Unions Renewed

Unions face a once in a generation opportunity for renewal. Decades of decline have been compounded by a global elite who increasingly generate profit from financial engineering in ways that side-step labour and undermine the power of organised workers. However, as this economic system begins to falter, there are signs of a renewed union movement emerging. Debt-laden firms – from supermarkets and nursery chains to outsourcing giants – are collapsing, and workers are organising to determine what comes next. Unionised bank cashiers are refusing to push predatory loans, teachers are striking against the exploitative housing market, and manufacturing workers are pooling redundancy pay to buy-out plants and become worker owners. Alice Martin and Annie Quick argue that these are seeds of union renewal. To be effective in an age of finance, the union movement must set its ambitions beyond narrow wage-bargaining, and towards the financial systems that have infiltrated workplaces and impoverished communities. By doing so, they can play a critical role in ushering in a new, democratic economy. No-one committed to economic justice can afford to miss this urgent, highly original book and its radical vision for unions.

Acknowledgements Introduction Building economic democracy under financial capitalism The scope of this book The way ahead Notes 1 How financialization undermines the power of workers Finance today: speculative, extractive and rent-seeking A changed economic landscape for labour Change is coming Notes 2 Understanding and rebuilding union power The challenge: empowering unions to be a force against finance What is union power? Looking back: the rise and decline of union power The ‘golden age’ of union power The attack on unions The demise of collective bargaining The state of play today: organizing without institutional power Lessons from Europe We can’t turn back the clock Rebuilding an institutional role for unions in today’s economy Democratizing the economy requires rank-and-file union strength Notes 3 Bargaining with finance Unions in and for the community Mobilizing the whole bargaining unit Using workplace power where it still exists Targeting the real boss Leverage shareholder power Collective bargaining outside work Building militant, democratic, intersectional unions Notes 4 Owning the future A renewed role Democratizing ownership Becoming worker-owners Unions as investors in the areas side-lined by capital Unions leading the move away from damaging work Unions leading the fight for free time Unions as architects of a democratic future Notes Conclusion: a way forward The process of renewal Notes