Organized Labor's Best Bet?: CyberUnions!*

Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D, Professor of Sociology

Drexel University, Dept. of Psychology and Sociology

As the Millennium draws to a close we get Lists, endless lists of the Best, the Worse, the Most, the Least, and so on. Sometimes sage, more often silly, they have the virtue of concentrating our attention and highlighting matters we do or should care about.

Special attention is owed a revealing List of the Top Ten Labor Stories of the Century. Issued in 1999 by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSME), it was based on the rankings of professors from Harvard University, MIT's Sloan School of Management, Cornell University, Yale University and the Economic Policy Institute.

As might have been expected, the List saluted the creation of key legislation shaping the modern labor movement (the Wagner Act, the Social Security Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964). It noted the development of the CIO, Labor's Achievements during WW11, and Public Sector Organizing (1962-1980). Finally, the List included the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike and the GM Sit-down Strikes of 1936-37. Conspicuous by its absence from the orthodox, if somewhat pusillanimous List was the IWW role in Free Speech fights, a proud and distinct contribution. And Labor's role in the Cold War, a controversial and consequential matter. And the purge by the CIO of Communist-dominated unions, arguably a serious loss to Labor's soul. And the on-going effort to rid unions of worker-be-damned racketeers, a malignant cancer. And the 1955 merger of the AFL and the CIO, without which there would be no chance for Labor at all! And the slow, but persistent rise inside Labor officialdom of women and people of color, an overdue and indispensable achievement.

The Missing Link? Especially disappointing and troubling was the neglect by the List-making academics of Labor's post-1965 struggle to find in computerization acritical new lease on life. Labor's high-stakes exploration of what computers make possible warrants far more attention than it has earned to date. Coverage of Labor, for example, in recent issues of Challenge, Dissent, Dollars and Sense, Social Policy, The Nation, The Progressive, Working USA, Z, and other publications on the democratic left reach nearly every topic in the academic's Top Ten List above. But they have nary a word about Labor's life-and-death experiments with computerization.

Typical is the 1998 Labor Day feature in The Nation, a collection of eight essays by long-time Labor friends and advisers eager to highlight "unmet challenges." Only once in eight pages was computerization even as much as mentioned, and then only to urge a use already well underway.

Volumes by academics are no more helpful. The Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting (January, 1998) of the Industrial Relations Research Association, to cite one typical academic publication, has no mention anywhere in its 382 pages of how computerization has, is, and may continue to alter major aspects of unionism here and abroad. This blackout is made all the odder by the remarkably early start intellectuals actually had in offering Labor advice here. In 1972, the year the world first learned of the Internet's existence, Charles Levinson, an overseas labor staffer, wrote a major article urging use of the new technology of computer communications.

Unfortunately, this call went long unheeded, by Labor and its intellectual friends alike. (Lee; 45) Unions in the Information Age. I have spent the last three years observing computer uses by unions in the field, asking questions of unionists over the Internet, monitoring labor union listserves, speaking as an invited outsider at union conventions and workshops, and reading everything various Internet search engines could locale for me on the topic. (Shostak; 1995) I have now gathered my findings in the only book available on the subject, where I discuss at length three models of Labor's uses of computers. (Shostak; 1999) The picture, much as with every thing dealing with contemporary Labor, is a mixed one.

On the bright side, much to its credit, the AFL-CIO's LaborNet service has pioneered in bringing both official information and informal chat rooms to union activists. Scores of International Union homepages, and others belonging to especially forward-looking locals, hold their own on the Internet, along with specialized listserves, such as PubLabor, that enable unionists to engage in free-wheeling focused discussions (as, for example, a remarkable 1999 no-holds-barred dialogue about the pros and cons of union democracy).

Equally impressive are such innovations as the use the Hotel and Restaurant Union continues to make of a site on the Net to warn unionists away from hotels it is picketing. In the late 1990s the Flight Attendants Union created a Net site for collecting complaints from members about airplane equipment problems the union then addressed. Insurgents in the American Airline Pilots Union used faxes and email to rally their troops. And cyberprotesters around the world rallied to bombard Bridgestone-Firestone executives with email protesting the company's treatment of its American work force.

