unions
TSSA rocked by #MeTU allegations of ‘new abuse’
Women’s group who exposed sexual harassment and toppled Cortes regime ‘summarily de-recognised’ by union, claims a ‘continuing culture of intimidation and bullying… and cronyism’ has led to dispute
The ‘MeTU’ group, which campaigns against harassment and bullying of women union members across the union movement, have alleged that the union is still riddled with abuse and is failing to follow the recommendations of the Kennedy Report that exposed widespread bullying and sexual harassment under the regime of now-former general secretary Manuel Cortes. The group also says that TSSA’s management has ‘summarily de-recognised’ the staff’s women’s group and replaced it with an ‘approved’ one, while sacking the firm of whistleblowing specialists that TSSA engaged, as one of its actions to follow Helena Kennedy’s recommendations, to investigate abuse and run a helpline for staff.
TSSA staff, who are represented by the GMB union, are in dispute with TSSA and their union reps have issued a scathing open letter criticising Cortes’s successor. However, the MeTU group also has sharp words of criticism for the union representing them, which has also been mired in its own sexual harassment and bullying scandal.
A MeTU statement released last night reads:
MeTU are horrified to see that following the Kennedy Inquiry and Conley Report (Feb 23) on the extreme abuse, sexual harassment, bullying, and corruption in TSSA trade union, which led to the dismissal of the former General Secretary, Manuel Cortes and most of the senior leadership, staff and members are now facing new abuse.
Following an election, gerrymandered by an EC who were close to the old regime, the union workforce has been forced to declare a dispute with the new General Secretary barely 3 months in. They cite a continuing culture of intimidation and bullying and corner cutting and cronyism with hire and fire appointments without consultation or scrutiny.
On top of this, the TSSA Self Organised women’s group – Women in Focus – who helped uncover the rot and bring about the reports leading to the change – yet were never invited to take part in the change process – have been summarily ‘de-recognised’ by the EC and new General Secretary on a flimsy pretext.
A near-secret meeting of a new ‘self-organised group’ or rather an EC-organised women’s group was barely attended and populated mainly by the President, an EC member and former EC members. Some of whom are close to the former disgraced General Secretary, Manuel Cortes.
The EC has voted to dismiss the independent whistle-blowing organisation, Howlett Brown – against the recommendation of Baroness Helena Kennedy. Staff have been told that they can instead take grievances and complaints to the President of the TSSA.
We fully support TSSA staff in their dispute and are glad they now have the courage to contest undemocratic and bullying practices. This may be the first time union staff have gone into dispute following the exposure of structural sexual abuse and bullying to demand its genuine implementation. Solidarity.
GMB: new scandal following the Monaghan Inquiry
However, it is important to say that they are represented against their corrupt employer by another union, the GMB, who claim to be reformed when they are not. While we publish the body of the letter we cannot in conscience publish the names of the full time organisers who are themselves part of the problem. There are women being bullied out as we write.
The conclusion of the Monaghan report was that the GMB is institutionally sexist and therefore is an unsafe environment for women. We can see no evidence that the GMB has acted on the work done by KC Karon Monaghan during the investigation into their practices and has disbanded the task force that was set up to implement the 27 recommendations which were made.
Now a second report by McColgan which came about following the KC’s investigation into the behaviour of GMB officials at one of Brighton’s bin depots, details the perpetration of shocking abuse and threats of physical violence against women, the discovery of a ‘cache of weapons’, and further reports of the homophobic bullying of staff. The report also describes GMB Reps “Publicly saying that women managers ‘don’t have a fucking clue. They’re female. They don’t know what they’re doing’ and describing a woman manager as ‘a fucking bitch pulling the strings’”
The GMB response was defensive and thuggish and referred to the 70 plus whistleblower testimonies given to a KC Barrister as ‘anonymous and unsupported statements’. This claim was roundly challenged by council Chief Executive, Will Tuckley, who pointed out that ‘“Some of those who spoke to the report did so anonymously for fear of potential retaliation.”
