The Technology

A longstanding objection to more open-ended and diverse union membership is that with relatively low density in any given place, the members would be too costly to service: The economics of servicing require a collective-bargaining agreement and the accompanying dues and union security. But here we think the Internet is changing the economics of membership servicing in fundamental ways [see sidebar opposite].

The Internet reduces to near-zero the marginal cost of providing information, advice and some direct services to members. And Net usage in America is approaching 80 percent of households or workplaces. What this means is that unions can be continuously communicating with even a vast membership, at a cost that is basically independent of the number of members. Servicing and coordination of a mass labor movement, drawing on membership more varied and dispersed than present membership, is economically feasible today in a way it was not just a few years ago.

Of course, most workers will want human contact and direct exchange in addition to advice and guidance through the web. These relationships require some shared physical space, which is one reason open-source unionism would have a strong geographic component. But it does not gainsay the degree to which the Net can support alternative organizing, especially from a minority position of strength. The best evidence of this is what workers are already doing along these lines. As the examples in the sidebar indicate, whether job-based, occupation-based, geographically based or international/local-union-based, workers can be mobilized and organized through the Net, which can also connect labor with broader communities at a speed and cost unimaginable even a few years ago.

The Opportunity

If unions were to combine open membership, minority representation and low-cost, Net-based servicing and coordination--perhaps including more "direct affiliation" of new worker organizations to the national AFL-CIO, or regional bodies, or existing internationals--we believe that over the long run they would expand membership substantially. They would also enjoy immediate gains in labor's public image and political effectiveness.

The AFL-CIO takes great pride in its recent political program, claiming that it has dramatically increased the union household share of the active electorate even as its share of the working population has declined. Upon closer inspection, this claim proves exaggerated, an artifact of exit-poll procedures and inconsistency in question wording. But what is clear from the polls is that the number of nonmembers now in the electorate who express great support for unions is vastly greater than the number of union members who express such support--three to four times greater. A political program centered on labor's interests, with manifest general benefit, would find an audience among these voters. Especially when coupled with human contact and presence locally--provided, for example, by a well-organized central labor council or state federation--this sort of diffuse political support could greatly affect state and local as well as national elections.

Of course, admitting new sorts of members to its ranks--or better coordinating with outsiders on politics--would disrupt established labor routines. New unions would form, jurisdictional boundaries would be crossed and union alliances with nonunion community and advocacy groups would give rise to a different labor politics disturbing to the status quo. For some within labor, that may be enough reason not to try it.

But the open-source idea is eminently scalable. It can start small. And it can start in part of the movement. Labor, like other progressive organizations, sometimes acts as if it cannot coordinate on anything until it agrees on everything. That is not necessary here. A single state federation, or central labor council, or international could initiate it--anywhere there is a consensus to allow for experimentation.

Some traditionalists in labor may argue that the new workers brought in through OSU will not look like or have the same concerns or organize themselves the same way as "traditional" union members. And they would be right. How could new members from throughout the American economy and society, drawn together largely by different means, be replicas of current members? All great surges in organizing have been preceded by fears that the new members will be different from the old, and confusion about the right form of union--craft versus industrial, general versus narrow jurisdictions, public-sector associations versus "real unions." What we know from this history is that forms must adjust to workers and the broader economy, and nobody knows in advance which new forms will turn out to be enduring.

Labor currently has more support for its values in American society than it is harnessing and mobilizing, either through its political program or organizing. Workers want a connection to unions far greater than they have now. Present organizing is not keeping pace with economic changes and a nearly lethal employer and policy environment. Turning labor around will require more than simply doing more of what unions have been doing over the past decade. It will require a broader--if also, at least in part, shallower--membership base and stronger alliance between labor and those outside itself. That will not be achieved through rhetoric. It necessitates changes in membership, and the routines for servicing and mobilizing those members. What we need in America today is a labor movement that workers can join easily, without going to war with their employers; a labor movement that welcomes support anywhere it finds it, and is able to crystallize what is now diffuse support into real membership and shared action; and a movement that will offer support anywhere workers are struggling to build power. "Open-source unionism" describes the structure and ambitions of a labor movement that seeks to do these things--"The new union movement, we come from everywhere." It has a nice ring, doesn't it?

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