Community organizing and employee representation

The decline in the scope and power of American unions has led to a search for new strategies and new organizational forms to better succeed in representing the interests of employees in the labour market. This paper examines the role of community-based organizations of the sort that proved so powerful during the Civil Rights Movement. The subject of the paper is a strong national network of community organizations that is neighbourhood-based and draws heavily on churches and other community institutions. The organizations are put together in neighbourhoods, yet they also wield power at the city and state levels. The paper describes the organizations and examines and assesses their labour market policies. The second part of the paper takes up organizational issues and, in particular, describes how the structure and culture of these organizations enable them to avoid some of the organizational perils that have befallen unions and other social movement organizations. The paper concludes by comparing these organizations with traditional unions and by discussing their prospects for growth as well as their limitations.