Community Unionism - History of Community Unionism

History of Community Unionism

In Community Unionism A Comparative Analysis of Concepts and contexts, McBride and Greenwood note that community unions are not a new idea: it is an old form of unionism that dates back 150 years. They point out that in the early period of trade union formation, UK unions were organized within local communities where factories and heavy industry were geographically established. They find that this community/union relationship was broken with the changing geographies of employment and industrial restructuring. With this change, stable communities were destroyed that were located around the docks, mines, mills, and other regions of heavy industry. Supporting this idea, Hess also agrees that community factors have always been apart of unionism in "Community as a Factor in Union Organization".

Black establishes that the term “community unionism” was first used in the 1960’s in his article “Community Unionism: A Strategy for Organizing in the New Economy”. He states that James O’Connar used the term in 1964: he believed that in the future, communities would become central to working class organization because of the instability of workplaces. Jones envisioned that future employment would be deskilled and insecure, and because of this, the workplace would no longer be appropriate for organization. He anticipated that community unions would be established in de-industrialized towns, and urban slums. He also believed that community unions would work to improve housing, welfare, and public services.

As well, Black points out that the notion of community unionism was also used by organizers within the United Auto Workers (UAW) labour union in the 1960’s. An organizer by the name of Jack Conway envisioned a new form of unionism that would develop. Conway too, believed that “community” would take over the central role of the factory in organizing workers in trade unionism. He came to believe this by looking at the Farm Workers Union(FWU). He noticed that the issues that farmers were facing went beyond the workplace. Conway concluded that the new form of unions would focus on grievances, political education, and community organization.

In “Community Unions in Canada and Labor’s (Re)Organization of Space”, Tufts also explains how a labour leader of the UAW, Walter Reuther, envisioned a new form of unionism. Reuther believed that the labour movement should be more of a “social movement” opposed to an “economic movement”.

Tattersall points out in her article “Coalitions and Community Unionism:Using the Term Community to Explore Effective Union-Community Collaborations”, that “community unions” were also created by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the United States in the 1960’s. These community unions were community based, worker organizations. Tattersall also notes that along with the UAW, the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s also used the term “community unionism”. Here, the term was used to describe community organisations that sought to organize the urban working poor in the United States.

Although the notion of community unionism was being put into practice in certain areas, it was not widely accepted by majority of people, and business unionism dominated. It was not until the 1990’s that the practice of community unions increased.