Furthermore it was suggested that ‘evidence’ would be required before the GMB would be willing to take any action, suggesting that the brave individuals who took part in the investigation had not already supplied evidence beyond reasonable doubt that terrible abuse had occurred in their workplace. Women across all layers of the union have been and continue to be damaged purposefully.
Yesterday we saw a press ‘leaked’ letter sent by the current GMB General Secretary to their central executive council warning of a coup and a return to the bad old days. GMB sisters say that while there may have been piecemeal change in some areas, most of this assertion of change is mythical, with the reality that under the current leadership, things are much worse.
The message here is clear, in certain elements of these unions misogyny is rife and they have demonstrated that they are determined to continue with the damaging and abusive behaviour which led to all of these investigations. They are happy to allow one corrupt administration to inform the actions of the next and they continue to collectively gaslight us through their actions.
Our campaign against those who seek to do harm is very far from over. We will not allow our movement to destroy itself because some men and their many enablers refuse to stop abusing us as women. We will continue to find, expose and remove from the trade union and labour movement, perpetrators of bullying, misogyny, sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia and ableism to ensure our movement is truly inclusive.
We will continue to tell the truth and stand up for ourselves and each other at any cost. The world has changed and we are winning. Our movement needs to be fit for purpose, with true democracy and not the current structure of power hoarding we see.
To perpetrators and misogynists throughout our movement, stop, and stop now, or be exposed.
The GMB’s open letter to TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust says that the dispute has arisen because of members’ “total lack of confidence in the implementation of the Kennedy Report (Feb 2023) and the Conley Report (Feb 2023)“. It alleges:
Staff morale has shifted from improving (during the tenure of Peter Pendle), back to a place of low psychological safety. Amongst the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hyper vigilance, and worry. The trust in the leadership…has completely collapsed and in general, staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted, and exhausted from the pressures and strains of working in this – what can only be described as – a toxic environment.
Baroness Kennedy was contacted by over fifty people when compiling her report. She described: “beyond specific instances, I have found a culture that is stuck, it seems, in a morass of staff upset and grievance – on matters relating… to the bullying, silencing and marginalising of staff.”
Sadly, we feel that this culture has returned under the new governance of the union. Kennedy commended the staff in her report: “I want to emphasise that I was impressed by the commitment and decency of the staff …I met some truly good people, with good intentions… I have experienced staff as fearful, anxious, and distressed. I have not experienced staff as vengeful, political, unkind, or lacking in decency”.
Kennedy’s analysis did not blame the staff; she praised them.
It goes on:
In addition, amongst other things, there has been an abject failure to follow agreed procedure and protocols regarding staff complaints made about bullying. Kennedy reported in February 2023: “I also heard evidence of failings in due process, natural justice and governance…In any organisation, policies and procedures are trumped by values and culture. No policy can make a healthy, productive organisation if its implementation is limited by poor values or a dysfunctional culture.”
The policy on Dignity at Work states clearly and unequivocally the procedures to follow when complaints have been raised. These procedures have not been followed.
With regards to staffing appointments, such as the (Interim) Assistant General Secretary Role, and ‘hiring’ of an HR Manager, proper procedure, and collective bargaining, including the practice of having an independent staff observer, are not being followed.
Kennedy warned about opaque practices amongst the recruitment of Senior Management Team in her report, where she described how a member of staff was being ‘groomed’ for General Secretary. She strongly criticised it as ‘opportunity hoarding’. We see it as cronyism which undermines the reputation of the union.
We are further concerned that the General Secretary will not meet with the Staff Reps every week to discuss issues, as the previous Interim General Secretary had agreed to do. We feel that this is a vital part of ensuring full transparency in the process of implementing sweeping culture change and a way of dealing with any staffing issues rapidly.
Former TSSA assistant general secretary Steve Coe described GMB’s allegations as ‘worrying’:
Worrying developments at TSSA. This follows the Executive's decision to disband TSSA Women in Focus, the group that called for the reports that exposed wrongdoing and abuse of power by past senior officials. pic.twitter.com/r7k1j8zzZZ
— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) January 20, 2024
Contacted for comment about the new MeTu statement, the TSSA press spokesman was dismissive about the press enquiry and claimed not to have seen it and that there are no links between current senior figures in the union and the disgraced former management, but declined to provide a formal comment and threatened legal action if its contents were related and the union was unhappy with what it said.
TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust has previously attacked Skwawkbox for scrutinising the claims about her record that she and her team made during last year’s election to choose the union’s new general secretary. Despite a lack of relevant experience in a senior union role and the candidacy of two experienced TSSA figures, the union’s executive opted to nominate her as its preferred candidate and pushed members hard to vote for her.
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Fresh audio product: why did SA bring case against Israel, organizing amidst sprawl, the widening war in the Middle East
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link):
February 1, 2024 Sean Jacobs explores why South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel • Eric Blanc (Substack post here) on organizing in a scattered and atomized society • Hassan El-Tayyab on the widening war in the Middle East
CPSU officials undermine federal pay campaign
After four months of fragmented but defiant industrial action, Commonwealth public servants have accepted the latest government pay offer of 11.2 per cent over three years, plus a 0.92 per cent sign-on bonus.
The deal falls well short of the Community and Public Sector Union’s claim of 20 per cent. Members voted 67.5 per cent in favour with 32.5 per cent against in the third union indicative poll in November, demonstrating significant dissatisfaction despite a recommendation by the union officials.
While the CPSU officials celebrated the Labor government’s post-election agreement to bargain for service-wide pay and core conditions, the results were less than spectacular.
It would be easy to write off the disappointing deal as inevitable because the CPSU had not taken strike action in eight years and many members had never taken part in industrial action. However, strikes by other unions have shown that strong member-led campaigns can win decent pay rises.
Industrial action
In the past, public service-wide bargaining was directed by regular mass meetings in each state. But this time around members had almost no role and even delegates were reduced to attending virtual “updates”.
This top-down approach undermined the campaign. While 86 per cent of members voted in June against the government’s initial offer of 10.5 per cent in the union’s first indicative poll, this did not translate to members being convinced to take industrial action—only 56.9 per cent of members in Services Australia participated in their protected action ballot.
To get members on side to take industrial action, delegates needed to have patiently made the case for industrial action over time, which did not consistently occur.
Instead of opening the campaign to more democracy, the officials doubled down on their top-down approach. They started the industrial campaign at Services Australia with AUX code bans for Smart Centre workers. (AUX codes are used to track the time a worker has deliberately chosen to not accept calls or process applications.)
However, in many sites the most experienced delegates were in the Service Centre not the Smart Centre. Not seeing their most experienced delegates take industrial action with them sapped the confidence of members in the Smart Centre, leading them to weaken their participation in the bans.
Members were also dumbstruck by the officials’ decision to hold their first one-hour stoppage at 4pm, which would shut Centrelink Service Centres to customers for only half an hour.
The lack of a serious campaign saw a small majority accepting the deal in the second indicative union poll. However, this was uneven, with a few agencies voting strongly against the offer.
The officials were worried they could not carry a vote for the deal in these agencies and overrode the poll results, immediately announcing a 24-hour strike at Services Australia even thought it was not one of the agencies which had strongly rejected the offer.
The officials pushed on despite clear signs that their members were not willing to commit to such an escalation. In the end, only 10 per cent of all Services Australia staff and 33 per cent of Service Centre staff took part, with the vast majority of those on strike told to stay at home rather than picket.
Rank-and-file
Where activists organised locally during the strike, the results were better. Some workers in Services Australia, with the assistance of members from other departments and CPSU officials, held a galvanising protest outside the Canberra head office.
Delegates at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) in Canberra also demonstrated initiative. In June 2023, when all other workplaces were waiting for bargaining to start, they started leafletting their offices once a week.
They extended this activist approach by creating a campaigning committee whose job was to involve as many members as possible to do point-of-entry leafletting, put up posters and to do desk drops across Canberra workplaces. This paid dividends with enough members involved to leaflet workplaces several times a week during the strike period.
Following the second indicative poll, delegates at the Fair Work Ombudsmen (FWO) took the matter into their own hands, phonebanking their members to find out how they voted and organising conversations with them about taking industrial action if the union rejected the offer.
