Comprehensive Campaign - History of Comprehensive Campaigns

History of Comprehensive Campaigns

Comprehensive campaigns emerged in the 1970s.

The first true comprehensive campaign (which utilized, to some degree, all of the elements described herein) occurred in the mid-1970s. Ray Rogers, a staff organizer with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), ran a comprehensive campaign against J.P. Stevens, a large textile manufacturer in the South. The union eventually organized more than 3,000 Stevens workers at 10 plants. The organizing drive was featured in the Academy Award-winning film Norma Rae in 1979.

A second major comprehensive campaign occurred roughly a decade later. In 1984, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW) waged a comprehensive campaign against the German chemical company BASF. OCAW mounted a campaign that involved environmental groups and unions in West Germany, and ultimately pressured BASF to end the lockout and sign a contract.

That same year, a corporate campaign run by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, ended a six-year strike and boycott and won the union its first contract. In 1978, 2,000 FLOC members walked off their jobs in the Midwest. While some growers were willing to negotiate, big canners such as the Campbell Soup Company were unwilling to pay the higher prices which would accompany a unionized workforce. FLOC initiated a boycott of Campbell's. Six years later, not much had changed. In 1984, FLOC asked Ray Rogers (who had left ACWA and founded a consulting firm that helped unions run comprehensive campaigns) for help. Rogers developed a comprehensive campaign strategy which included a well-publicized demonstration at a Campbell Soup shareholder meeting and targeted three members of Campbell's board of directors for economic pressure. In February 1986, Campbell and its growers recognized FLOC as the workers' representative and signed a collective bargaining agreement which provided for wage increases, grievance resolution, insurance, and committees to study pesticide safety, housing, health care, and day care issues. Shortly thereafter, FLOC reached deals with Vlasic, Heinz, Green Bay Foods (now part of Dean Foods), Aunt Jane's (now part of Dean Foods) and Dean Foods.

The first widely acknowledged failure of a comprehensive campaign occurred in 1985. Under pressure from international competition, the U.S. meat packing industry had seen one major bankruptcy and a number of plant closings. In 1984, six of the eight major United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals in the Hormel chain prepared to re-negotiate wages under wage re-opener. In July, all locals except Local P-9 in Austin, Minnesota, agreed to strike Hormel in September. But by that time, all the locals except P-9 had reached an agreement setting wages at $9.00 an hour, with a $1.00-an-hour increase to occur in 1985. In October 1984, Hormel reduced wages at the Austin plant from $10.69 to $8.25 an hour. Local P-9 subsequently hired Ray Rogers to run a comprehensive campaign to restore wages to their former level. But in December 1984, UFCW refused to support the comprehensive campaign. The workers struck in August 1985. UFCW initially supported the strike, but refused to sanction a boycott of Hormel products. In January 1986, Hormel re-opened the Minnesota plant with replacement workers, and the strike—and the local—collapsed. The Hormel strike was featured in the 1990 Academy Award-winning documentary American Dream.

Comprehensive campaigns began attracting academic attention in 1985. The first known publication of a work examining comprehensive campaigns was Lawrence Mishel's article, "Strengths and Limits of Non-Workplace Strategies," published in the Fall 1985 issue of Labor Research Review.

Another important comprehensive campaign failed in 1988. In June 1987, workers at the International Paper company mill in Androscoggin, Maine struck to resist company-demanded concessions. Led by Maine AFL-CIO organizer Peter Kellman, the moribund local became a hotbed of worker activism and community organizing. However, inadequate protections of federal labor law and internal union politics (especially those at international union headquarters as well as rivalries between the local union and its parent) led the parent union to refuse to fund the comprehensive campaign. After the company hired replacement workers, the strike ultimately failed.

A comprehensive campaign helped the United Steelworkers (USW) win a contract at Ravenswood Aluminum. In November 1990, Ravenswood Aluminum locked out 1,700 employees as their contract expired and hired replacement workers. USW began a comprehensive campaign which involved a heavy research component. USW eventually publicized the plant's poor safety record, applied political pressure in Congress to protect the domestic aluminum smelting industry, and discovered that Ravenswood Aluminum was controlled by fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. The campaign is notable because of the extensive international pressure the USW brought to bear on Ravenswood and for the creative legal strategies the union employed. Most importantly, however, the Ravenswood effort showed that, properly undertaken and financed, a comprehensive campaign could put so much pressure on an employer that even recourse to permanent replacements could not defeat the union (as the tactic had at Hormel and International Paper).

In 1993, UFCW undertook a comprehensive campaign in the food industry. The UFCW had conducted a decade-long organizing effort against Food Lion, a nonunion chain of warehouse-style grocery stores. By the early 1990s, however, UFCW became convinced that traditional organizing methods were no longer working, and the union initiated a comprehensive campaign. An essential part of the union strategy was an innovative class-action lawsuit by about 400 current and former Food Lion workers, who alleged they had been forced by their employer to work off-the-clock. Eventually, the United States Department of Labor fined Food Lion, which delivered $16 million in back-pay to the workers. UFCW quickly undertook a second class-action suit, in which workers claimed wrongful termination and violation of COBRA rights. Again, UFCW was successful. However, Food Lion retaliated by filing a $300 million lawsuit against its workers and UFCW for violating the federal RICO Act. Although Food Lion's lawsuit was eventually dismissed, UFCW was unable to organized the workers, achieve recognition of the union or negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.

By 1996, comprehensive campaigns had drawn the attention of Congress. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R--Mich.) introduced legislation to outlaw union corporate campaign tactics. Hearings were held, but the legislation died in subcommittee.

More recent examples of comprehensive campaigns include those waged by SEIU and its Justice for Janitors campaign against custodial firms, the Teamsters against Quebecor World, UNITE HERE against the laundry company Cintas, and SEIU and UFCW against Wal-Mart. There are reports that SEIU is beginning a comprehensive campaign which involves hospitals and other healthcare providers in and around Boston, Massachusetts.