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 news on Friday 27 August that the independents are unlikely to support a “turn back the boats” refugee policy highlights new political opportunities for the power of community-based coalitions of community organisations, religious organisations and unions.

Scholarly observers of social movements, like Sidney Tarrow in Power in Movement, have argued since the 1990s that political opportunities – or “cleavages in the political decision making of elites” – provide space for popular voices to shine. And, in doing so, these opportunities can inspire the development of expanded social action because these political spaces give social movement activists hope that change is possible.

Australia now has a political cleavage of this kind. A hung parliament will be very different from politics as usual where new policies are debated and endorsed in a closed process of cabinet and caucus. When one party has the power, they can “talk” of consultation” but there is often little pressure to genuinely consult other parties, let alone the community on policies before they are announced.

If the independents are prepared to vet policies, and potentially challenge the policies of government then their role may provide an opportunity to open up policy debate to the wider community.

In Power in Coalition, I argue that political opportunities are a critical ingredient in the success of community-based coalitions. Coalition campaigns that are planned and run conscious of electoral timetables and legislative timetables, and that are timetabled to escalate at critical decision making times, tend to have greater success at achieving social change.

This means that we may see more, and more successful, community based social action over the next term of government.

However, political opportunities are just a chance for influence, not a guarantee of social impact.

These opportunities need to be harnessed by community-based movements, where clever, well-planned, well-built social action develops carefully, and strategically builds public and political support.

For instance, the book’s case study of the public education coalition and the Vinson Inquiry into Public Education was a good example of this. An 18 month inquiry that built slowly in the community through public hearings in schools around the state, then releasing three major reports on its findings in the 9 months before the 2003 state election. Then at 6 months out from the election, the public education alliance identified and discerned 6 key united demands to pursue during the election period. These demands were new policy ideas that had come from the community through the public hearings. This strategy of broad public awareness then targeted social action produced major policy reforms – including a $250 million policy for reducing the class sizes of young school children.

The hung parliament throws down the gauntlet to all those organisations and individuals who have a vision for a better Australia. Its not just about speaking your mind, but it is time to get organised and build a powerful broad based community voice. No politician, however “independent” can substitute for community-led solutions to challenges like housing costs, gridlocked transport, work-family balance or community tension over cultural difference. The ball is now in our court as to whether we can turn the opportunity of a hung parliament into social change.

On Wednesday 25 August, a broad coalition of community and religious organizations formed to express community support for the building of the Park51 Mosque in lower Manhattan. Called New York Neighbors for American Values, they came together to respond to the shrill and intolerant rhetoric swirling around the proposed building of a Mosque in downtown New York.

The so-called “Mosque debate” is polarizing local politics, with the Republican candidate for Mayor using his opposition to the Mosque to try to win popular support in the upcoming elections. The public taunting of Islam has been in the news in several countries recently. In Australia, opposition to Muslim schools and an attempt by politician Rev Fred Nile to “ban the burqua” have sought to blur the link between Islam and extremism. Similar debates have occurred in Europe.

Given the lessons in Power in Coalition, the coalition that has formed in reaction to this debate is likely to be a short-term alliance. It is a “come one, come all” coalition – where any organization that is prepared to publicly signal their support for religious tolerance, and therefore the building of a religious institution, is invited to join.

This open coalition structure is fit for the purpose of providing a community response to a hostile political environment. Indeed, it is of critical importance to have multiple faith and secular voices on this issue to ensure that the Muslim community in New York, and indeed, in the United States, is not isolated. This broad based community response will be critical in the lead up to the Mayoral elections in November.

However, for the long term, and if and when this issue goes to city council, a tighter and more formalized coalition alignment may be necessary. As established in Power in Coalition, come one, come all coalitions frequently struggle to make decisions around complex strategy. A likely step would be the establishment of a steering committee of a few key organizational players in the coalition that make decisions on behalf of a broader network of organizational and individual supporters. This is how the Toronto case study in Power in Coalition overcame the limits of an open coalition. But even then, the challenge will be the extent to which the groups can build strong trusting relationships that respect the specific needs of the Muslim community at the heart of this dispute as well as the broader civil rights values that need to be protected.