Unions have learned they cannot hold their own in arbitrations unless their representatives are using laptops. They cannot match the other side of the bargaining table unless their representative has Internet access. They cannot bring back useful material from a discussion or confer-ence unless swiftly word-processed. All of these forms of empowerment and more are operational today.

Labor's Mistakes. In sharp contrast with the bright picture above is another set of Labor realities - as the Movement's effort here continues to fall far short of the potential.

1) Cyber Naught Unions: Head in the Sand. What I call Cyber Naught unions and locals seek to preserve and persist, rather than update or innovate. Where computers are concerned, they employ them only or primarily to satisfy traditional business needs, as in accounting and bookkeeping (dues and benefit records; payroll data; etc.). They use computers to get through the day, and do so in as flat and uninspired a way as is possible. Officials settle for inertia and quietism Much of the problem here is rooted in conceptual inertia: Out-dated habits of mind have far too many of these labor leaders preferring form to function, protocol to results, and rhetoric to risk-taking. This is not only about failings of intellect; it is also about failings of the spirit. For if, as Orwell warned, poverty annihilates the future, so also in its own way does poverty of vision.

Cyber Naught power-holders want the future to be like the past, only more so. They treat unionism as if it can only be a passive institution, and they act as a deadening hand on change. In consequence, their unions and locals sleep-walk when they might stride, and they remain vulnerable in ways they hardly realize.

2) Cyber Drift Unionism: Galloping off in All Directions. A second major type, Cyber Drift unions or locals move aimlessly, like a cork bobbing on a turbulent sea, though with far less likelihood than a cork of staying afloat. Bewildered leaders look on as if in a daze, union officers to whom things happen rather than people who make new beginnings. Caught in this hapless course, Labor's effort to use computers falls far short of its potential.

Computerization is persistently prolific, as it moves from stand-alone PCs to networks, and from computer-oriented humans to human-oriented computing. Its record affirms we are in the midst of a revolution, not an evolution.

But you would never know this from the inchoate and directionless plight of a Cyber Drift union. These unions and their locals are seldom the adequate and inspiring organizations they want to be thought of, much to the rue of all who really know them and understand how much more is possible.

3) Cyber Gain Unionism: Labor's Best Hope - for the Moment. In contrast with Cyber Naught types, Cyber Gain unions and locals make much of computer possibilities. The good news is their number appears larger with every passing year; the bad news is their ranks remain far too small for Labor's good. Worse yet, they are often thought the end-all, when in fact - for labor's sake - they must prove way stations on the way to becoming something else, something very distant that I call a CyberUnion.

Cyber Gain unions and locals employ computers to support people, plans, and progress, as well as to keep track of things (traditional business operations). They pour new wine into new bottles. Their use of computers can be creative (though as I shall argue later, it still does not go far enough). Officers, staffers, and activists alike appreciate how much can be done, and they enjoy adapting gains made elsewhere in and outside of Labor.

Much success here can be traced to conceptual advances. A progressive organizational culture has Cyber Gain labor leaders, staffers, and rank-and-file activists preferring function to form, results to protocol, and risk-taking to rhetoric. In consequence, their unions and locals are dynamic operations, supple and original in ways in which they take justifiable pride.

Reality Check. Before too glowing an impression is given, note that Cyber Gain unions and locals have many telling weaknesses. To begin with, most have little or no knowledge of the existence of one another. In keeping with the costly isolation of unions from other unions, they are busy re-inventing the wheel instead of trading good ideas back and forth. Despite conferences the AFL-CIO has run to encourage cross-fertilization, workshops held regularly at the AFL-CIO George Meany Center, and the efforts computers specialists of 12 or so major unions are making to stay in touch, it is as if these labor organizations were ships passing at night.

Second, Cyber Gain unions and locals often try to do it on the cheap. Many are reluctant to pay the annual maintenance costs required to keep a complex, multi-machine system up and going, better yet constantly upgrade it. In consequence, they often flounder trying to best computer problems they should not have had in the first place.