Surprisingly, they found that an overwhelming majority of their members had voted to reject the offer, with many wanting to take industrial action. Even some who had voted to accept were willing to take industrial action in solidarity with colleagues who wanted a better offer.
This put enough pressure on the officials to allow FWO members to hold a protected action ballot. However, the officials were clear from the start that they did not intend to mount a serious industrial campaign, instead opting for a “short sharp strike campaign”.
The officials were hoping that strikes in smaller agencies would convince the government that the CPSU had a serious industrial campaign with plans for protected action ballots in 20-plus agencies.
Unfortunately, the government recognised that this was a way of extracting a face-saving concession rather than a real attempt at an industrial campaign that could win.
Lessons
The outcome of the campaign represented a missed opportunity. CPSU activists need to learn some lessons.
First, delegates need to take the initiative to rebuild a culture of holding members’ meetings among their immediate membership, to get feedback and to win a clear mandate for action.
Regular members’ meetings would have made it more difficult for the officials to refuse to do the paperwork when FWO delegates called a second stoppage.
Members’ meetings also create a space for discussion around social justice issues such as Palestine.
Second, delegates need the membership onside if they are to challenge or ignore the decisions of the official leadership.
Finally, delegates in DEWR and the ACCC should look to mobilise their members over their agency-level agreements and in all agencies over the way in which the new EBA is rolled out.
By a CPSU delegate
The post CPSU officials undermine federal pay campaign first appeared on Solidarity Online.
Unions had a flat 2023
Despite an apparent upsurge in labor militancy, unions made no gains in their share of the workforce last year. According to newly released figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023, 10.1% of the workforce belonged to a union, unchanged from the previous year and down 0.2 from 2019. There was a spike in union density in 2020, as more nonunion workers left the workforce than their organized counterparts in the early covid days, but that was quickly reversed in 2021.
Since 1965, union density has risen only four times from one year to the next; it’s fallen in 45. Although long-term comparisons are dangerous—definitions, coverage, and methods can change radically over time—it looks like the private sector union share today is lower than it was in 1900.
The public sector, once the brighter spot in the union picture, has lately been leading the way down. Since 2011, the decline in public sector density is four times that of the private sector’s. The right’s war on public sector unions has taken a serious toll. The grim story is graphed below.
pay
Much of the material difficulties experience by the working class over the last few decades can be traced the shrinkage of unions—lower wages, stingier benefits, less job security. Pay is the most obvious measure. As the graph below shows, union members have weekly paychecks 16% larger than nonunion workers. The union premium is larger for groups that are the victims of discrimination—women and non-whites. Women enjoy a 19% union premium overall; black women, 20%; and Hispanic (as the government calls them) women, 32%. Nonwhite men also enjoy bigger union premiums than white men. The only exception is workers of Asian origin; it’s likely that the high share employed in tech (a sector where unions are rare) is responsible.
geography
Union density varies widely by state, from Hawaii’s 24.1% to South Carolina’s 2.3%. The map below shows some clear regional patterns, with the Northeast, upper Midwest, and West showing the highest densities and the South the lowest. The ten states that gave Donald Trump the highest share of their 2020 vote have an average density of 6.3%; the ten lowest, 15.2%. The states of the old Confederacy have an average density of 4.8%; the rest, 10.7%. Curiously, the state with the lowest density, South Carolina, had the largest share of its population enslaved before the Civil War.
shrinking premium
That union premium has been shrinking over time, as unions have weakened more generally. Here’s a history showing the ratio of the weekly pay of all union workers to nonunion since 1994. (Figures for 2000 are unavailable. There’s no simple source of the historical data—you have to enter it by hand from annual releases.) The premium has declined steadily for three decades, from 37% in 1994 to 16% in 2023. While 16% isn’t nothing, the premium is less than half what it was back in the early Clinton era.
This graph is based on weekly wages, which are a half-decent proxy for workers’ “normal” wage (though people do cycle in and out of work, and sometimes hours can be hard to come by). But since workweeks can vary by time, industry, region, and worker characteristics (as economists say) it’s also worth looking at hourly pay.
