This article appeared in the Canadian progressive e-newsletter Rabble.ca:

Social movement campaigners rarely get the chance to write up their own history. But in a new internationally comparative book on labour-community coalitions — called Power in Coalition — the successful strategies of Canada’s Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) take centre stage. The OHC is one of three coalitions whose campaigns are documented as part of a grounded study of what makes community-based coalitions successful and what makes them fail.

It’s a good time to reflect on the power and possibilities of these coalitions given the current challenges faced by progressive politics in Canada. Weak leadership from centre-left party politics invite community-based movements to increasingly play a role in setting the agenda for public debate. Yet, social movements themselves have been struggling to build a progressive agenda beyond specific mobilizations and issue-based organizing.

The Ontario Health Coalition’s experience is instructive, given that it has sustained relationships between a diverse array of unions and community organizations over the past 16 years. Part of its success lies in its defense of Medicare — a Canadian national icon. But its longevity is equally attributable to its development of sophisticated movement-building strategies that allow it to span the province of Ontario.

The OHC’s most distinctive strategy is its ability to create a movement that is simultaneously local and provincial. It is what I call a multi-scaled coalition, where it has both a provincial steering committee supplemented by local town and city based coalition partners scattered across the province.

This multi-scaled structure is embedded in a generation of social movement campaigns that pre-dated the OHC. The health coalition learned from the Days of Action of the 1990s and its strategy of regional mobilization. The practice of building permanent town-based health groups began the late 1990s, when the Harris government’s privatization threats led to the opportunity of a province-wide study into the state of health care. As the study was conducted, wise organizers built local health coalitions while engaging regional communities in a conversation about the crisis in health care. This gave birth to a movement that could move an agenda in local towns as well as across the province.

Building local coalitions turned the challenge of Ontario’s expansive geography into a strength. Organizers realized that provincial political influence could not be organized in Toronto alone, so it built a structure to match the complexity of the province. These local coalitions in turn have spurned a variety of different tactics in the fight to defend public healthcare.

In response to the 2001 Romanow Royal Commission into Medicare, the OHC worked with local coalitions to coordinate a mass support campaign to Save Medicare. They translated the traditional techniques of electoral campaigning to an issue based campaign, and coordinated a canvas that went door-to-door across the province, organized by local activists town-by-town. A province-wide assembly of community leaders signed off on a strategy that was then implemented locally, where teams of union and community activists hatched plans to raise awareness through media stunts and coordinate door-knocking and petition signing in their neighborhoods.

By acting locally through a coordinated provide-wide campaign, the OHC was able to collect over 250,000 signatures in defense of Medicare. This public pressure, sustained over an eight-month campaign, was responsible for the Royal Commission’s positive embrace of Medicare, pushing back the pressure to privatize.

For the OHC, this robust coalition structure built a platform for tactical innovation. When public-private-partnerships began to loom large in late 2002 with the proposed P3 hospital in Brampton, the coalition could experiment with a different kind of multi-scaled campaigning. At first, the OHC was able to build a local movement in Brampton led by retired teachers, union activists and members of the Council of Canadians. This was then supplemented by provincial supporters who joined a large mobilization in the town. But the coalition could also zoom out and build awareness about P3s by holding events and activities in dozens of other towns.

Later in 2005 the OHC’s local coalitions provided opportunities for another creative strategy — plebiscites – community-initiated referenda. By then, the health coalition knew it was struggling to maintain momentum against public-private-partnerships while also being aware that most communities remained hostile to the idea of health care privatization. So, to capitalize on this conjuncture it developed a strategy where local health coalitions could run a community vote on whether their local hospital should stay in public hands or be subject to a public-private-partnership. The referenda provided an opportunity for mass awareness raising, participation and engagement in a campaign and hundreds of conversations about health care. But it was only possible because a hub of local activists in towns as diverse as Niagara-on-the-Lake, Thunder Bay and Hamilton could initiate and co-ordinate these popular votes.

Local health coalitions have been a critical plank to the power of this coalition, as they have created spaces to build and co-ordinate mass mobilization through local organization. Unlike rallies, which can have a transitory impact on public debate, the local coalitions have been an organizational anchor that have built different local campaigns while also being a space for training and developing community leaders who can strategize, plan and execute powerful social movement action.

While these local coalitions have set the OHC apart, in my research into coalition strategies across three countries, I have found them to be a strategy that can travel. In Australia, a public education coalition** similarly set up local public education lobbies of teachers, parents and school principles who organized locally in partnership with a centrally co-ordinated Inquiry into public education. The very successful 2005-2007 Your Rights at Work campaign in Australia learnt from the OHC’s experiences when it began to build local union committees in marginal electorates (ridings) to complement centrally coordinated rallies. Similarly, the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign harnessed the power of multi-scaled campaigning, where it gave networks of volunteers the freedom to determine how to build a get out the vote effort — in stark contrast to the traditional command and control strategies that have previously characterized U.S. electoral campaigning.

