486700

research-article2013
LSJ38110.1177/0160449X13486700<italic>Labor Studies Journal</italic>Coulter

Article
Labor Studies Journal
38(1) 47­–65
Raising Retail: Organizing © 2013 UALE
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DOI: 10.1177/0160449X13486700
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Kendra Coulter1

Abstract
Retail workers are a significant but largely unorganized group in Canada and the
United States. However, in recent years, there has been a marked increase in efforts
to organize retail workers, including pursuit of innovative structures and strategies.
The author focuses on the dominant threads of contemporary retail organizing
work in Canada and the United States, outlining three current organizing vehicles:
unionization, store-based networks, and occupation or sector-based associations.
The author then reflects on the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of these
approaches, independently and collectively, and emphasizes the need to confront the
social and cultural as well as the economic devaluation of retail workers.

Keywords
retail workers, retail work, union organizing, community-labor organizing, collective
action

Retail workers are a significant labor force. Across industrialized economies, retail
workers constitute an average of 10 percent of all wage earners (Bozkurt and Grugulis
2011). Wal-Mart is the largest private sector employer globally and the second largest
employer overall (Berg and Roberts 2012). In Canada, about one in eight waged work-
ers is employed in retail or wholesale, or approximately 2.7 million people (Statistics
Canada 2012). In the United States, there are more retail than manufacturing workers,
and now at least one in ten Americans is employed in retail (U.S. Department of Labor

1Centre for Labour Studies, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

Corresponding Author:
Kendra Coulter, Centre for Labour Studies, Brock University,
500 Glenridge Avenue, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada.
Email: kcoulter@brocku.ca
48 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

2012; Ikeler 2011). Retail salesperson and cashier are the two most common occupa-
tions in both countries (Statistics Canada 2006; U.S. Department of Labor 2012).
Yet retail unionization rates in both Canada and the United States are very low. In
Canada, where about 30 percent of all workers belong to unions, 13 percent of workers
in the retail sector are unionized (Uppal 2011). In the United States, fewer than 5 percent
of retail workers are unionized (Luce and Fujita 2012). The bulk of the unionized
workers in retail are in grocery and department stores. Most retail work in Canada and
the United States is characterized by low wages; part-time positions; few, if any, ben-
efits; job insecurity; and, often, a sense of disempowerment. Retail work and workers
are socially and economically devalued.
However, in recent years, there has been a marked increase in union efforts to orga-
nize retail workers and improve retail work, including the pursuit of some innovative
structures and strategies. In other words, in retail, organizing is not always a synonym
for unionizing. There are retail divisions in large unions such as the United Steelworkers
and the Canadian Auto Workers, among others, but the linked organizations that are
doing the lion’s share of the organizing work in retail are the United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), UFCW Canada, and the Retail,
Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)–UFCW.
Retail organizing is not well studied or understood, particularly in the contempo-
rary context. Lynch et al. (2011) provided helpful preliminary data on the United
Kingdom and Australia, and Kenny (2011) and Forrest (2005) elucidated the strategies
that have been or are being used in South Africa. In the North American context, Ikeler
(2011) proposed possibilities for retail organizing in the United States, and Coulter
(2011) examined young women’s organizing in retail in Canada. This small body of
research has begun to examine the possibilities for change in retail, but empirical data
on the diverse forms of collective action being pursued today are lacking.
To begin to fill this gap, in this article, I present preliminary findings from an in-
progress, qualitative, comparative study of retail work, workers, and political action.
The project is inductive, and its methods include primary and secondary textual source
collection, participant observation, and interviews with key informants in the world of
retail organizing. Here I summarize and synthesize the most pertinent data to paint a
picture of the organizing strategies being pursued. After briefly outlining key chal-
lenges for retail organizing in Canada and the United States, I outline three central,
current organizing vehicles. The first is unionization. The second is store-based net-
works. The third is an occupation or sector-based association. I conclude with an ana-
lytical discussion of the strategies, their challenges, and their potential. Because the
store-based network approach and occupation-based retail association are quite new,
and because conventional organizing is still the primary strategy being used by unions,
the unionization section is the longest.
This article has two related purposes. The first is to survey and explain or “map” the
dominant threads of contemporary organizing work being done with front-line retail
workers (predominantly salespeople and cashiers) in Canada and the United States.
The second is to reflect on the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of these orga-
nizing approaches, independently and collectively. I use the term map to recognize
Coulter 49

geographical contexts but also to mean a conceptual and political framing, one captur-
ing multiple organizing trajectories being pursued simultaneously. My approach draws
from Briskin’s (1999) understanding of mapping as situating organizing “in relation to
social, political, and economic conditions,” thus identifying links, heterogeneity, and
“discursive terrain and struggle” (pp. 8-9). The map I present is not an exhaustive list
of all organizing work being done in retail today. Moreover, in my view, each approach
highlighted, as well as others not emphasized here, warrant further study, as do the
particular national and regional specificities of both countries.
This article offers a small contribution to the larger project of challenging the social
and economic devaluation of retail workers in particular and working-class people
overall. Collective action is essential for creating retail workplaces, and societies, that
are fairer, and the current organizing strategies being used in retail are winning some
tangible improvements for workers. Simultaneously, the organizing strategies are con-
fronting the marginalization of retail workers in North American society and the indi-
vidualization of retail workers from one another. I argue that this is essential cultural
work in the current battle of ideas (Gramsci 1992).

