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What is problematic about no-strike, no-picket clauses? |
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< | Leftist labor experts oppose no-strike, no-picket clauses because they bargain away employees’ most powerful leverage. Employees may put up with years of contract violations before they can make an effective protest. However, these clauses have become the typical consideration unions offer employers: the employees promise to continue working in exchange for raises and other benefits. Most unions do not question accepting no-strike clauses. |
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> | Leftist labor experts oppose no-strike, no-picket clauses because they bargain away employees’ most powerful leverage. Employees may put up with years of contract violations before they can make an effective protest. However, these clauses have become the typical consideration unions offer employers: the employees promise to continue working in exchange for raises and other benefits. Most unions accept no-strike clauses as a fact of modern bargaining. Despite the criticism from the left, employers do not usually violate union contracts so much that employees feel oppressed by no-strike clauses. Also, most union members do not want to strike repeatedly against contract violations. They prefer to build up to a strike only every few years. |
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Why are practice pickets potentially useful? |
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< | The no-strike, no-picket clause becomes most problematic during negotiations shortly before a contract expires. If an employer does not fear that workers may strike, it will stick to its harshest proposals. Thus workers need an effective tactic for convincing management they are willing to strike. Unfortunately, with a no-strike, no-picket clause, picketing cannot be one of those tactics. |
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> | The no-strike, no-picket clause becomes truly problematic during negotiations shortly before a contract expires. If an employer does not fear that workers may strike, it will stick to its harshest proposals. Thus workers need an effective tactic for convincing management they are willing to strike. Unfortunately, with a no-strike, no-picket clause, picketing cannot be one of those tactics. |
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< | In the absence of picketing as an option, unions build the strike threat by organizing days when workers wear union stickers, circulating leaflets in which member leaders declare themselves ready to strike, making picket signs in the cafeteria, and other small-scale tactics. |
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> | Instead, unions build the strike threat by organizing days when workers wear union stickers, making picket signs in the cafeteria, circulating leaflets in which member leaders declare themselves ready to strike, and other small-scale tactics. |
| | Unfortunately, none of these tactics has the punch of an actual picket. A leaflet cannot put as much fear into managers as seeing their employees marching in an action that looks just like a strike.
The inability to picket can also make it difficult for the union to assess member support. A member who is brave enough to wear a sticker is not necessarily brave enough to strike. A member who is brave enough to picket is probably closer to being ready to strike.
An example practice picket |
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< | I first developed the “practice picket” strategy to get around a no-strike, no-picket clause while I was working on a campaign in Stockton, California in 2005. When I first came to their laundry plant in February, most of the union members were cordial, but only three seemed as though they would be strong enough to strike when the contract expired in May. I spent months pushing the usual strike preparation: sticker days, sign-making, and circulating a petition that demanded Hepatitis B vaccinations for the sorters. However, the members remained lukewarm. I had explained to them that, as laundry workers, their strike would require following delivery trucks to clients’ locations, then setting up instant pickets (see http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/twiki/bin/view/LawContempSoc/AmandaBellFirstPaper). They understood that this would be difficult and occasionally dangerous. |
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> | I first developed the “practice picket” strategy to get around a no-strike, no-picket clause while I was working on a campaign in Stockton, California in 2005. When I first came to their laundry plant in February, most of the union members were cordial, but only three seemed as though they would be ready to strike when the contract expired in May. We spent months pushing the usual strike preparation: sticker days, sign-making, and circulating a petition demanding Hepatitis B vaccinations for the sorters. However, the members remained lukewarm. I had explained to them that, as laundry workers, their strike would require following delivery trucks to clients’ locations, then setting up instant pickets (see http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/twiki/bin/view/LawContempSoc/AmandaBellFirstPaper). They understood this would be difficult and occasionally dangerous. |
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Planning |
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< | I wanted management, not my members, to be afraid of a strike. In April I talked to the union’s attorney. He sent me a copy of the contract. It had a typical no-picket clause. However, the language was vague about what “picketing the employer’s establishment” meant. The term “picketing” has a clear legal meaning – “patrolling at a site with a message . . . on . . . sign[s].” Howard Lesnick, The Gravamen of the Secondary Boycott, 62 Colum. L.Rev. 1363, 1364 n. 5 (1962). But the contract language did not say that no picketing could occur during the contract. It said only that no picketing could take place at the “establishment.” |
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> | I wanted management, not my members, to be afraid of a strike. In April I talked to the union’s attorney. He sent me a copy of the contract. It had a typical no-picket clause. However, the language was vague about what “picketing the employer’s establishment” meant. The term “picketing” has a clear legal meaning – “patrolling at a site with a message . . . on . . . sign[s].” Howard Lesnick, The Gravamen of the Secondary Boycott, 62 Colum. L.Rev. 1363, 1364 n. 5 (1962). But the contract language did not say that no picketing could occur during the contract. It said only that no picketing could take place at the “establishment.” |
| | There was a vacant lot a block away from the laundry. I sent a description to our lawyer of its distance from the plant. I told him we wanted to “practice” picketing the chainlink gate to the lot. He agreed with me that although the lot was within sight of the plant, it was sufficiently unrelated to the plant for us to picket. |
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View Larger Map |
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< | Our vacant lot is the gray rectangle labeled "1201 South Airport Way." The building labeled "Angelica Textile Services" is the laundry. A week before the picket we talked to the lady who lived in the neighboring house and to the imam of the mosque across the street to let them know what we would be doing. |
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> | Our vacant lot is the gray rectangle labeled "1201 South Airport Way." The gray-roofed building with white trucks in the parking lot is the laundry. The lot full of rusty-brown dumpsters next to it is a scrap yard, and the white-roofed building across the street is a homeless shelter. Most workers lived in the Union Square and Stribley Park neighborhoods behind the plant. A week before the picket we talked to the lady who lived in the house west of the vacant lot and to the imam of the mosque across the street to let them know what we would be doing. |
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-- AmandaBell - 17 Apr 2010 |