As the story unfolds, it is again clear that coalitions between community-based organizations are a vital strategy for articulating a progressive community voice. And consequently, why it is important that in this political environment we understand the lessons of how and when coalitions can be successful.

On Wednesday 25 August 2010, Power in Coalition was launched in Washington DC at an event held at the AFL-CIO. Below is an extract of my talk. It can also be downloaded as a PDF: AFL Presentation Five Principles for building Powerful Coalitions.

In Power in Coalition, I argue that not all coalitions are made equal. While alliances between unions and community organizations are an important and useful strategy for social change, their power and success varies greatly depending on the strategic choices of those involved.

The most successful coalitions are ones that seek to achieve social change goals (such as individual victories and shifting the political climate) at the same time as they strengthen the organizations that participate in them. Yet these goals can be somewhat illusive. In the book I found that most coalitions, at different times, end up trading social change goals for strength goals – for instance by burning relationships with community or union partners in order to win a particular policy reform.

The book establishes FIVE PRINCIPLES for building strong coalitions that were consistent across different places and different times.

1. Less is more

Coalitions are more successful when organizational membership is restricted and there are fewer groups making decisions and sharing resources. Instead of long lists of partners, in Power in Coalition long term coalitions traded breadth for depth and sought to build a narrower agenda that more deeply engaged the commitment of their members and leaders.

A “less is more” approach helped avoid lowest common denominator positions where coalitions end up a “mile wide and an inch deep” and tend to only be able to agree on what they are against rather than what they are for.

But the strategy of “less is more” runs counter to typical coalition practice. Too often “coalition power” is thought to be created by the number of organizations that can be fitted on to a letterhead or press release. But in the Toronto and Chicago case studies, it was only when the coalitions restricted membership that they built sufficient trust to keep organizations at the table working together.

Similarly in Sydney, a remarkable coalition of public education allies built an unprecedented independent public education inquiry, staging hearings across the state, mobilizing parents and teachers in dozens of local communities and won $250 million reforms to public education through a reduction in class sizes for young children. And it was won by a coalition of two organizations – the teachers union (NSW Teachers Federation) and the Federation of Parents & Citizens.

Less is more requires coalition organizers to be strategic with “the less.” There is a need to identify partners that have the right mix of power, interest and potentially, unpredictability. Power must not be defined narrowly. It does not only include “organized numbers and organized money” but also diversity. After all, if the coalition can’t stand for the whole of the constituency it claims to represent then it has a limited ability to act (Tattersall 2010, 171).

With less people around the table there is then an incentive to do “more” together – in particular to focus on building close, respectful public relationships between the individuals involved that explore their personal and organizational interests. In Chicago, this took the form of informal breakfast meetings at a south side diner where people got to know each other over several years before they started campaigning together.

2. Individuals matter

Despite coalitions being defined as an alignment of organizations, alliances can live or die depending on effective leadership from individuals, in particular:

1. organizational leaders
2. champions inside of organizations
3. coalition coordinators/staff

For each of these people the most important qualities are an ability to build bridges across different kinds of organizations and the ability to act as campaign strategists.

In the case studies, it made a difference when leaders directly participated in coalition decision making. Their participation was a sign of their commitment as well as facilitating quick and strong decision making in the coalition. Contrast the public education coalition which consisted of a table of positional leaders with the Ontario Health Coalition which was a table of staff. Sydney had much greater success at maintaining organizational commitment and tapping into significant organizational resources than in Toronto where the arm’s length relationship with the leadership made it difficult to engage the unions.

Strong leaders were frequently supported by champions in their ranks. In Sydney and Toronto, staff organizers helped leaders guide the formation of coalition relationships.

Coalition coordinators were also critical for holding together organizational relationships and strengthening the coalition. In Chicago, a coalition coordinator helped the coalition stay the course over an eighteen month campaign plan, and in Toronto the coordinator’s personal experience in a local health coalition motivated her to support and mentor local organizing. These coordinators helped smooth over differences between organizations, and sought to mitigate union dominance when it arose. In contrast, in Australia where there was not a coalition coordinator, the relationships were more unstable and fell away over time.

