What a surprise that at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business -- one of the most prestigious and certainly among the most conservative -- five students of Professor Tanya Menon chose to study how a politically active labor union influences laws and regulations controlling corporate conduct in the workplace.

The students validated that by contributing to the UTU Political Action Committee (PAC), voting in elections, encouraging family and labor-friendly friends to vote, and making phone calls and sending e-mails to lawmakers, UTU members help achieve a safer workplace and more secure employment.

Prof. Menon’s students used, as a case study, the activities of the UTU Illinois Legislative Board, which, as does other UTU state legislative boards and the UTU’s national legislative office, lobbies Congress and state legislatures for laws enhancing workplace safety and strengthening collective bargaining rights.

The students' case study focused on the Illinois Railroad Employees Medical Treatment Act of 2005, which the UTU successfully shepherded through the Illinois House and Senate. The law prohibits railroads operating in Illinois from delaying, denying or interfering with employees' medical treatment following on-the-job accidents. 

It was a multi-year effort, during which the UTU’s Illinois Legislative Board collected and presented evidence to state lawmakers that railroads were using a variety of tactics to interfere with injured employees’ medical treatment in order to make railroads appear safer than they are.

The incentives for such railroad actions were alleged to be an annual competition among railroads nationwide for an industry-awarded safety medal, plus year-end cash bonuses to managers who reduce the number of reportable workplace injuries. 

To make the case for the legislation, UTU Illinois State Legislative Director Joe Szabo and his assistant, John Burner, visited lawmakers with sworn declarations -- and sometimes accompanied by UTU members who had been injured on the job -- attesting to incidents where the railroad had delayed, or sought to deny, injured employees medical care so as not to have to report the injuries to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The students explored how collective activity among union members -- focused through the union’s legislative activities -- can accomplish what individual employees generally are unable to achieve. The collective activity is funded through dues dollars that pay the salaries and expenses of UTU’s legislative specialists, who are elected to those posts from trainmen ranks.

Also essential to successful lobbying is the UTU PAC, whose member contributions help support the election of labor-friendly lawmakers.

The class project was the brainchild of 31-year-old graduate student Eric Miller, who had met Szabo while working for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Miller said that in studying unions, he had been led to believe that "unions were losing power. But when I looked at the UTU in Illinois, I saw it gaining power. Why was that happening?  Shouldn’t we be studying how a union gains power?" So Miller invited Szabo to explain to students the UTU's lobbying methods and philosophy. 

"I don’t think we decided on [studying] a union until we talked with Joe," said student Mark Cox. "That was kind of a watershed moment. What was compelling about him was that he was not inspired by money gain," but in improving workplace safety for the benefit of his members. "He was a real evangelist," Cox said.

The students probed how union members concentrate their power with a much smaller budget and fewer resources than are available to employers. To accomplish their goals, concluded the students, union officers "borrow" power from their members and aggregate it into a coherent application of influence and persuasion. In the words of the students, delivering labor-friendly legislation is the "coin" by which union officers "pay back" members for PAC contributions and votes.

A 14-page report authored by the students observed that "a union leader’s bargaining power when meeting with elected government officials, governmental regulatory bodies, and company management is sourced from the borrowed power of thousands of members' votes.

"If the leader inspires strong levels of commitment [from members] and can consistently demonstrate the ability to mobilize this voting power, then he [or she] is better able to accomplish the organization’s goals."

Lawmakers, concluded the class, are influenced by effective lobbying that draws its strength from10,000 Illinois UTU members who contribute to the UTU PAC, plus families and friends who vote for labor-friendly candidates. Indeed, polls consistently show that union members and their families are more likely than other groups to go to the polls on Election Day.

The students interviewed Szabo, as well as Burner’s successor, Bob Guy, and rank-and-file UTU members who had suffered workplace injuries. Also interviewed was State Rep. Eddie Washington (D-North Chicago), a former train conductor elected to the Illinois General Assembly.

Textbooks had already made clear that successful organizations are characterized by effective two-way communication -- newsletters, bulletin boards, Web sites, brochures, surveys, blogs and face-to-face personal interaction.

UTU International officers and state legislative directors use such a strategy, through continual dialogue with members by attending meetings of union locals, by visiting members at their work sites, and by keeping members informed through www.utu.org and the UTU News.

Through such actions, wrote the students, UTU leaders gain "important insight which aids [them] when formulating positions and opinions." The students also observed that the UTU uses another fundamental principle of successful communications -- simplify the message.

"Szabo," wrote the students, "has framed the complex mission of the UTU state legislative office into a simple message that resonates union-wide -- safety, health and well-being."

A UTU member interviewed by the class said he was "awakened" from a "delusion" that he could defend himself against his employer without outside help. "When he ran into difficulties with his medical treatment," wrote the students, "his initial impulse was to fight for justice alone. When he exhausted his individual resources, he sought help from the UTU state legislative office," which had become synonymous -- through its "simple message" -- with member health and safety.

After several years of collecting and verifying reports of alleged medical-treatment abuse, Szabo, in 2005, brought 12 UTU members to the State House in Springfield to testify at a committee hearing convened to investigate medical-treatment abuse in the rail industry -- "a compelling strategy," concluded the students.

Union members then were encouraged to make phone calls and send e-mail and fax messages to lawmakers -- messages that included personal insights and experiences.

"The broader truth," wrote the students, "is that when strong individuals, in all levels of an organization, take ownership of the informal power available to them, the organization as a whole is stronger."

"When you’re trained to be a business manager," said a student, "your personnel are numbers. You are not trained to notice that they have lives outside the workplace -- that they have mortgages, illnesses, children. This project humanized us a bit."

Each of the students said the project had gained for them a new appreciation for the importance of unions in protecting worker health and safety. "Szabo was frank with us about the way he worked," Miller said. "He deals in borrowed power -- power that he borrows from his members. But they lend it to him for a good reason. UTU’s efforts pay it back with interest."