Forget Media Consultants—Labor Should Use Guerrilla Journalism to Counter Corporate Attacks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6907/labor_should_ditch_highly_paid_consultant_rely_on_guerilla_journalists/

Tuesday Feb 1, 2011 4:26 pm

By Mike Elk


"America's newsroom" offers up a "fact" about the Employee Free Choice that is anything but.


It appears that once again, like in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor movement is losing the media debate as the corporate right wing attacks public-sector unions. Unions once again finding themselves on the defensive and hobbled in the press in their attempts to go after the jugular of the corporate chieftains attacking them.

My perhaps immodest proposal: Organized labor should stop relying on the highly paid media consultants who lost the message war during the Employee Free Choice Act and instead rely on teams of guerilla investigative journalists.

During the EFCA debate in 2009, unions relied on the advice of consultants to focus their messaging on how unions were good for the economy, as opposed to making the debate about the awful intimidation tactics of employers. It was almost as if, by saying unions were necessary for a good economy, unions were in effect defending their right to exist. The debate became about unions and not about the awful intimidation tactics of the boss.

Unions ended up losing the Employee Free Choice Act debate, and now polls show public opinion of unions is at an all-time low.

FULL story at link.

[drm604]

1. Very perceptive.

This makes a great point about framing the debate. Make the debate about the employers and their tactics. Do NOT make it about the value of unions. This is a good example of what George Lakoff talks about in Don't Think of an Elephant.

How Democrats & Progressives Can Win: George Lakoff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo4whfUDPcU