The Challenging Retail Terrain

During the twentieth century, retail stores were expanded and seen as central to the
growth of Canadian and American economies and consumer cultures (e.g., Belisle
2011). During this period, worker organizing was widespread, too, but most of the
major unions were focused on the large and male-dominated industrial and manufac-
turing sectors in both Canada and the United States (Frank 2001; Sangster 2010).
Nevertheless, smaller unions were committed to retail, and groups of organized and
unorganized retail workers engaged in political action of different kinds, including
militant forms of resistance for union recognition and/or workplace rights (see, e.g.,
Belisle 2011; Coulter 2011; Frank 2001; McDermott 1993; Opler 2002, 2007; Sangster
2010; Sufrin 1982; Willis 2006).
Meaningful improvements were secured for retail workers through bargaining and
political action, as well as the broader labor movement’s efforts to expand and
strengthen labor legislation. The contemporary conditions of retail work would be
much worse were it not for unions’ political work at the store and broader sociopoliti-
cal levels during the twentieth century. However, most contemporary retail work, like
other kinds of private sector service work, remains poorly paid, precarious, and unor-
ganized, and retail workers generally do not have more than the basic protections and
wage levels mandated by law.
Retail salespeople are expected to do material tasks (Pettinger 2006), as well as
engage in emotional labor to construct and manage emotions (Hochschild 1983;
Nickson et al. 2011; Wright 2005) and aesthetic labor to embody the store’s brand
(Belisle 2011; Lan 2003; Pettinger 2005; Warhurst and Nickson 2007; Williams and
Connell 2010). Retail work is largely feminized, both in terms of being female domi-
nated numerically and because service work such as retail sales is culturally con-
structed as feminine (Coulter 2011). Retail jobs are often seen as inessential or
50 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

temporary (e.g., Huddleston 2011), but for millions of working-class people, retail
work is not inessential or temporary, particularly in the context of deindustrialization.
Yet many people regularly move among retail jobs, in search of elusive greener pas-
tures, choosing exit over voice (Moore and Read 2006). Certain kinds of collective
strategies are pursued, such as the creation of social media sites for venting about rude
customers and demeaning managers, but these emphasize commiseration and not
ways to channel frustrations into change. Large retail companies also pursue multifac-
eted union avoidance strategies, incorporating both positive and negative emphases
ranging from fear to promises.
Moreover, since the expansion of neoliberal free trade in the 1990s, a smaller num-
ber of global corporations, such as Wal-Mart, now dominate the retail sector and wield
substantial influence over standards and practices not only within stores but also in
terms of market share and supply chains, as well as the legislative context (Moreton
2009, Lichtenstein 2011). Given Wal-Mart’s reach, power, and, so far, overwhelm-
ingly successful union avoidance strategies, the standards it sets present formidable,
although perhaps not insurmountable, challenges for organizing.
In a neoliberal context wherein individualism and competition are aggressively
promoted, and both cultural and material hostility to collective identities and forms of
social solidarity are widespread, neither worker disaggregation nor acquiescence is
surprising. But the belief that the millions of people who work in retail must be sen-
tenced to lousy jobs has not gone uncontested. Despite the challenges of cultural mar-
ginalization, economic devaluation, high turnover, constraining labor laws, and some
workers’ feelings of powerlessness, retail workers are being engaged and organized.
Current strategies are diverse and some are unconventional.

Unionizing, Retail Style

Unionization is still being pursued within the retail sector in Canada and the United
States, despite the challenges. Nationally, the three linked unions on which I am focus-
ing have a stated commitment to organizing new members in retail, in addition to
providing resources for the unconventional mobilizing strategies outlined in the sub-
sequent sections. Unionization drives are bolstered by financial resources and the
deployment of organizers, two components key to successful organizing
(Bronfenbrenner and Juravich 1998; Bronfenbrenner and Hickey 2004). Whether the
current resources are sufficient given the challenges is a matter of debate. Moreover,
union locals have differing commitments to organizing, and one U.S.-based RWDSU
local president told me that he does not have a single organizer on the ground, because
he believes that “workers will find us.” On the other hand, UFCW Canada locals are
now dedicating at least 10 percent of their resources to organizing, with the goal of
doubling their membership by 2018 (UFCW Canada 2011). There are also occasional
instances of unionization being initiated at the grassroots level by individual workers
as well (e.g., Coulter 2011). Undoubtedly, given the challenges of the sector outlined
above, union-led initiatives are necessary. Resources, while key, are only one piece of
the puzzle, however.
Coulter 51

