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Tactics are specific, usually collective, actions that take place on a particular date and location. We need to plan escalating tactics that fit our strategy and create maximum pressure on our target.
Review your work to date. You will want to make sure that your tactics fit your campaign strategy and campaign message. Use your benchmarks to ensure that you have enough workers involved to make the tactics you plan a success.
Arbolitos / workers’ communication action networks are critical to the implementation of tactics.
Tactics should escalate from low to high in intensity for the target.
When planning tactics, you want the tactics to gradually increase in intensity (like the solid line in the diagram below). You do not want your tactics to peak too early and then keep up an even amount of pressure (as in the dashed line) or peak too early and decrease in pressure (like shown by the dotted line)
You will want to shorten the intervals between various tactics in order to build momentum for the campaign.
Choose tactics that will pressure the employer the most, financially or otherwise. Once you know what your most hard-hitting tactics are, you can create less hard-hitting tactics leading up to them.
For example, if you know you are going to strike, you might want to first do a short picket and call it a ‘practice strike’, or publicise a survey showing an overwhelming percentage of workers ready to strike. Or create buttons or stickers that say “prepared to strike”.
If you decide you want to picket a major customer, you might want to begin by first distributing a leaflet at the workplace with information about this customer. Perhaps a group of workers deliver a letter to the customer’s top executive requesting a meeting. If there is no response, allies and workers together might then sit in the executive’s office to demand a meeting.
Good tactics involve workers and allies visibly engaging in collective actions. If you do not involve workers, you will not build the strength and power needed to win your campaign.
A tactic can be a show of weakness rather than strength if not enough people participate. Set your own benchmark for how many people will be needed to ensure success. For example, 70% of workers pledge to participate before we confront the employer.
If you cannot get enough people involved, look for another tactic that is less risky for the workers or which fits the culture better. Workers and allies will often feel more comfortable with higher risk tactics after the lower risk tactics have been successful. The best tactics are ones that workers enjoy participating in.
If you are not sure than enough workers will participate, survey the workers first to find out. The arbolitos networks will help you perform quick informal surveys that will show how many people plan to participate in a particular action. Keep the results confidential until you know you have the numbers you need. Use your benchmarks.
Make sure your tactics are in line with workers interests, your campaign message, and your union’s goals and vision. Some tactics can have negative consequences. For example, our trade union history in some countries includes unions asking people to only buy products made with ‘white labour’. Look for tactics that unite workers.
Do not keep repeating the same tactic, as it can become tedious and no longer enjoyable. Good tactics are ones that are fun, have a sense of humour and tell the truth about injustice all at the same time.
Good strategies and tactics are not possible if workers are not informed and involved. This means that unions must spend significant time on worker education. Workplace discussions, study circles, small group meetings and workshops all give workers an opportunity to discuss and collectively come up with tactics that fit our situation.
Do not plan tactics without involving the workers and allies who will be participating in the planning process. What may be low risk at one workplace may be high risk at another, depending on the particular supervisor, work rules, regulations or work culture. Even if one person comes up with an excellent idea for a tactic on their own, others will not own the idea and may be less likely to participate.
Any tactic can be adjusted to involve workers.
An example of a non-collective tactic is a shareholder resolution presented by a small number of union leaders who can attend the shareholders’ meeting.
To make the tactic collective, you might create a petition signed by workers and allies with wording based on the shareholder resolution. You could deliver the workers’ petition at the shareholders meeting. Workers could wear a badge at the workplace the same day, or put up posters around the workplace. Prior to all of this you could run an education campaign in the workplace about who the shareholders are and why they are important.
Small actions can become large when carried out collectively. For example, the collective tapping of pencils in a meeting shows unity and determination and can be used to shut down a meeting.
When you have planned collective tactics, you can supplement these with tactics that are not collective such as billboards, airplane message trailers, signs on public benches or walls, or news media coverage.
When possible, go outside the experience of the target in a manner that they are not expecting. With an element of surprise, the target may have a harder time countering your actions.
When you use unexpected tactics, you will want to put extra effort into keeping your relationships with your opponents intact. You want them to know that you are rational and willing to talk about resolving the problems. Give your target opportunities to meet in order to keep the dialogue open. Always make sure that there is a reasonable solution that will resolve the problem, and that this solution is clearly communicated to your opponent and the public.
A carefully planned warning to the target that does not undermine your tactic can be effective. For example, if your group is large and you can stage an important hearing or event, you might want to let the employer know ahead of time that a small group of citizens will be attending.
Tactics that are low risk for workers, and also make an impact on the target are critical to all campaigns. Humour and creativity will help you plan low risk tactics.
If you do not have enough workers willing to participate in a campaign tactic, it is often because the tactic is too high risk for the stage of workers collectively. Look for tactics that are lower risk and then build to the higher risk tactics.
In some cases, it is less risky for workers to publicise their problems to key targets away from the workplace. Keep an eye out for large public events that workers can leaflet. Look for corporate-sponsored sporting or cultural events. Shareholder meetings, conferences, trade fairs, or any large events that potential customers, service users or the general public attend, can provide opportunities for workers to leaflet, disrupt, or otherwise engage the target.