It takes a lot of reflection and innovation to sustain a coalition over 16 years and that is exactly what we have seen from the large team of committed staff, volunteers and organizational leaders across the Ontario Health Coalition. They have learned from their successes and their mistakes, and the book identifies some of the trials and tribulations encountered by a multi-scaled coalition.

Thanks to the OHC’s open-minded creativity, coalition organizers in Canada and across the world can learn from this coalition’s experimentation. Multi-scaled coalition organizing can inspire other coalitions to identify new possibilities for how they too can build mass participation in coalitions and reinvigorate our social movements so we can deliver on the promise of progressive politics to improve the lives of the majority.

This is a video of the speech Amanda Tattersall gave at the 10 year anniversary of the Grassroots Collaborative in Chicago in September 2010. It talks about the lessons that this coalition learned about how to build a powerful coalition, and looks at the story and legacy of the big box living wage campaign.

On Tuesday September 7, the Ontario Health Coalition hosted a launch for Power in Coalition in downtown Toronto. It was a lively discussion around the possibilities and challenges of coalitions. Speakers included Amanda Tattersall, author of Power in Coalition and Natalie Mehra the Coordinator of the OHC (see photo).

Discussion focused in on the key strength of the OHC – the fact it build a multi-scaled coalition structure that operated both across the province through meetings of provincial community organizations and unions, as well as locally though now fifty local health coalitions doted across Ontario. Mehra underlined the importance of this structure – as it has repeatedly enabled the coalition to build a mass movement.

This is in contrast to the struggles of many progressive coalitions in Canada which have declined in recent years (such as movements around women’s rights, poverty and privatization) – despite the passionate support for social justice in Canadian society more generally. Coalitions offer real hope for rebuilding progressive power in Canada, but as the speakers emphasized – these coalitions need to build their power carefully and sustainable. The Ontario Health Coalition, featured in Chapter 4 of Power in Coalition provides some ideas for how this can be done.

On September 1, the Grassroots Collaborative celebrated its 10 year anniversary, and at that event the Collaborative launched Power in Coalition, which features a case study from this powerful labor-community coalition. I was at the launch and gave the following speech:

Chicago’s powerful coalition: 10 years of the grassroots collaborative

I want to take you all back five years to a warm Saturday morning in July 2005. Chicago Temple, a downtown church, was overflowing with more than a thousand low-income African American and Latino residents. Outside there were lines of empty school buses that had ferried in the crowd.

Inside, the church floor was a disorganized rainbow, defined by the dynamic strips of color created by different shades of t-shirts. A block of canary yellow on the right-hand side signified the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a regal purple Service Employees International Union (SEIU) block of color marked the left of the hall. A red bunch of boisterous Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) community leaders were positioned at the front.

The noise was deafening. Voices across the hall were singing to the rhythm of hand clapping, ‘We’re fired up, we won’t take it no more; we’re fired up, we won’t take it no more.’ Some people were standing; others were waving their arms. It was electric.

As one speaker emphasized, ‘This is a gathering of the grassroots.’ You had turnout our your membership to take back your city.

This is the kind of power we are celebrating here tonight.

For the past 6 years I have traveled the English-speaking world looking at, and talking with, different labor-community coalitions – in the United Kingdom, across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Just about everywhere I go I share stories and lessons from the power and practices of the Grassroots Collaborative.

This journey produced a book about how to build powerful coalitions. And the work of the collaborative takes center stage as the US case study in that book.

Tonight is about celebrating the distinctive labor-community power that you have built. There were lessons that you learned and rules that you practiced.

When the common wisdom said that coalitions were powerful with lots of people – that bigger is better. You said no, and limited your participation to those who understood the discipline of building power.

When the standard practice was that you use coalitions for single-issue campaigns. You said no, and became a multi-issue coalition so you could build a long-term shift in political power in Chicago.

When everyone thought that coalitions were all about frenetic activity and campaigns. You said no, and focused first on building relationships before you started working on issues.

And, when others said working across community and labor can be hard. You said we know, but you understood that real social power and political change requires it – and so you made it work, and continue to make it work.

What a magnificent display of community power these strategies have delivered. They were exemplified by the 2005-6 big-box living wage campaign.

It was tough times in 2003 when Wal-Mart first came to town and started beating up on the progressive community. But thankfully, as the grassroots collaborative, you had build a space of trust between leaders which became a place for creative thinking. You were prepared to think politically about how to challenge corporate power. You turned a reactive campaign against Wal-Mart into the powerful moral claim of a living wage ordinance.