Finally, and most telling of all, the Cyber Gain unions I studied had too little in the way of an overarching vision. Many seemed to have lost sight of why they had started using computers to begin with. That is, they were not asking deep-reaching questions about the desirability of this or that use with reference to the organization's well-being, with reference to what the rank--and--file might get from it (or lose to it). Instead, they were weighing computer uses in small--minded ways, rather than in grand ways, and they were missing precious transformational opportunities ... or so I counseled when asked as an applied sociologist.

More specifically, where computer applications are concerned, Cyber Gain unions and locals often remain frozen in the first generation of Internet use. They are preoccupied with meeting straight-forward informational needs. Their Web site typically offers their logo and basic facts, a static display critics dismiss as "brochure ware" or "billboards." They fail to understand, or decline to value the fact that second generation applications are quite different: Known as transactional, they emphasize the dynamic participation of the parties, rather than accept passivity, as at present in far too many Cyber Gain organizations.

While the Cyber Gain model is clearly superior to the Cyber Naught and Cyber Drift options, it will not suffice. It rebuilds, but it does not adequately renew. By failing to take the full potential of future as they streamline the past. Only a far more ambitious use of computers will do the job. I think it will be adequate for only a few more years. The early 21st century requires far more.

Try the CyberUnion Model. What I have taken to urging is an ambitious and creative alternative to the Labor-computer status quo, one that dares to incorporates futuristics, innovations, services, and labor traditions (F-I-S-T) - all of which go better when they build on creative employ of computer potentialities. (Shostak; 1999)

Marked by enthusiasm for, ready than fear of the Age of Informa-tion, the CyberUnion makes the most of what other frustrated unions find daunting in the extreme. It is intent on matching the employer's formidable progress with computer applications, showing the membership the union proudly "computes," and bolstering chances of making a desirable difference in American life early in the Information Age century.

Getting to a F-I-S-T Model. The first such aid, futuristics, empowers as only foreknowledge and related action-taking can. The second, innovations, energizes as only creativity can. The third, services, engages as only rewards can. And the fourth, traditions, bonds as only emotional ties can.

Employing futuristics, a CyberUnion can replace the narrow "putting-out-fires" orientation of most unions with a longer perspective, one that encompasses the here-and-now, but extends 5 and 10 years beyond it. Employing computer-aided innovations it can replace a narrow tolerance for shopworn communication tools (newsletters, mailings, etc.) with a high-tech perspective, one that upgrades familiar tools (as in adding color to the newsletter) even as it moves to the innovative cutting-edge (email for all; listserves for many; etc.).

Employing a fresh approach to services, it can use its homepage to link members to pro-consumer dollar-saving services, experiment with electronic voting referendums, and mentor the membership in closing the gap between Info-Haves and Have-Nots, arguably the greatest threat posed now to the democracy With these and 101 other computer-based services a CyberUnion should be hailed for giving more than ever for the dues dollar.

Finally, a CyberUnion can replace hollow observances of union traditions with whole-hearted celebration, the better to ensure that labor's high tech gains are always accompanied by comparable high touch advances, e.g., a local's history and traditions could be "captured" in a memorable CD-ROM provided to all.

These F.I.S.T. attributes should help put labor unions on a par with the CyberCorps rapidly coming their way. They should send the message that Labor is finally and actually "with it!," a message of import for the union's membership, the media, the public, and the business community alike. And they should empower the rank-and-file as never before. (Shostak; 1991)

Unions uniquely blend humanistic, ethical, and materialistic concerns. They should be able to produce a distinctive set of computer-use rewards, one that will have the citizenry sit up, notice, and applaud. They should be able to get Americans to think of unions, and not just of corporations, when they think about successful cutting-edge organiza-tions.