Discuss whether any of these ideas for low risk collective action tactics could be adjusted to fit your situation.
☐ Wearing the same colour clothes or armbands
☐ Petitions
☐ Leafleting large public or sporting events
☐ Not talking or talking about a particular problem at the workplace in a synchronised manner
☐ Competitions for the worst supervisor or the best solutions to improve conditions
☐ Badges or stickers
☐ Investigations and reports from ally groups (NGOs, women’s groups, universities…)
☐ Songs/slogans
☐ Gathering at a border-crossing, petrol station or restaurant
☐ Phone / email / postcard protests
☐ Visible positive appreciation of workplace leaders
☐ Other…
Anonymous tactics are important at any workplace where workers are not involved due to apathy or fear of retaliation. They are especially important when there is no union representation and/or a risk of repression or violence.
Arbolitos can be formed anonymously. Each arbolito leader can only be in contact with other workers that they trust and only report back to someone they trust.
If workers cannot talk openly, you might want to publish anonymous stories about their situations. The Participatory Action Research materials can help you interview workers and collect stories.
The anonymous distribution of information at the workplace can educate and begin to involve workers. Information as to how the company is structured, salaries and biographies of top officials, profits and business plans can be posted on boards or distributed in break areas. This can both encourage worker discussions about key issues and send a message to the employer.
You can also distribute the collected stories at sporting or social events, fairs and markets, in social media and news media, and central locations such as border crossings for truckers, petrol stations for taxi drivers, or restaurants for office workers.
Surveys can be anonymous or not. They are best if they are short, just one to three simple questions. Use your arbolito communication networks to distribute and collect the survey. Publicise the results when enough surveys are completed. Use benchmarks.
A sample workload survey might include the following two questions:
Has your workload increased in the last year? ☐ Yes ☐ No
Has your workload had a negative impact on the quality of your work? ☐ Yes ☐ No
Publicise the results that you want to give to the employer or the public. For example, 85% of workers surveyed say that their workload has increased and 75% say this has had a negative impact on the quality of their work.
Anonymous surveys can be used to evaluate the performance of supervisors, or to gather information about harassment or abuse. Surveys can ask questions about what workers like and don’t like about their work and to compare and gather information about working conditions.
Discuss whether anonymous tactics could be useful to your organising campaign.
If so, what anonymous tactics might fit your situation?
☐ Worker stories
☐ Worker surveys
☐ Social, community or sporting events
☐ Distribution of information
☐ Anonymous arbolitos / worker communication networks (link)
If you have been working anonymously and underground, or with very low risk tactics, you will want to plan carefully when and how to go public, with your demands or a showing of interest in the union.
Facing the employer or decision-maker with a public showing of support for the union may take many forms:
You will probably want to set benchmarks for the levels of worker participation needed before going public. Setting benchmarks will help ensure that the public action will be a showing of strength and not weakness.
Your public demands might include:
Plan additional tactics ahead so you are ready to escalate. Prepare workers for employer denials and delays.
When you are campaigning for union recognition, sometimes employers will make improvements in working conditions to show workers that they do not need a union. If this occurs, make sure to claim these improvements as a union victory and as another reason why we need to continue to organise.
Discuss whether you need to plan how and when you will go public.
What tactics might fit your situation?
What benchmarks might you need?
What can you do to keep your organising work as quiet as possible until you go public?
When you are pressuring an indirect target, you will need to make sure that both your key demands and the name of your direct target is always clearly communicated. Otherwise your allies, the public and even the direct and indirect targets could become confused.
For example, if you are leafleting a grocery market, your leaflet will focus mainly on what grocery market customers care most about – high prices, poor quality of products, even though your goal is to improve working conditions for the truckers that deliver goods to the market. On your leaflet, you will need to include the name of your direct target (the head of the trucking company) and your campaign goals for improved conditions for truckers.
The large print on the leaflet might say something like:
HIGH prices at Grocery Store X
You might include information about another store with lower prices for some common items.
In smaller letters at the bottom of the leaflet, include information on the indirect and direct targets and the campaign demands:
We are here today protesting high prices. In addition to charging high prices, Grocery Store X uses International Trucking Company for their deliveries. International Trucking Company Drivers work long hours, causing fatigue and unsafe road conditions in our community.
You may want to show your leaflet to Grocery Store X ahead of time, giving them an opportunity to sign on to your demands for safer conditions at International Trucking Company, or agree to discuss the issues with the trucking company.
Never stop!
Plan enough creative tactics so that you will always be able to keep your campaign active and moving forward. You want the target to know that you will never stop, and the actions will keep increasing in impact.
Make sure your tactics focus on your targets. Stick with your chosen target long enough to make a serious impact or satisfy your demands. Stick to your strategy. Switching back and forth between targets and strategies can lessen your power.
Discuss and create a tactics chart.
In the top left-hand corner write the name of your main direct target under “Target No. 1”
Below this, list one to three additional direct or indirect targets.
For each of your targets, fill in your low, medium and high tactics.
In the low intensity column, include plans to reach out to your target before you take action.
In the low intensity column, include anonymous and low risk actions.
It may help your discussion to plan some of the high intensity tactics first and work backwards to the lower intensity tactics.
Ensure that all of your tactics:
