Community Unionism - Challenges in Community Unions

Challenges in Community Unions

In “Community Unionism: A Strategy for Organizing in the New Economy”, Black highlights that community organizations can be territorial. This can lead to conflict when two separate groups try to organize the same community Blacks also points out that conflict may also arise over what the focus of their organizing will be based on. Disagreement on the specific goals of the organization can take the form of short term and long term goals. Black also finds that there can be conflict on the internal structure of a community union (specifically, equal participation in the organization).

In “Community Unions in Japan: Similarities Differences of Region Based Labour Movements between Japan and Other Industrialized Countries”, Suzuki finds that challenges arise because of the different ways of looking at community unions: community unions may not fall into a specific category and may bridge different elements of coalition building and social movements. For Suzuki, there may be difficulty in forming equal partnerships between unions and organizations, and workers and the unemployed.

In Community Unionism A Comparative Analysis of Concepts and Contexts, McBride and Greenwood believe that traditional unions may have problems in giving up their power and control when forming alliances with community organizations. Traditional unions are structured hierarchically and operate differently than community organizations which may cause problems. McBride and Greenwood also found that there are no accessible spaces for communities to form relationships with trade unions. They found that these alliances are formed through formal meetings. This can be a problematic for expanding links into communities as it is a very narrow way of establishing relationships.