3. To Wield Self-Interest with a Sword of Justice

This principle is about the kind of issues that coalitions work on. It requires a coalition to simultaneously pursue issues that feed the direct strategic needs of their organizational partners while those issues also need to be connected to a sense of communal justice, or the public interest.

Organizational self-interest is necessary but not sufficient to build a strong coalition. In Canada, the health coalition sometimes struggled to connect with union self-interest. Medicare, abstractly framed as a national icon, was a challenge to prioritize as an issue of importance above the noise of bargaining and contract campaigning. At the same time, self-interest alone has limited political impact. In Sydney the contract campaign by the teachers, and in Chicago, the UFCW’s anti-Wal-mart campaign were dismissed by the media and politicians as unions just acting for themselves.

The key ingredient for opening up self-interest to public interest, or the common good, is the capacity to negotiate mutual self-interest. This is where organizations identify discrete but shared interests that allow them to pursue their own goals together. The public education alliance found a mutual self-interest in the issue of reduced class sizes. Teachers had an interest in smaller classes because it made their workload more manageable, and parents had a related but different interest in that smaller class sizes were shown to improve educational outcomes for their children.

There is an immense creativity, and unpredictability, in mutual self-interest. It is a space where new ideas and campaigns can be created based out of an innovative exploration of shared need and power. For instance, in Chicago, an anti-Wal-Mart site fight was translated into a campaign for a living wage ordinance for retail workers

Coalition campaigns can more successfully shift the political climate when they are positively framed demands, rather than negatively framed “no campaigns”. Consequently the Ontario Health Coalition struggled to set an agenda for positive health care reforms while working on the issue of “no-public private partnerships.

Coalition campaigns were most successful when they combined a broad narrative with specific demands. Successful broad public interest narratives included references to living wages, public education or Medicare, as they were iconic moral claims. But to be powerful these slogans needed to be linked to specific surface demands that linked these abstract claims to member interests – for instance the public education campaign was made concrete when linked to a specific policy around reducing class sizes. The big box living wage campaign actively engaged other union members, such as SEIU homecare workers, when it was explained that winning a wage raise for retail workers could help homecare workers in their next contract fight.

4. Timely exercise of power through conscious planning

In Power in Coalition successful sustained coalitions had long term plans to build then exercise power against decision makers. The Sydney public education coalition had a two year plan that included an independent inquiry, with reports released periodically in the lead up to the political opportunity of a state election. Similarly the Chicago living wage campaign was timed to move its ordinance six months out from aldermanic elections. This meant that the threat of popular election encouraged councilors to vote for the ordinance, and, even when the ordinance was vetoed by the Mayor, coalition partners could use the election cycle to react. Which they did. As a consequence 7 hostile aldermen were removed in the 2007 elections.

Disciplined planning ensured the coalitions could deliver political pressure rather than just reacting to the media cycle.

5. Multi-scaled coalitions

In the same way that one organization cannot win on its own, most issues cannot be solved at a single scale. Political and economic power is multi-scaled – traversing the local, regional, state, national and international, and to be most effective coalitions frequently need the versatility to act at multiple scales.

In the case studies, coalitions were most effective at acting at multiple scales when they supported the establishment of local city or neighborhood coalitions. These local coalitions (or broker organizations) helped enhance their organizational strength and their political influence.

For instance, in Canada, the Ontario Health Coalition established 40 coalitions around the province so it could run a campaign that collected hundreds of thousands of petitions and then move issues in a coordinated way across the province. These local town based coalitions were led by union members, retired teachers and community activists, providing a space for organizational members to build their skills and capacity to campaign.

But there are specific ingredients for successfully managing multi-scaled coalitions.

First, there is a need for a feedback loop between the different scales. It is not just about setting people up locally to run a state or national agenda, there needs to be local control. In Canada, when the OHC began coordinating tours through the local coalitions to raise awareness about public private partnerships, most of the strategy was developed in Toronto. While successful at first, the cycle of holding event after event had diminishing returns and participation at these events fell away.

The Canadians did come up with a partial solution to the feedback loop, which was ensure local coalitions were represented on provincial steering committees in the same way organizations were.

