
Issue No 3		05 March 1999

Interview

How Organising Works

Interview with Sarah Kaine by Peter Lewis

The ACTU's Sarah Kaine is part of a new breed of union organiser who help workers stand up for themselves.


	Sarah Caine - ACTU Organiser

Tell us about your job

I'm employed by the ACTU, I get seconded to two unions per year to assist in organising campaigns in areas the union has determined as strategic to them.

What are organising campaigns?

Organising work is what you would have traditionally called a recruitment campaign, but we're very much concerned about building the delegates network, training activists to be largely self-sufficient.

That's tied up in a broader philosophy, could you explain this philosophy?

The organising philosophy in a nutshell is going back to what unions grew out of. That is the members, the workers are really the ones who are responsible for what happens. It's a move away from top-down unionism back to: let's see what the members want, let's get them to won their campaigns and do the work and that's the best way to get more people involved in unionism.

How does that translate into concrete differences in the way you are working?

It's a definite move away from the services unions offer, a move away from a union official going out to a site and saying "we offer this cheap insurance" or "we can offer you these cheap home loans, or holiday units, or whatever." It's a move from that to a lot of off-site organising, building up relationships with members and hopefully making a much longer term, more solid connection with the membership than just an insurance broker.

So it's a move from the union solving problems to actually helping workers solve their own ...

Absolutely. It's a definite move away from the union official as hero, martyr or saviour and a move to thinking: let's get the members to see how best they can solve their own problems because that ultimately will lead them to be better organised, more self-sufficient and bring other people in as well.

What industries are you concentrating on at the moment?

I'm based out at the Transport Workers Union and we're concentrating on private bus and coach drivers. They did some work in this area last year and now they want to consolidate their members and their activists.

How do you put these organising principles into practise with the bus drivers.

First, we identify activists or individuals who have shown an interest in union organising or improving the conditions for bus drivers and coach drivers. We visit years, but not to have a formal union visit; instead we go out and chat to whoever we can talk to, see if we can get contact names and then go for contacting people outside of work; we go an meet them t the pub, a cafe or even their homes and try and build the connection that way and then get them to the work for themselves; maybe get a meeting of four or five other people and then to keep building on those contacts.

And how has that gone down in that particular industry?

It's actually going quite well. We have managed to get these groups of three or four in a number of the companies, which is a good start. The thing about this strategy is that its really quite time-consuming. In the first three months all you would expect is to get some activists, you wouldn't expect to be signing members up, you'd expect to have your contact people and maybe to have your meetings off site; you're not aiming at site meetings and you're certainly not meeting with management at this point. That's a stark contrast to how unions have been run; where you go into a site, you meet the members, you meet the management, you put in your claim. In contrast, this is a really, really long term, quite painstaking way to do it. But its about getting the activist base happening, and we believe that is what will bring the members in.

How important is it for you to have the support of progressive union officials before you go in and do these different types of things?

A progressive union leadership helps; and in fact our organising unit has to be invited into a union, so that in itself requires a relatively progressive union leadership. You need a will to change and an acceptance that maybe the way we've been doing things for the last 20 years is not necessarily going to work into the future.

What are some of the other industries you've worked with through this program?

Last year we ran two campaigns in NSW. One was with the Australian Services Union (Services Branch) in charities; and the other was with the media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance with film technicians;. The process was much the same. With the film technicians we had a really long lead-up until we could actually get some good organising happening -- about eight months when we were feeling out the industry, trying to get activists, looking for people who would run with it. It was quite frustrating until we had a breakthrough and got about 40 activists who went out and spread the word , organised meetings and then pulled in members for us. We ended up with about 300 new members from the process, which we thought was fairly successful, given that this was a tripling of the existing membership.

You're a young woman in the union movement; what are your impressions coming into a movement that has been in decline for some time?

I think the move towards to this style of organising is a really positive thing; I don't known if its just with young workers either; it's a much more personal way to do it, it's much more built on relationships, sustaining relationships and building up loyalty. In the experiences I've had this is a far better way to do things than the old top-down structures.

Does it make it more fun to be involved in unions?

Yeah, definitely. For the young workers I've come across, they're shocked that the organiser is a 24-year-old young woman. That's not your traditional union official!

How have you been received by the bus drivers as a young women?

What I've found with a lot of blue collar workers is that initially there may be an attitude of: who is this young person? but at the end of the day, as long ads the organising gets done and as long as the issues are addressed, as long as the members feel they are taking control, they don't care who the union rep is. As long as its happening the way that they think it should and they feel like they are actually doing something, they don't care if you're male or female, old or young, it doesn't matter.

What's the most stressful situation you've been confronted with?

I actually find the most stressful situations are when you get workers who don't want you on site. that's worse than confronting management, because you realise you have that much more work to do before they'll get organised. I can think of a few times when I've been escorted off site by workers and that's more confronting than anything.

Thinking of the structure of the new workplaces; we are moving away from large shops to smaller organisations with outsourcing and contracting out. What challenges do these new structures hold and how does your organising model translate?

I'm loathe to use the term "organising model"; but I think this type of organising is the only way to organise in the new workforce. If you look at the campaign we ran with film technicians; they are extremely casualised; six-week to three-month contract workers who we managed to get together in their own association. And that was strictly through building up the activist networks, getting them to hold meetings and really running it from the grass-roots. So I think this is the only way we're going to get them; we're not able to run around to 100 sites when formally we may have only visited one. We're going to need the workers to talk to their mates who they see. The idea is that we create the activists who are little organisers themselves.

Outsourcing union organising?

Absolutely (laughs)

Finally, how do you rate your job out of ten.

Ten out of ten. I love my job. There couldn't be anything more satisfying than the progression you see. You might have a workplace which is totally anti-union and to see that move, even if its just one person willing to talk to you, the buzz you can get from getting the phone number of one person, you just can't compare it to anything else.

Footnote: The night after Sarah was interviewed by Workers Online her team signed up 17 new members at a western Sydney depot. "That's the buzz I was talking about," she says.

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Issue 3 contents

Interview: How Organising Works
The ACTUï¿½s Sarah Kaine is part of a new breed of union organiser who help workers stand up for themselves.

Unions: Big Boys Bank on Mergers
Mergers of the big banks are back on the agenda, and the Finance Sector Union is leading the community campaign against them.

History: Commemorating Our Dear Departed Equal Pay Activists
Two women who deserve special recognition and commemoration as part of our Women's Day celebrations are Eileen Powell and Edna Ryan, both of who played a crucial role in the struggle for equal pay.

Legal: New Judge Announces Zero Tolerance Of Pay Inequity In NSW
The NSW Industrial Relations Commission is training its sights on industrial raw-deals for women, and targeting the traditional under-valuation of women's work.

Review: Keep the Australia in Australian Television.
Local content quotas for Australian television are under threat from our Kiwi cousins.

Campaign Diary: Radical Conservatives Raise Their Own Bar
This Monday writs are issued for the state election, The phoney campaign ends and the real one begins; and the issue of stability, the need for it and the lack of it, is set to dominate the next four weeks.

» Unions Win Virtual Access To The Workplace

» Shaw To Snip At Gender Pay Gaps

» Living Wage - Round One To Unions

» Workers Fight Hotel Chain's Contracts Push

» No Picnic, No Pay

» The Modern Day Tales Of Robin Hood

» Nothing Casual About Woolies Drivers

» Unionists Flex Muscles for a Gay Time