Unionization drives in retail have been conceptualized in different ways, and the
politics of a community or region play a key role. In the late 1990s, the UFCW sought
to organize all of the Wal-Mart stores in Las Vegas simultaneously, choosing that city
because of its high union density and collective consciousness (e.g., Chandler and
Jones 2011; D. Schlademan, personal communication, 2012). Although the strategy
was not successful in that instance, the logic is sound. Place matters in organizing
work (Dean and Reynolds 2009; Tufts 2007). In jurisdictions that have histories and
political cultures of solidarity, as well as favorable labor legislation such as card check
certification, inroads have been made. The province of Québec in Canada is one such
example, particularly in the urban center of Montréal and its surrounding communi-
ties. Workers at the grocery store IGA, the hardware store Rona, and the electronics
store Future Shop, among other workplaces, have all joined the union and bolstered
the large provincial section, Local 500, since 2011 (UFCW Canada 2011). Similarly,
Jonquière was home to the first Wal-Mart store to unionize, in 2004. Interestingly,
however, it was meat cutters in Jacksonville, Texas, who were the first North American
Wal-Mart workers to join a union, in a region not known for its progressive politics or
union friendliness.
Subsequent elimination of all in-store meat-cutting departments, the closing of the
Jonquière store, and organizing drives at two stores in the province of Saskatchewan
have led to longer and larger legal battles between Wal-Mart and the UFCW (Adams
2005; Lichtenstein 2009a) and serve as a sobering reminder of the power of retail
companies that do not want their workforces unionized. Store closings serve as a form
of worker and class disciplining, fueling a climate of fear among retail workers who
feel that they have to choose between a low-paying, precarious job and no job. This is
especially an issue at larger department stores, where many adults with dependents
work, including primary breadwinners and/or single parents. However, other strate-
gies are being pursued given the particular challenge of large, antiunion chains, and
these are discussed below. Moreover, not all stores will be closed if workers organize,
particularly the flagship and very high earning locations. Nor do all retail companies
respond to workers’ organizing in the same way.
H&M is a Swedish-owned global fashion retail chain selling women’s, men’s, and
children’s clothing and accessories. It is one the three biggest fashion retailers in the
world, along with The Gap and Zara, and currently has about 2,500 stores in forty-four
countries (H&M n.d.-a). H&M is known for using celebrities in its marketing, and it
even sponsors show jumping horse riders in Sweden. Yet this global chain, culturally
coded as youthful and trendy, is a central focus for unionization drives in both Canada
and the United States for two related reasons. First, H&M is accustomed to having
organized stores and to bargaining with workers and their unions. In social democratic
Sweden, a large majority of workers are unionized, about 71 percent in 2010 (Kjellberg
2011). Moreover, 90 percent of Swedish workers are protected by national collective
agreements governing their sector (Swedish Trade Union Confederation n.d.). Thus,
most retail workers, including managers, are protected by collective agreements and/
or represented by one of two unions, Handels or Unionen, including H&M workers.
52 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

The company proclaims that 63 percent of its workers are covered by collective agree-
ments (H&M n.d.-b).
A second key reason H&M stores are seen as fertile territory for organizing is due
to global labor efforts. As part of its broader strategy of engaging with international
companies in various sectors (Bourque 2008), UNI Global Union signed a global
framework agreement with H&M in 2004 based on the International Labor
Organization’s conventions that, among other things, outlines the company’s commit-
ment to respect workers’ right to organize in any country. The arrangement has been
called a neutrality agreement by some retail union representatives and an international
peace treaty by one local union president. The agreement is widely viewed as indica-
tive of a more collaborative approach to labor relations within the H&M company
internationally and, consequently, means safer ground for engaging workers, who do
not have to fear reprisal for exploring unionization or leading an organizing drive.
This global context led to very smooth organizing in parts of the United States.
Building on the global framework agreement, the UFCW negotiated card check recog-
nition for H&M stores in New York. In other words, if a majority of workers signed
union cards, the company would recognize this as an indication of their desire to form
a union. In New York, locals of the UFCW and RWDSU-UFCW approached different
stores on the basis of their locations. Meetings were jointly organized at stores and on
company time. Company representatives would read a statement, then union represen-
tatives had their time to speak to and with workers. At the end of the meeting, union
cards were distributed, interested workers signed, and the votes were counted. A vote
was lost on Long Island, but in 2007, eleven H&M stores—more than 1,000 work-
ers—in Manhattan unionized, with about 70 percent voting for the union (confidential
interview, 2011). In 2009, the Manhattan H&M workers ratified their first contract,
which won them wage increases, advanced scheduling guarantees, and other new ben-
efits and rights. In 2011, workers in six more stores in neighboring communities of
Queens, Brooklyn, West Nyack, White Plains, Yonkers, and Staten Island joined the
union (Rosencrantz 2011).
The organizing of H&M workers seen in the United States so far is an example of
how region was used as a frame for union efforts, in combination with the targeting of
a specific chain. Retail is a core part of New York’s economy, especially in Manhattan
(Luce and Fujita 2012). Other stores in the area have long been unionized, including
the massive Macy’s, Saks, and Bloomingdale’s, and New York City is a hub for vari-
ous kinds of retail organizing. The next chapter in the story of U.S.-based H&M orga-
nizing within and beyond New York is still being written.
In Canada, H&M has also been a focus of union efforts, but the approach has been
different in important ways. First, it has been more spatially divergent, with locals
across the country taking responsibility for engaging with H&M workers in their
areas. Second, no country-specific organizing framework has been negotiated, despite
meetings between H&M Canada and UFCW Canada. As a result, organizing work is
governed by the legislative context of the province in question, and most Canadian
provinces are mandatory-vote jurisdictions (as are most U.S. states). First, a set per-
centage of workers must sign confidential union cards indicating their desire to join.
Coulter 53