Second, there is a need for local coalitions to have some relative autonomy – to pursue local demands in conjunction with national/state demands. In Canada, the local coalitions were most successful when state action was driven by locally relevant and locally planned strategy. For instance, a plebiscite campaign was run around hospitals threatened with privatization – where communities one at a time were asked to vote in a referendum. These campaigns were planned and executed by the local groups, and this higher degree of control stimulated significant local participation and commitment.

This is a cursory glance at some of the findings about strong coalitions. These ideas are elaborated in much more detail in Power in Coalition, in particular in Chapter Five.

Reference

Tattersall, A. 2010. Power in Coalition: strategies for strong unions and social change. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.

The compelling epilogue to Australian Federal Election belies the breathtaking dullness of the campaign that preceded it. The campaign was designed by politicians, and run by politicians, and for most of the time, the rest of us were disengaged.

Contrast this to 2007.

That election was a popular political awakening. Mass social movements – including an enlivened union movement, ascendant climate change movement and new campaign organisations like GetUp.org.au lit a fire in our democracy. They set the agenda on which the election was run and all the politicians were forced to react. Even the conservative Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard supported the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme in 2007, while also winding back some of his industrial relations reforms with his “fairness test”.

The 2010 election became, by comparison, the lack of conviction election.

For the ALP, the lack of conviction goes much deeper than the question of who was the leader. The party lost its heart. It obsessed instead with so-called political professionalism, reacting to polling and promoting career politicians. The courage to stay the course on issues like climate change, the population debate and refugees went out the door. There were some exceptions, national broadband and the fair work reforms, but it was slim pickings for those true believers on the hustings who had to convince people why you would vote Labor.

For the Liberal-National Coalition, there were glimpses of conviction in between a negative politics of reaction around refugees. Their paid parental leave policy and commitment to mental health reform were both admirable. Importantly, both policy ideas emanated from popular social movements. Six months paid maternity leave was first suggested by a coalition of unions and community organisations, and the mental health reforms were promoted actively by GetUp.org.au. To the Liberal’s credit, the fact these policies were embraced was exciting.

The lesson is that without an active popular engagement – politicians struggle – and so does our democracy.

We now have a tug of rope between the ALP and Coalition with a handful of independents to see who will govern the country. But regardless of what these politicians decide to do together, there is an urgent need for reorganizing and reshaping how people engage in politics.

This popular engagement needs to be rebuilt because “we the people” dropped the ball after 2007.

For unions, there was a shift to the negotiation of Fair Work legislation and to growing the movement. Some strong social campaigns were run, notably around paid maternity leave and against privatization. But, in the main there was a retreat from community campaigning into industrial relations.

For the environmental movement, division and disunity reigned supreme. Organisations split between those supporting the Labor Party and those supporting more radical reforms. No olive branch of unity was found, and after Copenhagen the movement failed to land a punch on the rise of climate cynicism.

At this election dissatisfaction was at an all time high. People voted with their feet with an unprecedented number of informal votes and a 5% shift in the Labor Party’s primary vote going instead to minor parties.

The hung parliament presents an extraordinary opportunity for popular intervention into public debate.

But the disengagement we have seen does not equal progressive change. That requires organisation. As I argued in Power in Coalition, there are some critical ingredients required for progressive movements as they approach the challenge ahead.

An agenda setting politics is key. Community organisations and unions need to lead our politicians by presenting concrete solutions to challenges such as climate change, social infrastructure or workplace changes. Its not enough to present unrealistic solutions (like some of the debates around the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme). New ideas need to be bold but winnable – like six months paid parental leave.

Agenda setting ideas need to capture community organisation or union direct interests but also articulate a vision for the common good. Unions talking about industrial relations, while union bread and butter, wont be enough to shift political debate. We need imaginative reforms, like unions produced in the 1980s with superannuation and Medicare.

Joining forces will be key. Few community-based organisations have the resources or influence to be able to sustain campaigns around progressive social and economic reforms. Coalitions between organisations that trust and respect each other build political influence.

