Pyrrhic Unionism: Worker-to-Worker Organizing and Cowboy Mentality

• In Event: 20881 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Precarity and Beyond

Abstract

With the increasing adoption of worker-to-worker organizing, there may be a route to revive the labor movement that circumnavigates many obstacles of traditional union organizing. However, as it stands, this style of organizing is no penicillin and may have problems of its own. I draw on ethnographic fieldwork of a graduate worker unionization campaign and the formation of a campus-wide labor coalition consisting of two separate union drives, the grad worker union bargaining its first contract, and two established unions. My findings illustrate that despite the many benefits of work-to-worker organizing the style may also lead to blitz campaigns that cannot maintain themselves after wins. In my analysis, I expand upon Rooks' (2003) concept of "Cowboy Mentality". Here, rank-and-file organizers adopt an all-or-nothing mentality that can lead to mass burnout, similar to the burn-out of many staff organizers of the "new labor movement" era. This mentality became cultural within the nascent organizations, and while it may have been a boon in the short term for the union drives, once unionization was achieved it led to an exodus of some of the most committed within leadership due to feelings of exhaustion and frustration. The coalition saw this across the many organizations, where demobilized nascent unions with little worker engagement led to the coalition largely falling short of its lofty goals. I label this kind of worker-to-worker unionism Pyrrhic unionism, where short-term goals are achieved with hyper-militancy but end up leading to burn-out and ultimately demobilization. I conclude that while worker-to-worker organizing may be the solution to the many organizing problems at present, there must be safeguards and structures developed throughout the organizing process to stave off this mentality from taking root and leading to mass drop-off of leaders.

Author

• Richard Hayden Courtney, Syracuse University