Union membership in Australia has been in decline for several decades. Unions have adopted different strategies to adapt, and to retain and rebuild their membership bases. These range from experimenting with different organizing models, dedicating resources to electoral campaigns, and, increasingly, emphasizing social media campaigns. Despite a number of short-terms gains, these strategies have largely failed to build enduring, institutionalized gains for workers. At worst, some attempts to regain members have seen unions abandon industrial organizing all together.

Anthony Forsyth’s new book, The Future of Unions and Worker Representation: The Digital Picket Line, confronts this historic crisis. He compares different revitalization strategies adopted by unions in Australia, the United States, UK, and Italy. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies, Forsyth argues that there is a pathway for unions to regain their position of influence even without a return to the membership levels they enjoyed in the postwar era. In the twenty-first century, unions will need to experiment with new technologies, build alliances with social movements, and adopt membership models that reflect the flexibility — and precarity — of modern-day work. Anthony Forsyth spoke to Jacobin to outline the alternative he sees to a future of declining union power.