But beware. Not all coalitions are made equal. Sometimes less is more. Particularly when coming up with new policy ideas. In the case studies in Power in Coalition it proved best to have a small number of partners with a high degree of consensus (like the public education coalition) than a long list of partners with limited common ground (like the health coalition).

But the challenge is great and now. Until there is a sustained people-centred presence in political debate, after the dust settles over the next few weeks, we will be left with politics as usual.

Amanda Tattersall is traveling to the US and Canada to launch Power in Coalition in August 2010. Launch details are:

Washington DC: Wed 25 August

Noon to 1:30, AFL-CIO Offices, Presidents Room First Floor, 815 16th St, NW Washington DC 2006

New York City: Fri 27 August

1pm, co-sponsored by Metro IAF & Civil Service Employees Association

Chicago: Wed 1 September

5:30pm – 7:30pm, sponsored by Grassroots Collaborative (celebrating their 10 year anniversary)

Grace Place, 637 South Dearborn Street, Chicago

Minnesota: Thursday 2 September

7 for 7:30pm, Common Good Bookstore, 165 Western Avenue North, Saint Paul, MN

Toronto: Tuesday 7 September

7 for 7:30, Paupers Pub, second floor lounge, corner of Bloor and Lippencott St (near Bathurst)

Vancouver: Thursday 9 September

7pm start, Room 7000, Harbour Centre Campus, Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings

Seattle: Saturday 11 September

1pm. Elliott Bay Bookshop, 1521 Tenth Avenue, Seattle WA 98122

For more information email amandatattersall@gmail.com

The Australian Federal Election is a depressing site for many progressives.There are few social justice or economic fairness issues on the agenda, and indeed, there is little agenda setting politics to be seen.

It lies in stark contrast to the 2007 election, where civil society movements put issues like workplace justice and climate change on the radar of all politicians. Back then, our political leaders needed to respond to that bold agenda. Indeed, the people-centred campaigns from that election are still having their effect – the leader of the conservative party, Tony Abbott, ruled out changing workplace laws (in his first term) because of the strong opinions felt about that issue last election.

But when civil society is not strongly organised – our politicians flounder. The climate change movement is divided, sadly leaving politicians to escape accountability on that issue. Instead, it is a back to the future politics, with fear around asylum seekers, and confusing leadership battles from inside the Labor Party that dominate.

Progressive politics needs sustained social movement pressure. We have learnt that we can’t leave running our country to the politicians. Coalitions provide an answer for how civil society can respond. Organisations need to work together, to overcome traditional divisions and project clear agendas for the kind of society we want. Real solutions on transport, education, health care, climate change – that can hold out political leaders to account.

Only then will we really “move Australia forward” with “real action” – rather than empty slogans.

We are in election season in Australia at the moment, and although the science says that climate change urgently needs redress you could be fooled into the thinking the planet is fine from both sides of politics.

The ALP and Liberal Party are actively seeking to ignore the issue – the ALP has sheepishly canceled their emissions trading policy, and the Liberal Party has a spin-filled policy called “Direct Action” which doesn’t seem to mean having any effect on shifting carbon dependency in our economy.

So what is to be done?

Certainly a strategy that relies on our political leaders wont work. And, to date, the environmental movement has struggled with a coherent strategy – some engaged by simply defending the ALP, some have adopted the approach of indigent self-righteousness as a blanket for actually achieving progress change.

Effective, powerful, multi-issue climate change coalitions may provide some answers.

They wont be easy to build. They will need to be broad, and cover multiple, unlikely constituents in order to be powerful and move the major parties. They need to be about concrete meaningful change and clear demands, and stop just using insider language like “20%” like that means anything to most people. They need to connect climate change to the rest of our lives – and improve things like public transport while also reducing emissions. And they need to be intentionally multi-scale – and move local change, such as refitting schools or fixing bus lines, as well as national and global – if we are really going to turn this ship around.

Change is possible. But, like always, it will come from strategic, hopeful and practical citizens not our political “leaders”.

How we build power is the key to better social movements: notes from Speech by Amanda Tattersall at “Left Renewal” Conference in Sydney

Sydney, and Australia, have witnessed vibrant, short term social movements, particularly since the turn of the century. Yet these movements, such as around refugee rights, reconciliation and peace, all suffered because of the limits of issue based organising. As reactive opposition rose, and media coverage of issues increased, participation in those movements grew, but over time participation fell away.