That too is in decline, as the chart below (from UnionStats data) shows. The “unadjusted” line has fallen from a high of 31% in 1977 to 6% in 2023, a decline of 80%. But the unadjusted average, like the BLS averages above, mixes together workers of varying demographics (like age, sex, region, and race) from a variety of industrial sectors, with wide differences in pay and unionization rates. As those mixes change over time, the averages change, which obscures the pure union effect.
The line marked “adjusted” is an attempt to control for those compositional changes and compare workers who are similar except for their union status. That too has declined, though not as much—from 21% in 1977 to 10% last year, or just over 50%. That’s a lot but it’s less than the 80% decline in the unadjusted numbers.
coda
Of course, any premium >0% will inspire bosses to hate unions and want to destroy them—and not just for the higher pay. Unions are a constraint on boss behavior; they can force them to be less racist, less abusive, and less able to fire. But clearly they’ve lost a lot of their bite over time.
As I say every time I do these reviews:
There are a lot of things wrong with American unions. Most organize poorly, if at all. Politically they function mainly as ATMs and free labor pools for the Democratic party without getting much in return. But there’s no way to end the 40-year war on the US working class without getting union membership up….
It’s still true, though I should probably add a few years to that “40” timespan.
TSSA staff fearful as new bullying complaints rock Eslamdoust
“Among the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hypervigilance and worry. The trust in the leadership…has completely collapsed…staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted and exhausted…in this toxic environment” – GMB letter to new TSSA general secretary
Maryam Eslamdoust
TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust has been rocked by new allegations of bullying in the union after a letter from the GMB union – which represents TSSA staff – leaked to the media.
Eslamdoust was elected last year in what many considered an unfair election, after the TSSA executive asked union members to vote for her despite her being an outsider and two other experienced union candidates being in the frame – and despite Eslamdoust’s lack of relevant experience and a union background, which she attacked Skwawkbox for scrutinising. Eslamdoust had claimed in her campaign to be ‘an exceptional trade union professional’ with ‘high level trade union experience’ – yet her Linkedin profile indicated that she had never worked for a union or in an elected union role.
The election took place after former TSSA boss Manuel Cortes was removed over allegations of sexual harassment and bullying by him and other senior TSSA figures.
Now she has been accused, in a letter from GMB’s London organiser Andrew Harden, of presiding over a ‘toxic’ culture that has made staff fearful and led to them constantly looking over their shoulder:
Among the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hypervigilance and worry. The trust in the leadership that was burgeoning has completely collapsed and in general, staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted and exhausted from the pressures and strains of working in this…toxic environment.
Harden’s letter also accuses Eslamdoust of ‘abject’ failure to put anti-bullying procedures into practice after the recommendations made by Baroness Kennedy, whose damning report toppled Cortes. The union told the press that all recommendations ‘have been completed or are being acted on’.
The letter was published in full by former assistant TSSA general secretary Steve Coe, who described the developments as ‘worrying’ and linked it to the union’s decision to disband a key women’s group:
Worrying developments at TSSA. This follows the Executive's decision to disband TSSA Women in Focus, the group that called for the reports that exposed wrongdoing and abuse of power by past senior officials. pic.twitter.com/r7k1j8zzZZ
— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) January 20, 2024
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Postal workers’ union slams leaked plan to cut deliveries to alternate days
Cut to ‘universal service obligation’ exposed in leaked Ofcom report – plan made with no input from postal workers
Image: S Walker
Slamming a leaked Ofcom report on the future of Royal Mail’s ‘Universal Service Obligation’ (USO), compiled without any input from postal workers, to deliver letters on weekdays to all UK addresses, a Communication Workers Union (CWU) spokesperson said:
The early leaking of the details of the OFCOM report on the future of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) to the media sums up the lack of professionalism, integrity and credibility they have as a regulator.
This report, like their previous investigation on quality of service, has been produced without the input of a single postal worker or the CWU.
OFCOM have abandoned their responsibilities on quality of service and are now attempting to do the same on the USO.
Debating the future of the postal service in the absence of those who work for it and deliver it every day is completely inappropriate and should tell everybody what OFCOM’s real priorities and motives are.
