking the fight to old tactics if they see it necessary against “very stubborn offenders.”

A while back, MSH talked with Morton Bahr of the CWA about how laborers in the U.S. were organizing online. He said that be believed that while there was some organization happening with “the new work force,” that there’s no substitute for mouth-to-ear, face-to-face organization. Stories like this one in New Delhi display a continuing contention where activists and organizers continue to struggle to find a middle ground while using new and old school techniques. In this case, it appears that the old school (unions) have a perceivably negative face and the new school (the Internet) is, to this point, a relatively un-utilized resource. The e-union might find great success organizing the BPO’s nearly one-million-strong workforce

While the jury remains out on whether or not—as Mr. Bahr had said earlier—Internet-organizing will be a proper substitute for “mouth-to-ear, face-to-face organization,” the organizer-to-shareholder attitude held by these organizers is reminiscent of corporate campaigning, which we discussed with Ray Rogers a few months back.

Also in eAction news:

• Russian Hacktivist strike?
• Companies read blog consumer complaints to avert sales slumps

-Filed in Ideas, News

As its president, Morton Bahr led the 700,000 member Communications Workers of America for 20 years, where he was only the third CWA president since the union’s founding in 1938. He talks with us about his leadership during the breakup of AT&T Bell System in the mid-eighties, which was an extremely turbulent time for the communications industry. He discusses here how he directed the union through an expired contract, a period of re-negotiation, and his exploration for alternatives to striking, a composite of which included many elements of corporate campaigning.

Make Something Happen: Please describe what the CWA was faced with when you came on as president [in 1985].

Morton Bahr: We already had a long history of action in the union up through then and in 1986 our contract was going to expire. Come the minute after midnight, we were going on strike. When we did strike against AT&T, I started to travel the country and I considered and talked about alternatives to the strike. I knew I was reaching a core because whenever I mentioned that we’ll never give up our right to strike, but we can no longer be so predictable, people were responding. We should have several approaches, and striking should be only one. I could tell from the reaction of the members that they were supportive of that idea.

MSH: What about striking was putting people off? Why do you think that [union] members were so receptive to what you were saying?

Bahr: If there’s a possibility of accomplishing your ends without losing a lot of pay, that’s naturally what you want to do. And what I began to see were new ways to make competition work for us. When AT&T was a monopoly, you could strike from hell to high water and the company didn’t really care because there was no other way that calls were going to be made. But then competition came into the long distance market and we wanted to make that work for us.

This was somewhat similar to what the [United Auto Workers] was doing, particularly in their stronger days. They were able to designate one company as the striking company and then the other two [of the three auto makers] would get the market. This was a similar idea. Beginning in 1989, we came up with a sticker that was about three inches long and one inch wide. It said, “Let your fingers walk the line. Support the CWA-IBEW Electronic Ticket Line for Jobs With Justice. Don’t use AT&T when calling outside your area code.” Then it gave another number to dial, because if you remember, when competition first started in the long distance market, you couldn’t dial a competitor directly. You had to use one of these codes to get around AT&T. So we plastered these all over the country. You couldn’t find a pay phone anywhere that didn’t have that sticker on it. We also sent the alternative numbers to all friends of labor so that they, too, could circumvent AT&T. The company was scared shitless; they tried to sue us for putting these stickers everywhere. It indicated to me that we had their attention and I began thinking of how to refine this.

MSH: How did you?

Bahr: 1992 comes along and we started a “switch card” campaign. This went beyond involving just our members. See, the workers at AT&T got their service for free and we wanted them to continue on with that. So what we did was we went to the AFL-CIO and through them, we had 15 million members in the labor movement at that we could reach out to. To that point, AT&T was the preferred carrier because it had been the only one. By this time, though, you could now select MCI or Sprint or a couple of other smaller carriers. Through our involvement with the AFL-CIO and with all of this access to 15 million union families as well as through working with the state federations and central labor councils, we were getting all of these people to sign these switch cards. The cards indicated that the signatory wanted to switch service from AT&T to another carrier of their choice, and this allowed the CWA to move them from AT&T to whatever other company. We targeted financial firms who had related pension funds, and polling companies that did Democratic Party poling and other people like that as well and as a result, we had a real web out there and we had several hundred signed cards that authorized the switch of service.

So I called a press conference at our office in Washington. We had all of these cartons of boxes filled with these switch card authorizations. The press took all of their pictures and got those out there. The response from the company was incredible. They were shocked that the union would take our business to nonunion carriers. It worked.

MSH: And that’s all you needed to do?

Bahr: All that we had to do was to present those cards to AT&T. Of course, if we had to go ahead with the switch, we’d want get customers to switch back after [we got what we needed] — but you tend to lose some customers on the way back. We didn’t want to do any damage. But fortunately we didn’t have to go that far.

We began to look for different tactics after that. Here, cooperation was really important. Working with the AFL-CIO helped because it enabled us to work with so many subscribers.

MSH: Were you able to quantify the potential damage to that would have been done to AT&T?

Bahr: No. We were ready to go through with the switch if that was necessary, but as I said, the short term damage would have been enormous. Multiply 15 million families by 50 dollars a month in subscription fees or whatever it was then. We did that for leverage and we didn’t want to have to actually go through with it.

