Practice Pickets: solving the problem of no-strike clauses before contract expiration

The Problem of Fear

In 2005, I was an organizer helping union members at a laundry negotiate a new contract. Members’ leverage usually comes from the threat of a strike. However, at this plant, the union had not been strong for years, so the laundry company felt little fear. My job became to convince the company that its workers would strike.

I began with non-confrontational actions such as leafleting and sticker days to ease the members into acting strong in front of management. Unfortunately, members were afraid to use even these mild tactics. Union stickers “fell off” people’s smocks before managers saw them. Members would read leaflets, but no one wanted to help distribute them. The clearest indicator of fear was that many refused to sign a petition requesting hepatitis vaccines they had needed for years. Some people may take stickers off or refuse to help with leaflets because they ideologically disagree with the union. But if they won’t sign a petition for a legally mandated workplace protection, it’s safe to assume they are afraid of management, not ideologically pro-hepatitis.

The members’ fear was understandable. The company was acting hostile. Management installed surveillance cameras where workers were likely to talk to me. In front of the entire wash department, one manager yelled obscenities at the only openly pro-union washer. The general manager called in the police to scold me in the employee cafeteria. Someone slashed my tires.

By April, only three members, including the washer who’d been told to go do something anatomically impossible, looked as though they would have the nerve to strike when the contract expired the next month.

Developing a Practice Picket

I wanted management, not my members, to be afraid. I had just come from a campaign during which union hotel workers had started out similarly nervous. They had gotten stronger when given the opportunity to picket their hotels. When their managers could not conceal how alarming they found the pickets – picketing looks to managers like a strike, which looks like losing business, which looks like upper executives wanting to fire some managers – the workers’ confidence leaped.

I thought my members at the laundry would benefit from a picket too, but they faced a problem. Like most union agreements, their contract contained a no-strike clause prohibiting strikes and pickets. The hotel workers’ contract had been the same, but they hadn’t had to worry about it because their contract expired months before the pickets. But my laundry members couldn’t simply wait until their contract expired. The national union leadership had already told the company we were going to walk May 5.

I still wanted my laundry members to have the opportunity the hotel workers did. I asked the union’s attorney to send me a copy of the no-strike clause. The language prohibiting picketing the employer’s establishment was vague. The term “picketing” has a well-known meaning – “patrolling at a site with a message . . . on . . . sign[s]” – so it did not need definition. Howard Lesnick, The Gravamen of the Secondary Boycott, 62 Colum. L.Rev. 1363, 1364 n. 5 (1962). But the contract language also did not define “the employer’s establishment.” Moreover, it did not say no picketing could occur during the contract. It only forbade picketing at the “establishment.”

There was a vacant lot a block away from the laundry. I sent a description of it to our lawyer and 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 without violating the no-strike clause.

I thought this opportunity to experiment with picketing away from the plant would build members’ confidence. At that time many felt they did not have a right even to wear stickers at the plant – marching around the plant waving signs would have seemed unspeakably risky. But moving the picket a block away might diminish this fear. Moreover, underneath everything, the members DID want a raise, DID want vaccines, and DID want to be respected.

Member and Management Response

On the day of the picket, the first to arrive were not members, but two managers who planted themselves across the street to videotape us. When members arrived, we learned chants and practiced patrolling the gate to the lot, which stood in for a client’s delivery entrance. One worker drove his minivan to the gate so we could simulate a delivery. We obstructed the “truck” by patrolling and taking our sweet time to get out of its way. After the picket, I compared my attendance list to the shop list. We had 73% participation! Better yet, the picketers walked into work talking and laughing about the picket. They didn’t look scared – but the managers with the video camera did.

I was relieved, and so were the three members who had helped bring co-workers to the picket. Management was less relieved. The general manager hired a guard and bolted the bathroom window shut because he thought I was using it to sneak into the plant. He also held a “fire drill” that turned into a union-bashing meeting. Fortunately, members found all funny rather than intimidating. One woman talked back to the GM at the fire drill. When the contract expired two weeks later, members volunteered to picket the plant. Seeing their managers frightened of them – simply because they had marched around like strikers – had changed their sense of who had the power.

Result

A few weeks after those real pickets began, we won the members’ best contract in 30 years. It included their highest raise in all that time, and they got their vaccines. The contract didn’t contain everything the workers had hoped for, but it represented an important break from the past.

