Drawing together the analysis presented in Chapters 3– 7, this chapter presents six key principles that express the most distinctive aspects of the GMB's approach at BHX4 and that have particular relevance to organizing workplaces where unions have limited access to the workplace. These are summed up as the six C's of the Coventry Model: Capitalize, Create, Cultivate, Connect, Challenge, and Contest.

Capitalize on spontaneous ruptures in the employer's control

The self-organized protests in August 2022 represented a moment of unity around a deeply felt injustice of pay that prompted mass direct action. This temporarily ruptured Amazon's control over the space of the warehouse, when workers turned the canteen into a protest site, and the company's control over workers’ time, when they refused to return to work at the end of their break. Amazon's attempt to reimpose discipline by clocking workers off and thereby withholding their pay led to further ruptures as workers moved into the more autonomous space of the streets. By setting the workers into motion under their own direction, this created momentum. The rapid mobilization of GMB organizers in response to these ruptures was equally critical. It was effective because organizers paid close attention to what workers were saying and positioned the union as a vehicle for their struggle, prioritizing the issue that mattered to them and

offering the legal protections of official strike action to continue the workers’ momentum.