Doubts and Misgivings. Skeptics will dismiss futuristics as only for the secure; computer-based innovations and services, as only for an effete elite; and celebration of traditions, as only for those less busy than many unionists are with barely surviving, better yet celebrating anything. They will insist the vast majority of union members are outside the computer use loop, and that this CyberUnion prescription is therefore irrelevant at best, and a dangerous distraction at worse. In rebuttal, proponents can point out more and more unionized workers co-exist with computers, at work. Even if the average unionist's living room does not presently contain a PC, the work station probably does. As well, advances in inexpensive devices to access the Internet without a PC (webservers, etc.) promise to soon vastly expand the reach of the Net (to say nothing of speculation that a voice-activated/voice-responsive Palmtop, or very small computer worn on the wrist, may be commonplace by 2005AD).

The point, in short, is really not that of hardware or access to it. Rather, the point is to rapidly and thoroughly link Labor with all that a smart organization can draw out of computer uses, and to "bookend" such adaptation with the ballast of tradition and the headiness of futuristics.

Contrary to the misgivings of detractors, adoption of a CyberUnion model is not an implausible or impractical proposal. It builds on initiatives the AFL-CIO and key unions have already begun to take. (The fact that the Sweeney team renamed the AFL-CIO News, their bland and unexceptional house organ, Americ@Work, and transformed it into a bright, brassy, and "hip" publication, is much to the point). This model could invigorate adapters, inspire the membership, favorably impress prospective members, intimidate labor's opponents, intrigue vote-seekers, and in other valuable ways, significantly bolster labor's chances.

The Labor Digerati to the Rescue! Fortunately, a new generation of Web-faring union activists are eager to get on with transforming prosaic (and dying) unions into CyberUnions. (Shostak; 1995) Labor's "digerati" types have lives steeped in Information Age technologies, and are living ever more effectively in a net-worked world of union boosters.

Forward-thinking and visionary, these techno-savvy men and women have a hefty dose of indefatigable optimism. Unlike many of their peers, their expectations concerning the renewing of Organized Labor are almost without limits. When such activists envision the years ahead, they expect computers to soon secure unprecedented access of everyone in Labor to everyone else ... officers to members, members to officers. unionists to non-unionists, and vice versa. Rapid polling of the membership. Galvanizing of rallies or e-mail protests. Spotlighting of models worth emulating, and wrongs for the righting. Libraries put at a unionist's beck and call, along with valuable arbitration, grievance, and mediation material. Open chatrooms and bulletin boards for unfettered telling and listening, for the creation of a High Tech electronic (virtual) "community" to bolster High Touch solidarity among real folk.

As if this was not enough, the vision of Labor's digerati includes a quantum increase soon in the collective intelligence and consciousness of "global village" unionists in a global International. Unprecedented cooperation across national borders. The first effective counter to transnational corporate behemoths. And, going out a year or two further, possibly even Intelligent Agent software housed in computer "wearables," empowering unionists as never before. Guided by this growing cadre, Labor can soon move more unions and locals into computer use status. And thereby invigorate the membership. Draw in new members. Intimidate opponents. Intrigue vote-seekers. Meet the aspirations that union "netizens" have for the Labor Movement. And in other valuable ways, significantly bolster Labor's chances of moving especially advanced unions and locals up to CyberUnion status early in the 21st century.

Reality Check. Labor's sharp-edged possibility - either CyberUnion-style computer mastery or ignoble fade out - is not the same thing as saying computerization can or will save Labor. As one of the most extensive pioneering users of computers, a federation of 403 union in 113 countries, maintains - "The computers are one possible medium, not the message." (ICEM; 56) Computerization is no "silver bullet." It is a complex, demanding, and often exasperating tool, only as reliable and effective as the humans in charge. As well, it is no solo star. It works best when part of a mix that includes militancy, labor law reform, political action, and so on. It works best when aiding such "high touch" efforts as "one-on-one" organizing, "shoe leather" vote-getting, "button hole" lobbying for labor law reform, and so on. It works best when kept as an accessory and an aid, rather than allowed to become a confining and superordinating system.

It would be a costly mistake of unionists to confuse computerization with a magic remedy, almost as costly as present-day under-utilization by Labor of its remarkable potential. Which is to say, that while it cannot "rescue" Labor, unless Organized Labor soon makes the most creative possible use of it, as with the F-I-S-T model, Labor probably cannot be rescued.