Conclusion

A practice picket can give members confidence and pressure management into a better contract. Members see it as a way to try out something they have a right to do on their own time. Managers see it as a prelude to a strike. The confidence members derive from the picket collides with management’s newfound fear, and the balance of power shifts.

The swing shift's practice picket, April 15, 2005. The man kneeling in the middle is my co-worker Heraclio, a shop steward at San Diego Airport Sky Chefs. He took several months off of work to help organize the laundry.

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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.

Thank you for all your work on this, Paulina. Your suggestions are terrific and I am working on them. It’s been hard, because many of the things I should develop are the hardest things to explain. You're right that the “raw material is excellent for storytelling: it has conspiracy and intrigue and power plays and creative problem-solving” and your ideas for improving that are very good. On the other hand, I'm strugging with writing about those things briefly in a way that people who have not worked on a union campaign will understand. I don’t mean that to sound arrogant, I just mean that it’s an unusually hostile environment (my tires were slashed in Stockton, and it was one of the campaigns where a manager laid hands on me – he grabbed me by the back of my shirt collar while trying to prevent me from going on the shop floor) but at the same time workers do so much to hide their fear from organizers. One of the top reasons people fail as union organizers (the average organizer lasts two years, and that’s counting in all the warhorses who work for 20+ years) is because they are unable to recognize fear behind the rudeness, avoidance, and, ahem, fibbing that most people put on before they start to trust us. It’s hard to make it clear in just a few words that when a worker insists on giving me a soda, that means she’s avoiding supporting the union. But I’m working on it and just writing this update to you has given me some ideas. Thank you!

*Practice Pickets: solving the problem of no-strike, no-picket clauses before contract expiration *

Almost all American union contracts contain a clause that prohibits employees from striking while the union contract is in effect. These no-strike clauses inhibit employees' ability to stage an effective protest in various ways. However, this limitation is particularly burdensome immediately before a contract expires. Employers that do not fear that workers may strike will stick to their harshest proposals, and small-scale protest such as sticker days are unreliable indicators of whether unions members are ready to strike. A meaningful demonstration that members are serious about striking can be a crucial bargaining tool.

In Februrary 2005, I was [preparing union members for a strike] in a Stockton, California laundry plant. We pushed the usual strike preparation: sticker days, sign-making, and circulating a petition demanding Hepatitis B vaccinations for the soil-sorters. 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. In general, they seemed lukewarm about our preparations.

I think that you should include more details here. For instance, why do you think that the members were “lukewarm” before the practice picket? Did they also seem afraid (which you allude to later)? Details describing how they acted lukewarm would contribute to the story by describing the pre-picket balance of power and provide a contrast to their later confidence (though their confidence is only referred to vaguely; that would have to be expanded with details also). In general, the power shift is fascinating, and I think that any insight you have here would strengthen your paper. Also, if the members were lukewarm, why do you think you have a 73% turnout at the picket?

Also, I'm not clear on what your job description was. Hence the [brackets].

_Planning I wanted management, not my members, to be afraid of a strike. In April, the union’s attorney sent me a copy of the contract. Though it had a no-strike clause [assuming no-strike and no-picket clauses are the same, I think that you should be consistent in naming them], 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 only forbade picketing at the “establishment.”

So the contract had some sort of loophole allowing a practice picket? Is it common to leave the no-strike clause so vague? If not, do you think that practice pickets would be helpful where the language was more precise? That might be beyond the scope of your paper, but you might want to consider the question.

There was a vacant lot a block away from the laundry. I told our lawyer that we wanted to “practice” picketing the chainlink gate to the lot. He agreed that although the lot was within sight of the plant, it was sufficiently unrelated to the plant that the union members could practice picketing without violating the no-strike clause.

_Member turnout _On the day of the picket, the first to arrive were not union members, but two managers and their video camera. They stood across the street to record whatever happened. Soon members arrived. We practiced patrolling and learned the basic chants. One enthusiastic worker volunteered to drive his minivan up to the lot gate so we could imitate the arrival of a delivery truck. We practiced slowing the “truck’s” entry. Finally everyone left, to punch in to swing shift or go home. I compared my attendance list to the full shop list. We had seventy-three percent participation.