MSH: Do you think that the situation would have been resolvable without it? What would have happened if you hadn’t used it?

Bahr: We would have had to go on strike. You don’t do this unless there is a serious enough issue to [make it necessary]. The consequences could and up being adverse. As I said, you don’t always get all the customers back. But you don’t want to strike, either.

MSH: Looking at things as they are now in the context of the Internet, have you seen how employees, maybe white collar workers who aren’t unionized for whatever reason, self-organizing by using the web?

Bahr: The Republican National Labor Relations Board has ruled that employers have the right to bar employees from using the company computer for anything but company business. Doing so makes one subject to discharge. That really takes the computer out of self organzation during working hours. That was a setback and that will get changed when we get a new administration and new board.

We’re been using the computer to make steady inroads in organizing “the new work force,” IT people at Microsoft, IBM, and other workers who don’t necessarily have collective bargaining power but do have organization to be able to do a number of things. First, this helps to keep them up with what’s happening around the world in their profession and it helps to give them some voice of unity within the workplace. For example, with Microsoft, we have a local union known as WashTech. It has about 20 thousand members. The case is the same at IBM. What we’ve done is to make the union fit the needs of these kinds of workers. One arena we try to help in is career advancement. People in these kinds of jobs, if they don’t stay up with the changes, can become obsolete in three or four years. The work we’ve done in education attracts them. They keep in touch the best they can through the Net, so that’s helpful.

MSH: Are there things that unions can offer that the Internet can never replace?

Bahr: I still believe that there’s no substitute for mouth-to-ear, face-to-face organization. The Internet is certainly a good second to that, but [pauses] I don’t know. I don’t see any substitute for mouth-to-ear whenever you have that opportunity. Maybe the next generation that grows up–these kids today–maybe they’ll be able to make it work.

-Filed in Uncategorized

Ray Rogers‘ name is a legendary one in the world of grassroots organization, and he is especially well-regarded in the world of labor activism. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1967 at the peak of the golden age of modern American organization. In conversation he consistently returns to Saul Alinsky’s seminal work Rules For Radicals, explaining that it has forever been an important resource for him. At present, he is the director of the Stop Killer Coke

In the 70s, Rogers coined the term “corporate campaign.” He is the director of Corporate Campaign Inc. and he has since successfully put the tactic into action against several substantial corporations, including Campbell Soup Co. and J.P. Stevens. He has a background in both social and political organization, the latter of which he cites as a great experience to constructively inform the former. In his early 60s, Rogers is exceedingly energetic and is still very excited to take almost everyone on, from Exxon Mobil to American Airlines (which he campaigned against in the 80s). In the middle of the conversation, he took excused himself to take a call on the other line. When he switched back, he said emphatically, “I’d love to find a way to zap these outfits that send you pre-recorded messages about whatever.”

A corporate campaign is a collective bargaining campaign that focuses on the importance of comprehensive research,coalition building and varying forms of political pressure. According to CCI’s website, a corporate campaign “develops strategies and tactics and structures campaigns in ways that strengthen internal union solidarity, maximize membership and family involvement and generate favorable media coverage.” Rogers ads that it is a lens through which a campaign can be seen as a whole, and where tactics stop being seen as ends and are turned into effective and moving means.

Here, Rogers explains what drove him to go after Coke, what he could be doing better, the steps he takes into consideration when planning action, and how he wishes he were better using the Internet. campaign,which is working to mobilize consumers against the Coca-Cola corporation.

Why Coke? What drove you to go after them with such intensity?

Killer Coke was set up to go after the Coca-Cola company and to hold them accountable. That is the main reason we became involved. I was hearing more and more about cases of systematic torture that were happening to unionists in Columbia and it sounded like a replay of what had happened previously in Guatemala. The issue was one of life and death and people were coming to me, asking what should be done but no one really had any resources to move it forward. Just what I need, right? Another issue and no resources [laughs].

At that point, I had been looking at going after Exxon Mobil, but what I needed was real financing. However, the things that people were telling me about Coke were so horrible. I am not naive and I have been taking on corporations for many years, so I did my own investigation and research. What I found was that the situation in Columbia was as bad, if not worse than it was being reported to me. It was a replay of what was happening with the company in Guatemala in the 80s. So I began to look at how to build a broad case against them that looked at all of their weaknesses. I researched sensitive issues around the company and then I came up with one sentence to describe them:

“The world of Coca-Cola is a world full of lies, deception, immorality, corruption and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses.”

I have put that out there as a challenge. I have toured it around. If it’s wrong or misleading, then they can go ahead and sue me.

When putting together a campaign, what are the steps you put together before putting it into action?

There are two basic things that you need to consider if you plan on being successful against a major target or adversary. First, you need to determine where you are coming from conceptually and analytically. You need to be able to lay out a strategy that goes from Point A - the starting point - to Point Z - total defeat. We’re not out to annihilate anyone, but the idea is that you know that as you get closer to point Z, the target will begin to reach a breaking point and there is then a willingness to compromise.

