The Discursive Power of Trade Union Leadership: Framing Identity Fields for Public Persuasion

Abstract

This article explores the role of subjective agency and politicised union leadership in exercising societal (discursive) power through a frame and rhetorical analysis of the writings, speeches and media interviews of Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (UK). Findings demonstrate Lynch engaged in a dynamic process of framing identity fields to support a collective action frame around the redistribution of wealth in society, developing a complex network of protagonist, antagonist and audience characteristics under three main categorisations: value, power and action identity fields. He did so in dialogic response to opponents’ counter-identity frames, utilising rhetorical techniques to present opposing arguments (dissoi logoi and logoi versus anti-logoi), other argumentation (inventio) and figures of speech (elocutio) for public persuasion. These findings extend literature on union power resources by illuminating how discursive power is generated through identity field framing as a dialogical and rhetorical process.