How do we build power in coalition? Rethinking union-community coalition types 12 years on.

Summary:

This is article is an invited contribution to the Labor and Industry Journal, based on a popular piece about coalition building first published in this journal in 2005. It builds on the book Power in Coalition and the practice of building the Sydney Alliance. The article is open access available below.

Abstract

Union-community coalitions are an increasingly frequent phenomenon in the industrial landscape. In 2005, ‘There is Power in a Coalition’ sought to build a typology to understand various kinds of coalitions and define their different features. This article reviews that typology then applies it to the Sydney Alliance. The Sydney Alliance is a broad-based coalition of religious organisations, unions and community organisations that uses community organising to make Sydney a better place for everybody. It has included up to eleven unions at its peak and is an example of a Deep Coalition. The article combines the typology and the practices of the Sydney Alliance to build a more complex and detailed understanding of how Deep Coalitions work and what is likely to make them successful.

Citation:

Tattersall, A. (2018). How do we build power in coalition? Rethinking union-community coalition types 12 years on. Labour and Industry, 28(1), 68–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2018.1427422