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Kathie Muir, “Worth Fighting For: Inside the your rights at work campaign”, UNSW Press, 2008.

There were two campaigns against the Howard Government in the run-up to the last election: the ALP campaign and the ACTU campaign.

These books complement each other insomuch as they provide ‘insider’ accounts of these interlocking but in many ways separate and differing campaigns. Much of the content of each book is based on interviews with participants and both books suffer a bit from being captured by the people their authors interviewed.

Muir, a former union official now an academic, is unabashedly a fan of the union movement and of the Your Rights at Work campaign. In the preface she describes her approach as ’standpoint research’ or ‘engaged journalism’ but nevertheless independent and critical. Although her book is easy to read (’accessible’ in publisher jargon) and a valuable source for anyone interested in contemporary political campaigning, it falls well short of its claim to be a critical assessment.

Muir pretty much always goes with the inflated claims for the campaign made by her union informants from senior ACTU level all they way to grassroots activists. In addition, Muir’s chapter on the Government’s campaign is noticeably weak, reflecting perhaps a lack of access to the other side of politics. 

Christine Jackman, a News Limited journalist, provides a much racier account. She brings a novelistic flavour to the exercise which unfortunately rarely rises above the “It was a dark and stormy night” variety. There are descriptions of one ALP official ‘pacing the grimy streets of inner-city Sydney at dawn’ and so on.

In some ways, these books provide very different world views. Muir’s account is full of touching accounts of the ennobling effects on ordinary people of their participation (often after life-long political passivity) in a great and historic campaign. In Muir’s universe, there is a lot of emphasis on ordinary people having conversations about the issues. Happily, the campaign has helped to re-invigorate the union movement and to empower a new generation of activists.

From the union leadership, John Robertson, then Unions NSW, now part of the Rees Government, is quoted in both books talking about re-inventing politics, re-engaging people and so on (see Jackman, p. 129). Robertson was apparently attracted to Rudd’s similar desire to re-invent politics. Much of this re-invention seems little more than a reversion to older (pre-Accord) styles of union activity. Muir quoted officials being amazed at how happy their members are to talk to them (well d’oh).

Jackman’s world, however, is populated with battle-hardened campaigners who believe that winning is (just about) everything. Her ‘characters’ often talk like they are in a ‘Cliff Hardy’ novel: “Oh f*ck. Oh f*ck” (p2). Another character (p194) is from the Left: “the side of the party most protective of its ideological purity – but being pure of heart and out of power had lost its appeal by 2007″. Many of Jackman’s ‘insights’ are similarly tired and lame e.g. on p.105 she tells us “But in politics, perception and mood are at least as powerful as reality”. There you go.

Both books confirm some significant changes in the union movement’s role in politics, and this is the real value of these books for me anyway. The union movement:

• has to be a political power in it’s own right and can not rely on the ALP to secure its agendas
• is more of an interest group than a class-based movement albeit the largest and richest in Australia, this reflects the way ordinary people think about unions as much as anything else and a growing move towards individualism and away from collectivism
• recognises that campaigning solely on workplace issues doesn’t work, these issues have to be linked to people’s family and community concerns
• campaigning on behalf of ‘vulnerable’ workers is much more effective than talking about wages and conditions for the better-paid 

So who won the election?

Both books put a strong case for believing that Work Choices was the issue, along with a general mood for change, that brought about Howard’s downfall. And no-one seriously doubts that the union campaign did a lot to make Work Choices a potent issue.

But did it as one activist in Muir’s book says ‘hand ALP victory on a plate’? If it did, of course, then Jackman’s cast of brilliant campaigners were really doing nothing more than playing an unbeatable hand.

Jackman’s insiders make it clear that they had to distance the ALP from the unions. People believe in rights at work and not union power. Mark Arbib, now a Senator says (p137):

“We did a lot of things that unions were hostile to and still very much resent. But it was part of trying to find a way through, to find a balance. It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to say, “here is Betsy the old sacred cow now let’s go slit her throat”.’

It is pretty clear that the ALP strategists saw the union campaign as generating a ‘protest vote’ at best (p128), one that may or may not deliver victory. They believed that the opportunity was there but that the party couldn’t win without a leadership change (p.53). With Rudd as the new, fresh leader (notably without union links) the campaigners had their chance to finally beat Howard. A lot of the campaign was about convincing voters that they could trust Rudd.

Tim Gartrell, then ALP National Secretary, was in charge of the ALP campaign. He gets a lot of coverage in Jackman’s book. In Muir’s book he gets just one mention, right at the end (p.206) where Muir points out that the ALP, including Gartrell, did not give the unions and their campaign any credit for Rudd’s victory. Despite this Muir says the union activists know that “It was the unionists wot won it”.

Union membership is in decline around the western world.

There are many reasons for this decline but my topic is whether marketing can help reverse the trend?

So, I’m going to ignore the free rider problem and the problems of government and employer antipathy.

Instead, I’m going to focus on the question of whether unions can be exciting again.

My answer is -

Not if they take a safe approach to marketing

And not unless unions change enough to force people to re-think their perceptions.

Perceptions

For most people, unionism is an industrial age product.

Unions are good, they do good things, but they were more relevant in the past than they are to the world today.

People think of unions as part of a struggle in the past, before extensive welfare and universal education and so on.

People think of them a bit like other industrial age products

Like trains.

Railways were the greatest thing in the nineteenth century, they were exciting, they were transforming.

Nations like the US, Australia and France didn’t really exist before the railways.

Trains were faster and stronger than anything else.

But not anymore.

Information Technology is the late 20th, early 21st century equivalent.

Many young people now look on web 2.0, social media, social networking and so on with the same hope for change as their parents and grandparents vested in unions 50 years to 100 years ago.

Seth Godin is one of the most popular writers on marketing in the world today.

In his evocatively titled 2003 best seller “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable” Godin argues that marketing success is not just a matter of following the Ps – product, pricing, promotion, positioning and so on.

These basics are important but

To be successful you have to be remarkable.

Purple is the new P, according to Godin.

Brown cows are nice but not remarkable.

After you’ve seen a few, cows are just boring.

Something remarkable is worth talking about.

It has the buzz factor, it’s cool.

People want to recommend it to their friends,

They feel proud of their awareness of it and association with it.

Marketing starts with the product

Remarkable marketing, according to Godin, is not an add-on, it’s built into the product itself.

Some examples of remarkable companies include:

Starbucks, Google, Amazon, Apple ipods

None of these companies takes a safe or middle of the road approach.

Purple cows exist on the extremes

The lowest price or the most exclusive

The fastest or the slowest

Being purple is not about safety and comfort, purple cows attract criticism

Are unions brown cows or purple cows?

There is some evidence that unions are purple

The Workchoices campaign captured the public imagination.

It engaged people well beyond union members.

I see some parallels between the Obama campaign and the Workchoices campaign.

A simple message, a cause to be passionate about.

And the use of the full spectrum of communication techniques; from TV ads to youtube to shopping centre stalls.

Nevertheless, there is a lot more evidence that unions are brown cows

Survey research shows that people are sympathetic, they just don’t join.

Second, they see unions as being about ‘security’; something to fall back on if the employer goes bad on you.

that’s great but it doesn’t fire people up.

Why are unions more brown not purple?

Unions used to be very purple indeed

The message used to be more passionate – “The unity of labour is the hope of the world”.

Unions weren’t just about protecting what you have, they also wanted to hange the world.

But they have been around for a century

They are seen as part of the system, that’s fine it’s just not remarkable anymore.

To refer to Obama again, to what extent do unions still hold the position on ‘change’?

Some of the problem might be the opportunities and patterns of participation.

If you look at the Obama campaign you see a great welding of the old person to person, community style of organising to the new tools of social media and social networking.

Obama had 3.1 million contributors and 10 million supporters.

Obama’s campaign allowed people to get involved when, where and how they wanted.

Obama’s transition team is now working on how to make this operation ongoing.

Similar things worked in workchoices but is it an ongoing feature?

The message

As I said, the basics of marketing are still important: price etc still matter

But unless unions are viewed again as remarkable converting positive perceptions to actual membership applications will remain difficult.

Value propositions, all that stuff, will fall on deaf ears unless people are motivated at a much more basic level.

Unions must be seen as remarkable in the role they play, their objectives, and also the way they organise, as I’ve touched on before.

I imagine when most people think about unions there is very little clarity, and therefore, little impact in their perceptions.

Unions have to solve a problem for modern workers – but what is it?

As I said security is not that exciting, the message needs to be more uplifting and inspiring.

Unions have to be the best at something? – what is it?
Other organisations help workers. Welfare agencies, the state and so on. To some extent, unions may have given up some ground to these people.

The challenge

Unions have to be so cutting edge that it feels risky and scary.

That’s not easy.

Twitter is just part of a highly successful internet strategy which also includes wikis, youtube and email. So good has this strategy been that Buzz News says that Obama is the marketer of the year in 2008:

Barack Obama is the 2008 marketer of the year, all categories combined. With the help of his teams, he has created an unprecedented multi-channel communication strategy. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, Obama is everywhere: more than 1,600 videos published on his YouTube page, his own Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc…and we can’t forget to mention all the content that Obama supporters have unofficially created for their presidential candidate.

It’s about money, of course, you can’t win the presidency without oodles of the stuff:

Thanks largely to the unprecedented use of the internet, Obama’s campaign attracted 632,000 new donors in September. By some estimates Obama’s internet activities have now raised more than 1 billion dollars since he started campaigning two years ago. That’s more than 10 times as much as John Kerry raised over the internet just four years ago.

That delivered an enormous $US150 million in September alone.

But it’s also about volunteers. The Obama campaign may have the best ground campaign ever, certainly much better than McCain’s, and it uses a wiki to help organise it:

The Obama campaign is using software from business intranet provider Central Desktop to manage “precinct captains” — volunteers who get out the vote and spread the campaign message in specific precincts across the state. The campaign started using the software during the run up to an earlier nominating contest in California — the nation’s most populous state. “The Web-based collaboration platform combined with a strong organized grass-roots effort, created unprecedented public involvement that is revitalizing politics in America,” said Patrick DeTemple, the California Data & Systems Manager for the Obama campaign. “Not since Bobby Kennedy has there been such an extensive Precinct Captain operation for a presidential candidate in California.”

Central Desktop is a wiki-based collaboration tool that competes with 37Signals’ Basecamp (to put it in some perspective). Though most users are business clients who utilize the software as a private intranet, the Obama campaign is using it to power a public facing wiki to organize information for precinct captains in Texas. According to Garcia, the campaign is using the software on their own without much input beyond basic support from Central Desktop — or in other words, the campaign has been savvy enough to figure out how to utilize an existing tool for a completely new use case.

In many ways this is all a 21st century of a highly successful 20th century strategy used by many organisations:

Micah Sifry, co-founder of TechPresident.com, a blog about politics and technology. (said) Obama’s campaign organization has done a particularly good job of using new technology to reach voters.

“What is emerging here into fuller view is the most robust multilayered political machine that anybody has built in modern American history,” he said. Politicians have known for years the power of peer networks. Labor unions, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association are classic examples of social networks campaigns used to their advantage long before the Internet age.

But those organizations were 20th century in their design. Campaigns worked with leaders at the top whose commands would trickle down through committee heads and precinct captains to voters at the bottom.

The 21st century networks are less hierarchical, with ideas and energy traveling up, down and sideways among the campaign, activists, bloggers, friends and family members.

Win or lose, Obama’s campaign will be studied intensively by political campaigners, marketers and just about anyone interested in professional communications over the next few years. I predict we will be inundated by shelves of book titles and legions of (hopefully insightful) conference presentations.

2.50–3.10: ‘Where’s the purple cow? A marketing perspective on union membership decline’, Trevor Cook, Department of Government, University of Sydney.

The ‘purple cow’ is, of course, a reference to Seth Godin’s book in which he argues that success in marketing is all about being remarkable. I intend to argue that unions are respected, liked, thought to be important by many more Australians than actually join them and that part of the reason they don’t join is that unions have become brown cows, in Godin’s analogy, and we quickly lose interest in them. Unions used to be remarkable but they no longer are. They need to find ways of being remarkable again.