Amanda Tattersall's Page

www.powerincoalition.com

How can we change things in an age in which governments are fixated on the bottom line and conventional protest rallies have lost their punch?

Coalitions can be important tools for social change and union revitalisation. What makes them successful? What causes them to fail? Community organiser Amanda Tattersall in Power in Coalition examines successful coalitions between unions and community organisations in three countries: the public education coalition in Sydney, Toronto’s Ontario Health Coalition fighting to save universal health care, and Chicago’s living wage campaign run by the Grassroots Collaborative. She explores when and how coalitions can be a powerful strategy for social change, organisational development and union renewal.

Amanda Tattersall is a well recognised as a leading coalition builder and social change campaigner in Australia.

She is the founder and Director of the Sydney Alliance, a diverse coalition of unions, community organizations and religious organizations working for the common good for a fair, just and sustainable city.

She has been the President of the National Union of Students (NSW Branch), founded Labor for Refugees, co-founded and is the chair of www.getup.org.au – an internationally renowned Australian web-based camapign organisation with over 350 000 members.

She has worked as a union organiser and is currently an elected official (Deputy Assisitant Secretary) with Unions NSW, the central labor council in Sydney NSW representing 600 000 workers.

She completed a PhD on coalition unionism at the University of Sydney featuring case studies of coalitions from Sydney, Chicago and Toronto. In undertaking this research, she spent two years living in the United States and Canada as a visiting fellow at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School.

Power in Coalition is based on her research and wide experience as a union and community organiser. The views and opinions in that book are the authors (and not necessarily the organisations in which she is involved).