If you could add more details about what happened at the practice picket, it would help to contrast the innocuousness of the practice picket with management’s apparent panic, further demonstrating how something so simple could be so effective. For instance, you say earlier that you wanted to picket the chainlink gate. What does that entail? Were you pretending that the gate was the entrance to a client's loading area or did you use the gate for some other purpose? How did the members act during the picket? Did they become more confident as the picket wore on? How long did it last? How was it different from a real picket? How did the managers that were taping the picket act during the picket? (Of course, all of these questions don't need to be answered. I'm just trying to give you ideas.) It seems like you described a laundry picket in your last paper, but you could reiterate that here so the second paper is more of a stand-alone piece for people that don't know how laundry pickets work. Or maybe you could describe how you picketed the minivan-delivery truck in more detail.

_Management reaction _I was relieved, and so were the original three members who had helped bring co-workers to the picket. Management was less relieved. They installed a surveillance camera and hired a guard. They held a “fire drill” that turned into a meeting about how the union was going to put everyone out of a job. The GM even bolted the ladies’ room window shut because he thought I was sneaking into the plant through it. Fortunately, the members found all this funny rather than intimidating. Seeing their managers frightened of them – simply because they had marched around like strikers – had shifted their sense of the balance of power. When the contract expired two weeks later, the members volunteered to picket the plant itself.

Management became insecure, but do you think that the union members felt more empowered? If so, you should describe that. The fact that they thought that management's insecurity was funny instead of threatening surely suggests it. If the members were legally disempowered because they could not protest, but the practice protest made them feel more empowered in a social sense, then that distinction might be interesting to explore. Surely management’s reaction shows that there must be some psychological value in picketing.

A few weeks after those real pickets began, we won the best contract the members had achieved in 30 years. It included their highest raise in all that time and fairer schedules. The contract did not contain everything the workers had hoped for, but it represented an important break from the past.

_Conclusion _ A practice picket is a creative, effective tactic. It can assess employees’ strength, give them confidence, and, most importantly, pressure management into bargaining a better contract.

This conclusion is weak. You should reiterate more of the provocative ideas that you suggest in your paper: that the practice picket shifted the balance of power, that it made management insecure and members more enthusiastic, that this might be attributed to the symbolic effect of a picket, that practice pickets can salvage some of the power that a no-strike clause takes away from the union. If you write about that in your conclusion, you won’t have to say that “a practice picket is a creative, effective tactic” because you will have proven it.

In editing your paper, I mostly eliminated the background so that the story of the practice picket was center stage. Previously, it was buried halfway through, despite being, in my opinion, the most compelling part, both because it is practical evidence of the importance of practice pickets and because your raw material is excellent for storytelling: it has conspiracy and intrigue and power plays and creative problem-solving. So, in general, I think that your focus should be on the story, with background and theory added where appropriate. You don't need very much initial background because the basic idea of a practice picket is very intuitive (practice makes perfect, after all.) You don't need the "what is problematic about no-strike clauses" section because your paper is more effective, in my opinion, when the topic is narrowed to the concept that practice pickets are a way of avoiding the unique burdens of a union that is bound by a no-strike clause on the eve of a contract's end. However, I think that you should keep the observation that wearing stickers or circulating leaflets doesn’t have “the punch of a picket,” though speculating why that is would be helpful. (Does it have something to do with the social or symbolic significance, discussed below?) The observation that a member brave enough to wear a sticker isn’t necessarily brave enough to strike is interesting as well. Perhaps you could include these observations where you describe the pre-picket "lukewarm" feelings of the members.

I did not rewrite much beyond the first couple of paragraphs, because I think that what would make it strongest would be to include more details about the strike and the practice picket (details that I don’t know, obviously).

Since your suggestion is that the practice picket helped the members win a better contract, details contrasting the atmosphere before and after the practice picket would be compelling. Were they more enthusiastic after the practice picket? During the real picket, was their picketing style safer, less awkward, more confident, or more effective than typical first-time picketers? Of course, management’s reaction to the picket is very important. But it seems that you are also suggesting that the picket made the members more receptive to the possibility of striking, so details on members’ reactions would support that proposition.

Also, I don't think that the photo captions give any crucial information and may be cut or shortened if necessary. I think that the first photo in particular speaks for itself.

-- AmandaBell - 17 Apr 2010

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