It is therefore no surprise to see OFCOM potentially recommending letter deliveries every other day which is a serious down-dialling of the USO to a level which would threaten tens of thousands of jobs.
This is the regulator openly pursuing the failed agenda of the former Royal Mail Group senior leadership – all of whom have now left the company.
The CWU and our members are not blind to the need for change. But we want change based on the needs of customers, the security of our members’ jobs and driven by an ambitious growth strategy that sees the infrastructure, fleet and presence in every community as Royal Mail’s key assets.
The CWU will work with economists to produce an alternative and independent view on the future of postal services in the UK and embark on a major engagement exercise with our members, businesses and the public.This is a huge test of the new leadership of Royal Mail.
There has been some positive recent signs but they must now decide whether to back a completely failed vision which will destroy the company or change direction and join the CWU in expanding the role of postal workers and in turn expanding services, job security and profit.”
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PSA members win union to support Palestine
The Public Service Association (PSA) initially refused to take a position on Palestine—with organisers even belittling members who pushed for a statement.
A few PSA members signed up to Unionists for Palestine and together we set up a WhatsApp chat. I suggested that we do a photo action in Parramatta.
The photo action brought a core of us together against a real atmosphere of fear in the public sector about taking political action as workers. People thought they might lose their jobs but wanted to do the action anyway.
We decided to launch a petition to put pressure on the union. Almost 100 PSA members have now signed it.
The group has grown from five of us to 50 on Whatsapp in a few weeks. A number of people joined the union so they could sign the petition and be involved in the group.
The State Library Workplace Group and the Art Gallery of NSW passed motions for a ceasefire they wanted discussed at the PSA Central Council. This forced a debate and while the union’s leadership watered down the original motion they voted unanimously calling, “on the Australian Government to exercise all avenues of diplomacy to stop the bombing and ground assault by Israel into Gaza and call for an immediate ceasefire”.
This was a very real victory after the union had initially refused support by providing flags or defending members fighting for Palestine.
The group has also successfully challenged plans, following Zionist complaints, to change a reference to Palestine in the Australian Museum’s Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition. The group organised a letter co-signed by PSA members at the Museum—and the Museum has now backed down.
The post PSA members win union to support Palestine first appeared on Solidarity Online.
Own This! How Platform Co-operatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet – review
In Own This! How Platform Co-operatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet, Trebor Scholz presents platform co-operativism as a fairer, more sustainable alternative to the extractive capitalist model digital work. While he acknowledges the challenges of building a movement to compete with platform capitalism, Scholz persuasively argues that embracing diverse forms of co-operativism can create a more democratic digital future, writes Lola Brittain.
Own This! How Platform Co-operatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet. Trebor Scholz. Verso. 2023.
In the past few years, the new forms of work ushered in by the hyper-extractive business model of “platform capitalism”, have come under increased scrutiny. This has generated interest in paths of contestation and potential alternatives. One such alternative is platform co-operativism. Fusing the co-operative ownership structure, most commonly associated with the Rochdale pioneers of 1840s England, with the technology of digital platforms, platform co-ops promise to deliver a fairer and more sustainable form of digital work.
Fusing the co-operative ownership structure, most commonly associated with the Rochdale pioneers of 1840s England, with the technology of digital platforms, platform co-ops promise to deliver a fairer and more sustainable form of digital work.
The fusion was first proposed in concrete terms by Trebor Scholz in 2014. Since then, Scholz has done much to conceptualise and popularise the practice as the head of the Platform Cooperative Consortium; a digital space dedicated to supporting the establishment, growth, and conversion of platform co-ops.
Own This! How Platform Co-operatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet is his latest contribution. The book offers a panoramic overview of platform co-operativism and a vision for what its future might entail, drawing on case studies from Cape Town to Manhattan. It claims that platform co-ops are not a “figment of utopian imagination” but a reality that are already transforming the digital economy and that, with the right help, support and ecosystem, they can achieve a significant impact at a global scale.
