Labour and Union Campaigning
Definition
Labour and union campaigning is the practice of organising workers — directly or through their unions — to win improvements through collective action: workplace strikes, contract campaigns, sectoral bargaining, transnational solidarity, and political pressure on labour-policy demands.
The longest-tested practitioner literature in the organising field. Union organising has roughly a century of documented craft, formal curricula (Labor Notes’ Secrets of a Successful Organiser, the UE Steward’s Handbook, the AFL-CIO Internal Organising Toolkit, the IWW’s Organise!), and a vocabulary — one-on-ones, committee formation, escalation, contract campaign calendar, salting, badges — that has been adopted by much of the broader campaign world. Many now-common community-organising practices (door-knocks, leadership development, escalation discipline) came from union organising first.
It is distinguished from the specific union-organizing craft term by its scope: the full labour-movement repertoire from the workplace through national federations to international solidarity, rather than the one-on-one-driven workplace method.
It overlaps with tenant-organizing (structurally similar for non-employees), boycotts-and-strikes as the most-used direct tactics, and coalition-building.
FAQ
What is labour and union campaigning?
Labour and union campaigning is the practice of organising workers — directly or through their unions — to win improvements through collective action. Its repertoire spans workplace strikes, contract campaigns, sectoral bargaining, transnational solidarity, and political pressure on labour-policy demands. It is distinct from the narrower union-organizing craft because it covers the full labour-movement arc, from individual workplaces through national federations to international solidarity work.
What practitioner literature and curricula anchor the field?
The field rests on roughly a century of documented practitioner literature and formal organising curricula. Key texts include Labor Notes’ Secrets of a Successful Organiser, the UE Steward’s Handbook, the AFL-CIO Internal Organising Toolkit, and the IWW’s Organise!. Many now-common community-organising practices — door-knocks, leadership development, and escalation discipline — were pioneered in union organising before being adopted across the broader campaign world.
How does it differ from the union-organizing craft term?
It is distinguished from the specific union-organizing craft term by scope. While union-organizing describes the one-on-one-driven workplace method, labour and union campaigning covers the full labour-movement repertoire: from the workplace, through national federations, to international solidarity. The broader term includes the entire range of collective-action tools, not just the narrower recruitment-driven workplace practice that the craft term isolates.
Which adjacent organising practices overlap with it?
It overlaps with several adjacent organising traditions. Tenant-organizing is structurally similar because it organises non-employees for collective action around shared interests. Boycotts-and-strikes serve as the most-used direct tactics within its repertoire. Coalition-building is a frequent companion practice, since labour campaigns rarely succeed without alliances with community groups, faith organisations, and progressive political coalitions.
What core vocabulary defines union organising practice?
The field carries a vocabulary refined over generations of practice: one-on-ones for relationship building, committee formation for distributed leadership, escalation discipline for leverage, contract campaign calendars for sequencing actions, salting for infiltrating hostile workplaces, and badges for visible identity. These terms have since migrated outward, and many are now used across the wider community-organising and campaigning worlds.
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