And your work was not rushed, but a steady disciplined build of power. You built a base of new relationships with labor and new relationships with churches. You then developed a fifty ward strategy to move your agenda, using postcards to identify voters and build a constituency of support. You shared what each of you do best – Action Now was in the field, labor walked the halls of city council, community organizations targeted key aldermen and your member leaders did the media.

Individual organizations on their own would not have been able to move a radical ordinance like this, but combined you were a formidable force for change.

The mix of labor and community power meant you rocked the Mayor, passed the ordinance, led to a threatened capital flight by mega-retailers, forced a veto, then some of your politically active partners then punished the hostile aldermen at the following council elections.

Your legacy was a new terrain in Chicago. Illinois’s minimum wage has been increased to the second highest in the country. And this year, Wal-Mart came to the table to negotiate wages and conditions with labor. This is an unprecedented win in this country –your work forced them recognize you.

You shifted the political climate in Chicago and you sustained your coalition while you did it

It is a pleasure to be with you at this ten year anniversary to celebrate the victories and the power you have built. And it has been a delight to write up your story for an international audience. You have harnessed many of the lessons of labor-community power that I have seen from across the world:

• less is more when building a long term coalition
• powerful coalitions set an agenda rather than react to others
• coalition power is about building your organizations and shifting the political climate as well as winning social change

You have inspired me. Having seen what you built I returned to Australia to initiate a long-term broad based coalition called the Sydney Alliance. We too are a multi-issue, handpicked coalition that is spending years building relationships and trust before working on issues. We don’t move to action till next year, but I do hope that at some point there may be a chance that we might work together as we continue to learn from each other.

I wish you well. Know that your legacy lives as it teaches others to build labor-community power and challenge the forces of reaction with a clear sighted vision for cities and communities that deliver opportunities, support and prosperity for residents and working people.

The Chicago-based labor-community coalition the Grassroots Collaborative formed 10 years ago at Manny’s cafe just South of the Loop. It started with a bunch of executive directors from some key community organizations and a few labor union leaders coming together to really get to know each others interests. From these modest beginnings, where the conversation ranged from how to build better to coalitions to how to challenge politics in Chicago came their landmark big box living wage ordinance.

I first met with the Collaborative in 2005, and came to my first breakfast meeting at that time. They were in the early stages of preparing the living wage ordinance – building the base ready for a fight. They had been doing lots of one-to-one meetings with community-based organizations and labor unions across the city, and had developed a postcard campaign to build awareness about this radical idea of a living wage ordinance for big box workers.

A year later in July 2006, they passed the ordinance – to the shock of the Mayor and the large retailers. It was a well planned, well timed campaign that shared power and resources that made it happen. Organizations activated their strengths – action now was in the field knocking on doors, labor unions walked the halls of city council lobbying aldermen, different community organizations moved targeted aldermen they had established relationships with, members of these organizations did press around the ordinance. And it worked a charm.

But politics in Chicago is never easy, and a threatened capital flight by the retailers helped encourage the Mayor to veto the ordinance in September – the first time in 17 years he had used his veto. But while they may have not won the battle, the Collaborative’s campaign shifted politics in Chicago. The campaign was timed to coincide with the February Council elections and 7 hostile aldermen lost their seats.

The shift in the goal posts  is evident many times over – the increasing of Illinois’s minimum wage and the fact that Wal-Mart came and sat down with labor unions this year when it wanted to build a second store in the city. This is a huge shift. Wal-Mart has traditionally played a strategy of ignoring unions – yet strong labor-community coalition work has brought Wal-Mart to the table. And the workers there will benefit – being paid above minimum wage – again a precedent set in a political climate where the success of coalition power is felt even after a campaign has been waged.

So, on Tuesday it was great to sit down and have breakfast with the collaborative team. And tonight, i will be launching Power in Coalition with them at their 10 year anniversary.

The first case study in Power in Coalition begins in Sydney with the education campaigns of the public education coalition. Born out of tensions between teacher unions and government, the education coalition was at its most successful when running an independent inquiry into public education – called the Vinson Inquiry (Vinson Inquiry Report). This report allowed the coalition to set the debate on education, leading to major public policy victories – including a $250 million program for reducing class sizes for young school students (from Kindergarten to year 2).

Central to the public education coalition was the large, democratic and resource rich NSW Teachers Federation (http://www.nswtf.org.au/). However, the coalition would not have had its success without the union’s strong partnership with school parents and principals.

Chapter Four of Power in Coalition examines a series of health care campaigns run by the Ontario Health Coalition. It is a broad coalition, involving over 9 unions, seniors organisations, the council of canadians as well as numerous local health coalitions based in towns and cities across the Province. The case study features the Save Medicare campaign from 2001-2 and the sustained campaigns against public-private partnerships in hospitals since 2003.

For more information on the Ontario Health Coalition visit Ontario Health Coalition website.