Once the set percentage of cards have been signed, an application can be filed with the
provincial labor board by the union. Whether the drive had been secret at the card-
signing stage or not, after filing, the drive becomes public knowledge. Next, usually
one week later, a vote is held at a location determined by the labor board, which is
generally in the store’s break room or a comparable space. The week between the fil-
ing of the application and the in-store vote is an emotionally charged and tumultuous
time during which companies usually try various strategies to dissuade votes for the
union, ranging from promises to threats to personal appeals to remorse (Cohen and
Hurd 1998; Coulter 2011, 2013; Slinn and Hurd 2009). How the companies choose to
respond to union votes varies.
Young retail workers at the H&M location in the Square One Mall in Mississauga,
Ontario, voted to unionize in the fall of 2011 (Coulter 2012b). The workers at the
H&M in Joliette, Québec, also organized shortly thereafter, inspired by their cowork-
ers’ historic victory in Ontario and bolstered by the card check certification of their
province. In both cases, the key issues were multifaceted. Workers sought to improve
the material conditions of work, including pay inequities and benefits, but also to have
a stronger say in what goes on and a clearly established collective voice (confidential
interviews). The campaign’s banner nationally is “Make H&M a Better Place to
Work,” a reflection of the fact that most sales associates like the company and brand
but want to see improvements.
The next chapter in the story of H&M workers organizing in Canada is also still
being written, and how other locations and stores opt to move forward is yet to be
determined. Workers from various retail stores continue to contact organizers in
UFCW Canada to explore options, and union votes have been held, including at a
Toronto location of luxury retailer Holt Renfrew. After a week of unrelenting corpo-
rate pressure, a majority of workers voted against unionization (confidential inter-
views). However, the fact that a majority of workers signed cards is indicative of
growing retail worker consciousness and politicization across diverse workplaces. The
growing efforts to organize a union for workers in Apple stores, Ikea workers in British
Columbia and elsewhere, and new grocery stores further reflect and bolster this pro-
cess of politicization. Simultaneously, other strategies are being pursued to politicize
and mobilize retail workers given the challenges of the sector.

Store-Based Network
The retail sector includes diverse kinds and sizes of workplaces but is dominated by
large, profitable, multinational corporate chains such as Wal-Mart. As noted above,
Wal-Mart is the largest private sector employer in the world, and it continues to expand
into new countries and communities within North America, always with some opposi-
tion (Lichtenstein 2009a; Moreton 2009). As noted, the UFCW has sought to organize
Wal-Mart stores and has confronted substantial opposition from the company (Adams
2005; Lichtenstein 2006, 2009b). The union is committed to Wal-Mart workers, never-
theless, but the current, primary organizing strategy is not concentrated on immediate
54 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

