Marick Masters co-authors Harvard Business Review article on strength of news media unions

It’s no secret: Union membership is falling, now reaching its lowest point in 80 years. However, one industry has been able to successfully circumvent the barriers to unionization through old-fashioned organizing techniques. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Marick Masters, director of Labor@Wayne and professor of management in the Mike Ilitch School of Business, along with co-author Raymond Gibney, analyze the ways in which news media workers—traditional and nontraditional—have increased union membership by embracing “the mantra of effective bargaining.”

They credit the recent successes of media unions at outlets such as Gawker Media, Vox Media, Slate and others to union leaders’ ability to “listen to workers, develop adhesive organizing themes, communicate regularly, and give workers a sense of hope,” all basic tenets of organizing that have anchored unions in the past.  Their successes, they write, could not only be a blueprint for potential organizers in other industries but also a harbinger for the return of strong unions.

Read the full article here. 

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