Conservative think tanks and front groups are savvy. The general public assumes Progressives and Conservatives are on the same footing and have the same infrastructure, we do not. That is why, as Progressives, we need to think outside the box, work together and wage these campaigns united. Many Progressives and Progressive groups are already doing this (thank you!) and they are doing it effectively.
So how do we sway minds to be pro-union? (and why?)
The strategy can be summed up into one word. Entertainment.
Before getting to the entertainment, we need to ask ourselves a couple questions. First, what are the main reasons people are pro-union and what are the main reasons people are anti-union?
Pro:
-To protect their job
-To create a safe working environment
-Workplace Equality (people are promoted on merit)
-To join together to protect wages & benefits.
Anti:
-"Union Bosses" are in it for themselves.
-Corruption
-Fear of company retribution (firing them while organizing)
-Giving money to "Liberals"
What needs to be done is the general public AND workers at businesses with poor conditions need to have the Pro reasons embedded in positive emotion and the Anti reasons corrected.
News Corp (Fox News's parent) does this with Twentieth Century Fox. How can Progressives do this? In the new video age we can do this online. Brave New Films does an excellent job of this.
My Proposed Strategy:
Develop a branded website focused around funny and outrageous short videos. 30 seconds to 8 minutes. Solicit the general public to provide videos of workplace abuse. This can be done from the company's own surveillance videos (I know my state at least requires businesses to provide a copy to anyone) or by people bringing cameras to work. In the day and age of video mobile phones, this should be easy.
Then take the content that helps to anchor emotions properly, add in short, well framed text to reinforce the video.
Then take footage of people organizing. Short clips of employees asking employees what they think of starting a union at their workplace (show the positive footage).
Create a Start to Unionized video (home footage well edited). This will make people who want to unionize better understand what it takes and will activate the mind of actually doing it.
Add in "union bosses" making jokes, having fun, working hard and enjoying their time. In other words, make union leaders like-able.
Above all else, make the site informative, emotional and enjoyable. The site should not be branded a "Pro union" site. (Think how News Corp/Fox News does NOT label themselves a Conservative media company). If Fox can wage war on the poor via the show Cops, as Progressives we can fight back (and win)!
Potential Site Brands:
"MostOutrageousWorkplaceVideos.com"
"ThisIsWhyMyJobSucks.com"
"ICaughtMyBoss.com"
"WhydoesMyCompanyHatePeople.com"
"CorporateAmericaCaughtOnTape.com"
Marketing:
-Facebook advertising directly targeted to employees of companies that are running organizing campaigns (Wal*Mart or Comcast for example).
-SEO -- Make sure the site ranks high in Google search results for specific keywords, including negative job phrases "find a new job" "worst job" "job sucks" and positive keywords such as "how to organize" "get a union" "funny videos" etc.
-Social Marketing including YouTube viral videos (getting it to YouTube's front page), Facebook and Twitter.
-PR -- Talk about it on Progressive media. (Blogs, talk radio, msnbc, etc).
This progressive strategy needs some fine tuning but I hope you get the idea. This strategy can be adapted to work for just about any Progressive value. From the environment to woman's choice we can win back our values leadership position.