unionization. Rather, the UFCW is supporting the idea and practice of retail workers’
mobilizing through a store-based network.
OUR Walmart, the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, was founded in
2010 as an organizing vehicle to support and propel workers who want to make change
at work even though they are not currently in a union. OUR Walmart field directors
and organizers work daily with worker-organizers and activists in forty chapters across
the United States. Local efforts are bolstered by vibrant Web and social media strate-
gies that link workers with one another and communicate actions to the broader net-
work of supporters (OUR Walmart n.d.). Coalitions between store and warehouse
workers are also being established and expanded to foster unity and solidarity across
the supply chain (e.g., Warehouse Workers United n.d.). Workers are encouraged to
take action and are supported in their efforts at the store and corporate levels. The
approach is both responsive, stemming from particular challenges or issues that arise
in stores, and proactive, seeking to empower Wal-Mart workers and change the com-
pany’s practices. Issues include wages, hours, discrimination, fair treatment, and a
need for workers to be free to organize and speak out. Simultaneously, a key message
has been that workers do not only want to gain greater respect, they want to help the
company do better and be better. Consequently, workers’ tones and emphases include
critique, as well as positive collaboration.
In examining the breadth of OUR Walmart’s efforts, I argue that the overarching
emphasis is that unity plus collective action equals change. Accordingly, recent
actions have ranged from a small sit-in to gain a stool for a store greeter, to informa-
tion pickets and presentations at shareholders’ meetings, to a large march in Los
Angeles denouncing Wal-Mart’s poverty wages (OUR Walmart n.d.). Most notably,
in the fall of 2011, workers in more than two dozen stores in the United States walked
off the job. The majority were activists with OUR Walmart, but some workers, includ-
ing those at a store in Oklahoma, became inspired by their coworkers’ actions and
engaged in a day of action complete with homemade signs, without ever having
talked to an organizer (confidential interview). This form of strike action garnered a
great deal of U.S. and even some international media coverage and served as a spring-
board for an unprecedented and historic series of action at more than 1,000 stores on
“Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving in the United States and the beginning of
the profitable Christmas shopping season.
The UFCW’s role in financing and coordinating OUR Walmart is clear, but the
network is not a conventionally structured organizing vehicle, and card signing is not
the focus. OUR Walmart is both “a back-to-basics worker engagement strategy, and an
innovative, multi-faceted approach to political action” (D. Schlademan, personal com-
munication, 2012). Given the many challenges of organizing Wal-Mart, including
intense corporate union suppression, employer-favoring labor laws, and many retail
workers’ feelings of fear, an unconventional approach to building workers’ conscious-
ness and both individual and collective action is a logical and laudable strategy.
Certainly, given the significant roadblocks to unionizing Wal-Mart workers, the
UFCW could have opted to pursue organizing routes more likely to lead to new mem-
bers, more quickly. Instead, the union has demonstrated a patient and forward-looking
Coulter 55

commitment to creative mobilizing and organizing. This approach could be called

minority unionism, but I put forward the term store-based network instead.
The idea of engaging and mobilizing workers across geographic regions around a
specific store chain has been applied beyond Wal-Mart. Currently, the strategy is
being used by the UFCW to support workers of the Netherlands-based food retailing
company Ahold. The retailer has many unionized stores globally and in the United
States, as well as two nonunion banners, Martin’s and Giant-Carlisle, which operate
in particular in the southern United States. The I Hold campaign seeks to support
these predominantly racialized and female workers, especially in conservative
regions (M. Bride, personal communication, 2012). There is widespread promotion
of participatory community- and Web-based actions, locally and internationally.
Because the UFCW represents two thirds of Ahold’s U.S. workforce, the campaign’s
underlying message is that all Ahold workers should be afforded the same rights,
protections, and benefits (I Hold Campaign n.d.). At the same time, through the use
of “I Hold,” the campaign is not simply playing on the name of the company but
highlighting the different things workers “hold,” including knowledge, power, and
experience.
Similarly, UFCW Canada has used the store-rooted network approach to support
and speak out for Zellers workers. Target, a profitable and large retailer akin to Wal-
Mart, moved into Canada in 2012, replacing many of the existing low-cost Zellers
stores with Target locations. Zellers workers were told that they were losing their
jobs but that they were welcome to reapply for work in the Target stores. However,
the workers have not been provided with any guarantee of similar positions, any
recognition of seniority, or any of the modest increases in wages and benefits they
may have earned through collective agreements or decades of service. The UFCW
represented 16 of the more than 200 Zellers stores in Canada. But through the Ask
Target for Fairness campaign, the union is working with any interested Zellers
employees to try to gain protections from Target for all workers, whether they are
UFCW members or not (Ask Target for Fairness n.d.; Coulter 2012c; K. Shimmin,
personal communication, 2012). The efforts have focused in particular on raising
workers’ issues through social and mainstream media, as well as petitions and com-
munity rallies. The parent company issued a letter forbidding Zellers workers from
talking to the media, but a small number spoke out nevertheless (Kopun 2012).
While many workers feel betrayed and angry, the tone of the campaign has been
decidedly positive, and the union has encouraged Target to provide the Zellers work-
ers with even modest guarantees. So far, Target has not done so, but the campaign
continues to facilitate conditions under which workers can come together and self-
advocate, with union support.
Each example of the store-rooted network strategy demonstrates interactive, par-
ticipatory avenues for worker engagement. All contain a mix of educational initiatives,
individual opportunities, and collective action, by mobilizing retail workers, as well as
engaging through the broader community. I further analyze these possibilities and
limitations of these strategies in the concluding section.
56 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