The book offers a panoramic overview of platform co-operativism and a vision for what its future might entail, drawing on case studies from Cape Town to Manhattan
The book begins with an analysis of the issues faced by platform workers that will now be familiar to many: meagre wages, extreme risk, excessive surveillance, and management via algorithm. For Scholz, this is a consequence of the lack of workplace democracy that is attributable to the concentration of ownership within the hands of a few. This is not a new issue, of course, but it has been taken to the extreme by major technology corporations in the past two decades.
The solution to abject exploitation, according to Scholz, is for workers to collectively leverage platform technologies to forge democratically owned and governed businesses.
The solution to abject exploitation, according to Scholz, is for workers to collectively leverage platform technologies to forge democratically owned and governed businesses. Through analyses of many thriving real-world examples, such as Up&Go (an umbrella domestic work co-operative) and the Drivers Co-operative (a ride-hailing co-operative), he demonstrates that worker-ownership offers more equitable value distribution, higher pay, increased algorithmic transparency and security, a greater sense of dignity and improved wellbeing.
The potential of platform co-operativism to deliver improved outcomes for workers is contrasted to alternative attempts to elicit change, specifically by “compelling” major technology corporations to do better. He argues that several of the largest players have actively sought to prevent pro-worker legislation and that they are unwilling to democratise the workplace or improve conditions.
This is of course true in some cases. But there are examples where platform companies have been forced and/or persuaded to alter their practices, through direct worker action, community pressure and action-research. Scholz discusses prospects for worker action in chapter five. Here, he argues that even “successful strikes” do not necessarily generate workplace power and control and that, in turn, unions should embrace co-operativism as an alternative mode of platform worker organisation.
This is a pertinent suggestion, especially considering the recent ruling by the UK Supreme Court that Deliveroo workers cannot be recognised as employees or represented by trade unions in collective bargaining. But, of course, starting a co-operative is not possible for all, and Scholz acknowledges that platform co-operatives should not be expected to out-compete the major platform companies. To that extent, change – as he has noted elsewhere – will require a combination of strategies.
Starting a co-operative is not possible for all, and Scholz acknowledges that platform co-operatives should not be expected to out-compete the major platform companies. To that extent, change […] will require a combination of strategies.
The book is not solely focused on platform worker co-operatives, though. Conceptualising platform co-operativism as the Swiss army knife of organisational models, Scholz touches on an array of different forms, from producer co-ops to multi-stakeholder co-ops and data co-ops. This is all to say, that platform co-operatives are far from a “homogenous force”; they come in a variety of shapes and sizes and produce a variety of benefits, not simply for workers but for communities and consumers too.
Chapter three, in which Scholz tackles the perceived challenges of size (or, indeed scalability), is particularly interesting. Here, he confronts both a critique of platform co-operativism and an ongoing debate within the movement. The critique is that platform co-operatives are unlikely to scale. The debate is whether they should even attempt to; is scale simply growth in new clothes? He claims not, arguing that co-operative scaling is about securing “the best possible overall outcome/return”. This can be achieved by scaling “up” via the expansion of the size of the operation; but also “out” through the replication of a model in different geographic location; and “deep” by nurturing the existing organisation to create added value for stakeholders. This nuanced three-dimensional framework is an appreciated intervention in debate that often tends to focus, narrowly, on size alone.
More generally, it speaks to his broader strategy for the growth of the platform co-operative movement, which can be summarised, simply, as pragmatism. He is clear, at several points within the book, that his intention is to expand the movement and attract as many “allies” as possible. This means creating ample space for different approaches and experiments. It also means rejecting ideological fixity. In chapter seven – a letter set in the year 2035, written in the tradition of social speculative fiction – he rejects James Muldoon’s association of platform co-operativism with socialism, arguing that the movement must remain a “big tent” under which many political philosophies can exist.
Not only does Own This! advocate for a collective appropriation of platforms themselves; it also seeks to wrestle ownership of the imaginaries surrounding the development of the platform economy out of the hands of major corporations.
Thus, while he is pragmatic in his approach, his vision is incredibly ambitious in scope. He imagines a near-future, twelve years from now, in which an international network of co-operatives, containing socialists, anarchists, disgruntled VC (Venture Capitalist) bros and everything in-between, is thriving. In Scholz’s vision, this network is being actively promoted and supported by 80 governments around the world, as a pivotal pillar of the response to climate change and poverty elimination. In this respect, not only does Own This! advocate for a collective appropriation of platforms themselves; it also seeks to wrestle ownership of the imaginaries surrounding the development of the platform economy out of the hands of major corporations.