Summary: Labor Union Prospects? Although underway since the 1970s, Labor's use of computers has far to go. A few unions and locals pretend it's not a big deal, which it is. Others agree there is something here, but they'll be damned if they know what - and until they stop drifting, they will ... be damned, that is. Happily, a growing number gain on the rest. They no longer settle only for computer data management, as by the Cyber Drift or Cyber gain organization, but "push the envelope" instead. If and when they also adopt the F-I-S-T formula, they will command far more respect, power, and allegiance than ever before. Organized labor, for the first time in 35 years, is moving again, showing its "smarts," and feeling cautiously hopeful. If it is keep up momentum, the AFL-CIO and its major affiliates must speed up their development of a 21st century CyberUnion model. Supporters are encouraged by evidence the Sweeney team and its union allies intend to make the most of futuristics, innovations, services, and tradition (F-I-S-T). If they have their way, America's new CyberUnions will show the world that unionism does "compute" in our Age of Information.

Unions five years from now are likely to be very different from the present: Either their hallmark will be their irrelevance, or they will draw handsomely on CyberUnion attributes (F-I-S-T). Either they may be ossified relics, or they will command respect as mature information-intensive power houses, fully the equal (and possibly the better!) of anything the business world boasts.

Unless and until Labor makes more creative use of computer and cyberspace possibilities, it's long slide into irrelevance may be slowed, but it will not be reversed.

Murray Kempton, one of the most insightful of recent writers about unionism, wistfully notes of seemingly appealing reforms -- "One sees at once that here is the way to get at the thing, and wonders why, with the sign painted this plain, the road has been so seldom followed." (Kazin)

It is time to heed signs pointing toward the CyberUnion, and move to give this Information Age labor organization a full-scale, imaginative, and whole-hearted trial.

Postscript. The October,1999, BiAnnual Meeting of the AFL-CIO brought official word of the long-awaited full-scale entry of the

Labor Federation into the Internet Age.

Early in December over 13,000,000 members of the Federation's 68 affiliated unions will be able for the first time to enter cyberspace through a unique Labor portal featuring the homepage of their own particular International Union. It will also be rich in news of labor matters here and abroad, alongwith lists of Labor-friendly and also anti-Labor companies. It will offer invitations to share ideas with other unionists via e-mail systems, and feature other high-powered aids to building an extraordinary Electronic Community of union brothers and sisters.

Still be learned is how truly inter-active the AFL-CIO's system will prove, as in how much genuine two-way access will it offer to top leadership? Similarly, will brassy ads for goods and services be curbed, even at a loss of revenue? And will chatrooms remain uncensored, despite the risks this poses to potential targets of rank-and-file barbs? These reservations notwithstanding, Labor is owed cheers for getting together an exciting far-reaching venture, one that can only hasten the day when more Internationals and locals will achieve Cyber Gain status, and push beyond after CyberUnion distinction. With the AFL-CIO's big time entry into Cyberspace in December, both the Labor Movement and the Information Age will never be the same again, and that is all to the better!

References.

ICEM (International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions). Power and Counterpoint: The Union Response to Global Capital.

Chicago, Ill.: Pluto Press, 1996

Kazin, Alfred. "Missing Murray Kempton." New York Times Book Review, Nov.30, 1997. p.35.

Lee, Eric. The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism. Chicago, Ill.: Pluto Press, 1997.

Shostak, Arthur B. Robust Unionism: Innovations in the Labor Movement. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1991.

Shostak, Arthur B. For Labor's Sake: Gains and Pains as Told by 28 Creative Inside Reformers. Lanham, MD.: University Press of America, 1995.

Shostak, Arthur B. CyberUnion: Empowering Labor through Computer Technology. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

* Based on CyberUnion: Empowering Labor through Computer Technology, by Arthur B. Shostak, Available for $25 in paperback from M.E. Sharpe, in Armonk, NY, 10504. (1-800-541-6563); (mesinfo@usa.net)

Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Department of Psych/Soc/Anthro, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104; 215-895-2466; fax 610-668-2727. email: SHOSTAKA@drexel.edu http://www.futureshaping.com/shostak/