Occupation/Sector-Based Association
The Retail Action Project (RAP) was originally created in 2005 as a community-
labor coalition involving the RWDSU-UFCW and the Good Old Lower East Side
community group in New York City. Early efforts focused on supporting young and
immigrant workers as they fought against wage theft and discrimination. In the sub-
sequent years, RAP grew in size and prominence and became a membership-based
organization in 2010 (Retail Action Project n.d.). Membership and participation in
RAP are voluntary and not centered around a particular workplace but rather the
retail sector in New York City. In other words, retail workers choose to join and/or
participate in RAP. In this way, RAP is akin to a workers’ center model seen across
North America, including with the Restaurant Opportunities Centers and Migrant
Workers Centers (e.g. Black 2012; Choudry and Thomas 2012; Cranford and Ladd
2003). If someone is moving between retail jobs, currently unemployed but looking
for work in retail, or is a long-serving worker in a nonunionized store, he or she can
nevertheless contribute to and benefit from RAP. Workers can join the network to
keep informed, attend events of their choice, commit to being contributing members
of RAP, and/or participate as organizers, trainers, or members of the leadership
board or board of directors (C. Gleason, personal communication, 2011). Given the
high turnover in retail, RAP’s structure is well suited to fostering continuity in
worker community and engagement.
RAP depends on the work of a small waged staff, paid and voluntary worker-orga-
nizers, and many volunteers from the membership and network. RAP is financed pri-
marily by the RWDSU-UFCW but also through membership dues from contributing
members ($10/month or $100/year). Targeted grants are received from the local
Consortium for Worker Education to provide specific educational programs, as well
(C. Gleason, personal communication, 2011). Housed on the second floor of the Local
1-S of the RWDSU in the heart of Manhattan, RAP’s office is small but busy, a reflec-
tion of the diverse kinds of activities being pursued, including service, education, and
various forms of political action. RAP provides professional services to bolster partici-
pants’ abilities to gain and maintain retail work, including through assistance with
résumé writing, job searches, customer service training, and legal referrals. Workers
can also access resources such as computers, printers, and fax machines in the RAP
office. It could be argued that a union-funded organization should not be using its
resources to subsidize something like customer service training, which could be paid
for and performed by companies that will profit from workers’ abilities. Yet RAP’s
executive director, Carrie Gleason, says the following:

Low-wages in retail are often justified by the claim that retail is a low-skilled job. Yet,
working on the shop floor is often fast-paced, physical work that demands emotional
intelligence and significant multi-tasking within rigid expectations. Through our
professional development programming and services, RAP supports workers’ career
advancement, and shifts public perception[s] about the value of work on the shop floor.
(Personal communication, 2012)
Coulter 57

At the same time, if a worker comes to RAP for customer service training, this can lead
to increased engagement with the organization and its more explicitly political proj-
ects. While at the RAP office in 2011, I spoke with two workers who had initially
come to RAP for professional help but had become politicized over time, and RAP
staff members told me that this is not uncommon.
Other educational initiatives at RAP include workers’ rights training, organizing,
and media skills development. RAP also partners with researchers in the academy to
conduct much-needed empirical studies about retail workers and the sector (e.g. Luce
and Fujita 2012) and advance policy change. RAP members engage in many forms of
political action and are visible around the city at political and cultural events, includ-
ing labor demonstrations and Pride marches. Recent educational, political, and legal
campaigns have focused on living wages as a workplace and public policy issue, sus-
tainable scheduling, workplace discrimination, and economic inequality. Other forms
of political action include lobbying, political theater at fashion events, art displays,
media productions, and the organizing of demonstrations, particularly at workplaces
seen as violating labor law and workers’ rights (Retail Action Project n.d.). Union
representatives are regularly present and identified at RAP events, and campaign-
based political action and worker support has translated into unionization. For exam-
ple, at the Shoemania chain, workers, RAP, and the RWDSU fought for back overtime
pay, among other issues, before the workers chose to unionize with the RWDSU
(Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union 2012).
Overall, RAP is an energetic and multifaceted organization committed to improv-
ing retail workers’ conditions and lives through various strategies. The story of RAP is
an important one and is ongoing. Akin to the store-based networks, occupation-based
associations have limitations, particularly in terms of their influence, an angle to which
I return below.

Raising Retail
This is an interesting time for retail workers given the expansion and diversification of
organizing work. Each organizing vehicle examined has strengths, but also limita-
tions. Unionization continues to play a key role in organized labor’s efforts to engage
retail workers. The unionization strategy requires a significant investment of resources
because of the challenges of organizing private sector workplaces and retail stores in
particular. These include the difficulties of high turnover, small workplaces located on
private property, and workers with erratic schedules who live in scattered locations.
Such challenges are on top of the social, cultural, legal, and political difficulties out-
lined above. The store-by-store model, when approached as a chainwide campaign
and/or in a specific region, continues to yield some results, however. Certain retail
workers are deciding that unionization is the right route for them, particularly when
there are strong workplace-based leaders, well-liked union organizers, thorough dis-
cussion and debate of the issues, and often, although not exclusively, when there is
card check–based recognition (Coulter 2011). Workers who unionize are gaining tan-
gible material improvements and protections, greater stability, and increased control
58 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