Even though hundreds of thousands of people participated in collective action during this period, government policy remained steadfast in its opposition to these movements. Many felt a growing despair that collective action doesn’t work.

As an organiser, I decided to take some time out for reflection on these experiences. I was committed to the belief that coalitions were the way forward – that no one organsiation can achieve sustained, significant social change on its own, but aware that the methods we were using were failing us.

I traveled to the US, Canada, UK and spent time researching Australian history and coalition experience, and in doing so produced the findings documented in “Power in Coalition” (Cornell University Press and Allen & Unwin). Key to the findings were that coalitions need to move on proactice issues, that they need to actively involve the members of unions and community organisations, that they must revitalize these organisations and achieve social change.

On my return to Australia in 2007, I then sought to put into practice some of these findings in founding a coalition called the Sydney Alliance.

The Sydney Alliance was born of the experiences of unions, community organisations and religious organisations in Sydney over the past decade. Many had felt the shortcomings of their own organisation with declining membership as well as struggled with a politics of reaction over issues around race, and a shift in common sense thinking which defined individuals as consumers rather than citizens.

Indeed, in many civil society organisations there were seeds of a new kind of organising. Religious organisations like the Uniting Church had rethought its mission to focus on transforming communities to put at the centre their faith in action, and the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church sought to reengage the next generation in hosting World Youth Day. Community organisations like the Arab Council Australia had shifted to a strengths based approach. Unions had forged the Your Rights at Work campaign working together across past divisions and reconnect to its movement routes to build community support for the industrial rights of workers.

These seeds of hope were then inspired by the great coalition tradition of Australia’s past, such as the Green Bans between builders labourers and resident action groups, or the 8 hour day forged by catholic migrants and unions. And, these were mixed with lessons from overseas about coalition building and community organising.

Together, the aim was to build a different kind of coalition in Sydney – a broad based alliance between religious organisations, unions and community organisations, that focused on building powerful, intentional relationships between organisations and leaders who were capable of bringing together hundreds of thousands of people through their organisations.

One of the most significant victories in the UK general election was the success of the citizens organisation, London Citizens, and its ability to have the hopes and needs of Britian’s citizens to influence the promises of all the major parties.

On May 3rd, on the eve of the election, all the prime ministerial candidates addressed an assembly of 2500 people organised by London Citizens and its national partner – the citizens organising foundation (see Citizens UK website).

This coalition, using a mix of community organising and the power of diverse organisational relationships shifted the political agenda towards concerns for the common good – such as housing, living wages, the rights of migrants – requiring the political leaders to make public commitments on those issues. Through sustained relationships built through over 20 years of community organising, London Citizens demonstrated the tremendous impact that coalitions can have.

Since writing “Power in Coalition” Tattersall helped to found a broad based coalition called the Sydney Alliance. This coalition builds on the findings in the book as well as the practices of community organising, with the aim of building a citizens organisation capable of taking public action for the common good.

The Sydney Alliance involves a diverse array of organisations, including the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Hindu Council of Australia nine unions including Unions NSW, Western Sydney Community Forum, Arab Council Australia, the Uniting Church, the Jewish Board of Deputies, Bhavan Australia (see all the organisations at www.sydneyalliance.org.au).

The Alliance was founded in 2007 with funding from Unions NSW, with Tattersall working with another organiser, Jennifer Acklin, approaching organisations about the idea. With the union movement’s Your Rights at Work campaign in the background, sufficent interest was garnered from 13 organisations to being the Alliance.

By 2010, 26 organisations had shared $1 million to help build a strong coalition for the common good in Sydney. Over 1000 people from these organisations had participated in a 2 day alliance building training program, and the coalition had established sustainable governance structures.

During 2010, the Alliance will hold listening campaigns in its organisations to identify issues / concerns / hopes that may be commonly felt by the members of its different organisations, and in September 2011 the Alliance will launch into the public arena with an Assembly and an agenda for the common good.