Second, you need to come at it from an organizational level. You must ask, “Can I mobilize the necessary forces to reach my objectives? Can we force these companies and political mechanisms to the breaking point?” I don’t mean that you figure out if you can make them make concessions that look good in the papers? In the case of Coke, real people are dying. Animals are dying. The environment is dying. Spin is no replacement for actual progress. So you need to know if you have the tools necessary to get closer to that breaking point. Can you generate the money? The drive? The person power?

It is important for people to understand the importance of breaking corporate power into manageable units so that you can challenge, attack, divide and conquer accordingly. It is important to be able to identify which tools work best. How do you get votes to the polls? How do you communicate? Is Internet, direct mail, handing out fliers, or other options going to work best? Considering how you will effectively communicate is obviously important. Without it, you don’t exist.

Where do you see some of the biggest failures in this sort of organizing?

Some well-meaning people, organizers and activists are unable to analyze the situation and make appropriate judgments based on their goals and actions. It is important to move forward concisely. There isn’t a lot of room, especially on a small budget, for trial and error. What happens a lot of the time is that people will demonstrate against something. They will organize a protest or a demonstration and then they will wait to see the response. There is no response. Then they organize a bigger one and there is no response and this keeps going. What happens? The plans get bigger but the attendance goes down because nothing is happening. This is because too often, people see demonstration as a strategy and not a tactic. That happens with all elements from time to time.

Sometimes, people don’t know who they’re trying to reach and that can create an opportunity to waste a lot of resources. Working in political organization taught me the importance of targeting. When McGovern was running - I was so wild about him at the time; I would have been likely to go out and flier and canvass an entirely conservative neighborhood because I was so on fire, but it wouldn’t have done any good. It would be like throwing the fliers in the trash, only worse because [the residents] would have been so angry about it that they would probably have been more likely to vote against him. You’ve got to know what resources you have, know where to direct them, and understand how to best put them to work.

How much does PR and negative publicity come into account when you are organizing a campaign like Killer Coke?

I look at publicity like the icing on a cake. If I were to give you a cake without icing, you might say, “This is nice, but where is the icing?” Then I might give you a plate of icing and you would probably say, “I wanted icing, but I really want it with the cake.” They both work together to make up what it is you are looking for.

Negative publicity causes concern for corporations, but they can weather that. In the case of Coke, this is a multi-billion dollar corporation. If the going gets tough, they can just buy good publicity. So you need to come at publicity as a component of something larger. Media relations is just one part of a multi-dimensional strategy.

It is important to have nice, eye catching literature and it’s important to do this so that you can control your message when putting it out there. But if you develop a great overall campaign, you’re in an especially good spot because the media can’t ignore that and they’re forced to tell the truth. There will always be elements in the media that try to undermine you, but if you develop something solid, it makes it hard for them to ignore. You will generate good coverage.

Where does the Killer Coke campaign need to improve?

The whole thing is obviously really time consuming. I spend much of the day and night putting together a case against [Coca-Cola]. I can easily say that over 20 thousand hours of time has gone into this. I have raised lots of money in labor struggles that I have been involved in in the past and we need to start to do that with this. We built this campaign from the ground up and I am doing a lot of organizing and putting together our strategy but we’re not yet in a fund raising mode. I am working day and night on organizing, but we haven’t done an adequate job raising money. We need to figure out how to do that.

In your experience, what are some good ways to move forward with a campaign on a limited budget?

If you don’t have much money but you need to get the message out there, you have to set up a website. Start to develop an organization and a network. You need to be able to find and reach out to those who are sympathetic to your cause or to people who have similar sympathies. Take all of this information and start a database of contacts.

If you need money, reach out to foundations who are willing to back something meaningful and well organized, put together a plan and ask them for help. Coming from a spot where we have very little of it, I can tell you that getting your hands on money is time consuming.

What is your experience with using the Internet for organizing?

Unfortunately, I am pretty ignorant with regard to that. It took me a long time to figure out what a fax machine was. And I finally got it and was floored by how much time and money it saved. Then the Internet comes along and I am learning a whole bunch of new stuff. People would ask me all the time if I had looked up KillerCoke.com, which had already been bought by the company. They bought it all up. And I know that I could be a very rich man if I were to sell them KillerCoke.org. Had I understood this game better, I would have gone in and bought all of it up before they had. I did not really understand how important a tool it is.

We now have a retired New York City school teacher who is doing the work on the site. I have relatives who know what they’re doing who tell me how to use it. The Internet is a powerful weapon. It is a great communication tool and it is critical to modern organizing. The downfall is that people get it into their heads that the Internet is going to stop the demand or need for grassroots, person to person organizing. Getting on the phone, direct mailing, canvassing, and just being out there in general is still very important. You can never replace that. But at the same time, we would never have this global campaign if it weren’t for the Internet. I wouldn’t be getting daily emails from people asking how they can help or giving me all of this information. In the end, it is a phenomenal tool.

And as far as strengthening democracy goes, and holding corporations accountable, the Internet is a powerful tool that will better benefit the underdogs than it will the overlords. If we had the resource to do so, we’d have an entire Internet division.

(Photo Courtesy: Indymedia Ireland)

-Filed in Uncategorized