over their working lives. Similarly, they are gaining strong personal and collective
political and legal support through union resources and membership in the broader
labor movement. Some retail workers with whom I have spoken have stressed that
their interest in unions is not only about their own working lives but about others in (or
soon to be in) the retail sector and about challenging corporate greed and economic
inequality more generally. Retail workers, like other workers, demonstrate broader
social and political awareness, and sometimes, even class consciousness (confidential
interviews). The role aesthetic and emotional labor, brand embodiment, intra- and
interstore cultures and hierarchies, and other factors play in shaping retail workers’
political consciousness and their interest in forms of collective action is an important
area I continue to analyze.
At the same time, barriers are being encountered after one or two stores unionize.
Workers in newly unionized retail locations with whom I spoke identified changes
their employers had undertaken to suppress further unionization elsewhere in the
chain. These corporate strategies can include positive tactics such as wage increases,
pay equalizations, and other benefit improvements. More punitive tactics were also
highlighted by workers interviewed, such as the continual shifting of workers among
locations so it becomes unclear who works where and the hiring of antiunion workers
tasked with monitoring coworkers and reporting any potential organizing activity.
Similarly, companies can opt to punish organized stores and workers by reducing
workers’ hours. These are real and significant challenges.
The two newer strategies discussed stem, in part, from the challenges of unionizing
retail workers. The chain-based network approach promotes worker engagement
through an action-oriented framework. The approach avoids the immediate pursuit of
unionization and its related challenges but still demonstrates that retail workers can
unite, and that unions will support them, nevertheless. These networks do not provide
workers with the protections and benefits of a collective agreement, or the substantial
resources of formal union membership, however. But the networks do provide workers
with a collective framework for sharing their experiences and ideas, the chance to
learn from one another and from political action, and various opportunities for explor-
ing the benefits and challenges of activism and workplace democracy. Daniel
Schlademan of Making Change at Walmart argues that retail workers have great power
over their employers, and that courageous workers need to be supported through
“coordinated, resourced frameworks that prioritize growth” (personal communication,
2012). The store-rooted networks highlighted all emphasize workers’ power, a key
conceptual engine needed for promoting progressive change. Moreover, the network
approach demonstrates union commitment to workers who are not union (or not yet
union). At the Target Fairness rally held in Windsor, Ontario, for example, the unity of
union and nonunion retail workers was a consistent theme I observed. Consequently,
through these networks, the UFCW and UFCW Canada are pursuing a kind of sector-
based social unionism, seeking to advocate for retail workers, well beyond their cur-
rent membership.
RAP could be seen in a similar light. The initiative is about all retail workers, and
their specific workplace does not affect their potential engagement with RAP. Of
Coulter 59

course, RAP’s efforts are focused on New York City. The approach is better suited to
a densely populated urban center within which many retail workers are located.
Accordingly, the model would work well in comparable urban centers or “global cit-
ies” (Ikeler 2011), particularly Toronto, Montréal, or Vancouver in Canada and Los
Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago in the United States, among others. Given the high
turnover in retail, a sector-based form of representation makes sense (Coulter 2011;
Ikeler 2011), and RAP is one model for engaging retail workers regardless of the stores
in which they work. Its sustained union funding alleviates some of the financial chal-
lenges other workers’ centers face, but like chain-based networks, it cannot provide
the sorts of workplace protections full unionization offers. However, its work has also
contributed to conventional organizing, such as with the Shoemania workers, whose
RAP-supported activism contributed to subsequent unionization (Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union 2012). At the same time, unions would be well served to
learn from RAP’s scope and thus to reflect on ways to expand the idea of occupation-
based protections for retail. These could include sector-based bargaining but also sec-
tor-based, rather than workplace-centered, membership.
Unconventional organizing formats, such as the nine-to-five coalition for female
office workers (e.g. Nussbaum 2007) and poor workers’ unions (e.g. Coulter 2012a;
Tait 2005) have not only won meaningful victories for workers but enriched the shape,
content, and membership of the labor movement and challenged dominant understand-
ings of which workers and issues matter. Unions are neither monolithic nor homoge-
neous. Diverse expressions of workers’ agency and spaces for rigorous debate should
be encouraged and expanded. Moreover, given the challenges of the cultural and polit-
ical climate, innovative organizations provide ideas for how unions themselves could
be expanded and augmented in shape and substance.
To enlist the ideas of political theorist Antonio Gramsci (e.g., 1992), there is a battle
of ideas under way about how societies and economies are to be organized and what
our priorities are to be. In Canada and the United States, the economic security and
well-being of workers are not generally established as top priorities, and the right to
profit trumps most other social, economic, and individual rights. In this context, sub-
stantial cultural and educational work is needed to shift people’s perceptions about
retail workers, the realities and importance of retail work, and the potential to make
retail jobs into better jobs. Retail workers need to believe they deserve better. Similarly,
workers not in retail need to recognize that retail matters. The store-based networks
and occupation-based organizations, although not offering the same legal protections
and guarantees as formal unionization, play an important educational role and raise
retail issues among workers and in the broader public arena. In fact, all three strate-
gies, as well as those not discussed here,1 build retail community and political con-
sciousness. Together, the diverse forms of organizing and activism could be called a
growing retail workers’ movement. The organizing strategies are confronting the mar-
ginalization of retail workers in North American society and the individualization of
retail workers from one another. Given the challenges of organizing in retail, this edu-
cational dimension is important for fertilizing the retail soil. In the crucial battle of
ideas, each of the three organizing vehicles contributes.
60 Labor Studies Journal 38(1)

