Hospitality unionism and labour market adjustment: Toward Schumpeterian unionism?

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis paper proposes a conceptual model for understanding emerging changes in a North American labour union. UNITE-HERE, largely representing textile and hospitality workers, has been at the forefront of debates on union revitalization in the US and Canada. UNITE-HERE is often characterized as a successful example of North American union renewal, but I argue that this often oversimplifies many complex and contradictory labour strategies. Much of the labour union renewal literature remains prescriptive and is only beginning to escape false binaries such as business versus social unionism, the servicing versus organizing model, or 'top-down' versus 'bottom-up' administration. In this paper, I attempt to conceptualize the strategies adopted by the union as they exist in relation to the changing political economic landscape. I characterize the current labour practices as 'Schumpeterian unionism', a model which captures the shifting, contradictory, and multi-scalar relationships labour has with the broader community, capital and the state. The model is illustrated with a case study of UNITE-HERE Local 75's response to the 2003 SARS outbreak through their establishment of a Hospitality Workers Resource Centre to service unemployed workers.

Labour Control in the Tobacco Agro‐spaces: Migrant Agricultural Workers in South‐Western Ontario

“…Labour is viewed as an active agent in the making of the geographical landscape rather than simply subordinate to capital (Castree et al ; Herod , ). Specifically, there has been a rapid growth in theoretical and empirical research on the agency of labour in the moulding of the geographic landscape through collective trade union organization (Herod , ; Sadler ; Sadler and Fagan, ; Sadler and Thompson ; Savage and Wills ; Tufts , , , ; Wills , , ; Wills and Simms ). Labour geographers have sought to understand the various ways that workers organize in relation to their lived experiences in place‐based social contexts.…”

Navigation in New Terrain with Familiar Maps: Masterminding Sociospatial Equality through Resource-Oriented Innovation Policy

“…The LO dominance in the network behind the Gassmaks policy process underlines Rutherford and Holmes's (2007) account of labor as a capable strategist for innovation policy, and demonstrates that trade unions can enjoy a level of influence on innovation policy processes beyond the symbolic stakeholding warned against by Jessop and Sum (2006). Moreover, it illustrates the empowerment that is possible through reflexive and somewhat`Schumpeterian' unionism (Tufts, 2009). Likewise, the networks at the regional level demonstrated how structurally oriented action, drawing upon actors associated with social corporatism, amplified their voice in attempting to attract state and private capital.…”

“…While this was a centralized initiative from LO, the regions were consulted when evaluating strategies:`w e took a journey along the coast to identify the interests and potential of the regions'' (interview, Henriksen Committee member, 2007). This illustrates the intertwined networks at work and a rescaling of union strategies (Castree et al, 2004;Tufts, 2009). The resulting report (LO and AP, 2001) set out specific recommendations on state responsibilities for gas infrastructure as well as a more thorough strategy for utilizing feedstock in manufacturing.…”

Bargaining for Rights in Luxury City: The Strategic Dilemmas of Organized Labor’s Urban Turn

“…The contours of the study were, for that reason, considered with a view toward generalizing findings from a strongly representative case. Along with the other unions involved in the Coney Island coalition, UNITE-HERE is regarded in the literature as having innovated many of the tactics and strategies associated with labor renewal (Park 2004;Zuberi 2007;Tufts 2006; but see Tufts [2009] for a more critical appraisal). I use the term "labor-community coalition" in a manner consistent with Frege, Heery, and Turner's usage as "involving discrete, intermittent, or continuous joint activity in pursuit of shared or common goals between trade unions and other non-labor institutions in civil society, including community, faith, identity, advocacy, welfare, and campaigning organizations" (Frege, Heery, and Turner 2004, 138).…”

“…In a more recent review of this case, Botein (2007, 814) notes disappointing long-term outcomes in affordable housing and, indeed, a worsening crisis of housing affordability besetting Stamford's low-wage working class. In a second confirming case, Tufts (2009Tufts ( , 2010 discusses the role of UNITE-HERE Local 75 in sustaining a labor-community coalition formed to negotiate local benefits and union rights from an upscale gambling and entertainment development in the working-class and immigrant neighborhood of Rexdale, Toronto. The author proposes a theoretical framework of "Shumpeterian Unionism" to make sense of the contradictory practices of unions like UNITE HERE in the neoliberal regulation of local land and labor markets, inclusive of its "top-down" and instrumentalist approach to coalition formation with working class residents.…”