Is the network that Scholz envisions possible? There are certainly many green shoots. But, as an “unfinished story of co-operative principles in the digital economy,” the book shows that there are many questions that the movement is yet to confront. This includes the ways in which regulation could be designed to support platforms co-operatives, and how democratic governance can be managed and maintained if platform co-operatives do scale.
Overall, though, the book is a critical documentation of an evolving and genuinely impactful movement. Weaving multiple real-world examples through analyses of key topics – not simply scale and union relations, but also value and prospects for data democratisation – it succeeds in vividly bringing the concept to life, whilst identifying paths for future research. As such, it will no doubt serve as a call to action for those interested in constructing an alternative digital future.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: Roman Samborskyi on Shutterstock.
Exclusive: Dublin airport rebrands Starbucks cafe – but still selling Starbucks products
Airport says Starbucks sales are a ‘temporary’ measure as critics point to boycott over Gaza and firm’s conduct toward unions
A ‘new’ cafe in Dublin airport’s Terminal 1 is still selling Starbucks products under a different brand name, Skwawkbox can reveal.
The airport announced the opening of its new ‘Vista’ cafe on Thursday in what is said was a unit ‘previously occupied by Starbucks:
But critics were quick to link the announcement to the boycott of Starbucks by many in response to the firm’s links to Israel and its ongoing anti-union activities in the US, with hundreds of responses like the examples below:
I think this is still Starbucks they've just rebranded the name of the café to try and avoid the ongoing boycott. If you zoom in you can see the Starbucks menu, plus they're still using Starbucks cups! There's also zero online presence for "Vista Coffee" – it doesn't exist!
— James M (@MamesJolloy) January 4, 2024
Why is there what looks like a @Starbucks logo in the corner of the left hand screen?
Can you clarify whether this is a rebranding of the existing outlet or has the new one stolen Starbuck's property?
Hope you can clarify; I'm sure you don't want to be associated with theft. pic.twitter.com/xipWJA1eTm— Brian (@LifeOfBOS) January 5, 2024
Starbucks has seen its share price hit since the boycott on sales, despite the company CEO issuing a statement that Starbucks ‘condemns violence, hate, lies and weaponised speech – he did not mention Israel or Gaza in the statement – and that Starbucks ‘stand[s] for humanity’.
Starbucks in the US has been engaged in a long campaign against unionisation by workers that saw leaked video in 2022 show the firm’s founder begging store managers to step up their anti-union activities – and the firm suing the union for trademark infringement. Boycott calls grew after a post went out on the Starbucks Workers Union official Twitter account posted a message of solidarity with Palestine after the widely-misrepresented Hamas raid last October and Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza that has killed over 30,000 civilians, more than two thirds of them children and women. Starbucks share price has fallen by around seven percent since the boycott. It is not the only global brand to see profits fall – McDonalds’ CEO has admitted that the business has taken a ‘meaningful’ hit.
A spokesperson for Dublin airport confirmed that the Vista cafe is using Starbucks products, but told Skwawkbox that both the brand and the product usage were temporary and that the Starbucks cafe closed because its contract had run out:
Vista is a temporary brand. Starbucks closed at the end of December as their contract expired. An exciting new local coffee brand will be permanently moving into this location in March. Until then, the new operator (using Starbucks’ products) is running the unit temporarily as Vista, ensuring passengers get their caffeine fix.
This change is part of a major overhaul of the food and beverage offerings in T1 and T2 at Dublin Airport which will happen over the coming months. Passengers will see several units operate on a temporary basis in the short term – under generic brands – while the fit-out works are completed.
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Fresh audio product: perils of striking Trump from the ballot, a good year for labor
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link):
January 4, 2024 Samuel Moyn, law prof and historian, on the political and legal dubiousness of excluding Trump from the presidential ballot (article here) • labor journalist Alex Press on the year in labor (articles on that topic here and here)