Organizing in retail is very difficult and resource-intensive work, and both the
occupation-based retail association and the store-based network approach are still
young. Yet their creation reveals an interest among retail unions in exploring and fund-
ing alternative organizational formats, intended not to replace unionization but to
facilitate creative activism and greater unity among retail workers, sowing the seeds of
change. Given the difficulties of organizing in retail, multiple, complementary strate-
gies offer the best prospects for fostering change.
As long as retail is dominated by for-profit chains, various manifestations of corpo-
rate power will constrain workers’ abilities to organize and gain greater control over
their working conditions and lives, however. The vast majority of retail workers and
their unions are currently in complex positions of reliance on corporate employers
beholden to profit. Thus, workers and worker advocates are pulled between a need to
promote consumerism and the profitability of the company and a desire to gain a larger
piece of the pie and advance workers’ interests. Retail employers vary substantially in
terms of their profitability, although many are profitable and thus very able to provide
workers with better wages and conditions, but are making choices not to do so.
Particularly in this context, how unions represent and engage with retail workers and
members, what opportunities and barriers exist for internal union democracy and
activism, and what proactive and resistance strategies are advanced matters, as well
(Conley 2005; Moore 2011; Ross 2008).
The wages, conditions, and levels of turnover in retail vary among countries, and
both labor relations and public policy play a role in shaping the quality of retail work
(Carré et al. 2010). Not all capitalists see good jobs as oppositional to profit accumula-
tion. Although the political, economic, and cultural context of North America is more
antagonistic, corporatist models and/or legislated benefits in social democratic coun-
tries such as Sweden may offer lessons about strategies for labor relations and how to
promote economic and social guarantees for all workers through public policy and
social solidarity (Andersson et al. 2011). In my view, the state is an important and
underused site in the struggle for improving work in retail, and there should be greater
efforts to improve employment standards and expand the benefits provided to all
workers. In this task, unions of all kinds can contribute. It is not only retail workers
who would benefit from legislated paid sick days and vacation, for example.
Enduring and new retail cooperatives from around the world may also provide
helpful insights about alternative ways to organize the sector, deliver goods and ser-
vices, and/or increase the democratization of workplaces and economies. Do workers
want a bigger piece of the pie or a different pie? And if it is the latter, what kind of pie?
These questions warrant meaningful consideration.
What happens in retail affects the rest of the economy in significant ways, including
through wage standards, and manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing patterns
(Bonanich and Wilson 2006; Lichtenstein 2006, 2009a, 2009b). Moreover, there is a
growing body of evidence that better conditions in retail positively benefit retailers
(Andersson et al. 2011; Ruetschlin 2012; Ton 2012). Consequently, in addition to soli-
daristic motivations, the socioeconomic centrality, significance, and impact of retail
should drive a greater commitment to improving retail work. OUR Walmart national
Coulter 61

field director Andrea Dehlendorf (personal communication, 2012) is correct when she
identifies the deep interconnection between national and global economies and Wal-
Mart. She believes that “if we organize Walmart, we can change the economy.” That
prospect is significant food for greater thought—and action.

Acknowledgment
A sincere thank you to all the retail workers, organizers, and elected union representatives who
have shared their insights and experiences with me. I particularly want to acknowledge Kevin
Shimmin, Michael Bride, Andrea Dehlendorf, Daniel Schlademan, Amy Tran, Carrie Gleason,
Phil Andrews, and Stuart Appelbaum. I also want to thank Kirsten Francescone for her excellent
research assistance.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada.

Note
1. See Kenny (2011) for a study of mall committees in South Africa. Coulter (2011), Ikeler
(2011), McRobbie (1997), and Leslie (2002) have discussed the potential for commod-
ity chain and/or supply chain leveraging. The RWDSU-UFCW (2013) has promoted a
community-labor campaign centering on Queens Center Mall in Queens, New York.

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Author Biography
Kendra Coulter is an assistant professor in the Centre for Labour Studies at Brock University.
Her current research focuses on retail workers’ political action and on animal work. Her web-
sites are www.brocku.ca/kcoulter and www.RevolutionizingRetail.org.
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