Breaking the iron law of oligarchy: Union revitalization in the American labor movement

American Journal of Sociology

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 303-349

  Voss, Kim ^a   Sherman, Rachel ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034258653     PISSN: 00029602     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/316963     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work. 1985. "The Changing Situation of Workers and Their Unions." Washington, D.C.: AFL-CIO.
2. Amburgey, Terry L., Dawn Kelly, and William P. Barnett. 1993. "Resetting the Clock: The Dynamics of Organizational Change and Failure." Administrative Science Quarterly 38:51-73.
3. Barnett, William P., and Glenn R. Carroll. 1995. "Modeling Internal Organizational Change." Annual Review of Sociology 21:217-36.
4. Beach, Stephen. 1977. "Social Movement Radicalization: The Case of the People's Democracy in Northern Ireland." Sociological Quarterly 18:305-18.
5. Blau, Peter. 1963. The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
6. Boswell, Terry, and D. Stevis. 1997. "Globalization and International Labor Organizing." Work and Occupations 24:288-308.
7. Brecher, Jeremy, and Tim Costello, eds. 1990. Building Bridges: The Emerging Coalition of Labor and Community. New York: Monthly Review Press.
8. Bronfenbrenner, Kate. 1993. "Seeds of Resurgence: Successful Union Strategies for Winning Certification Elections and First Contracts in the 1980s and Beyond." Ph.D. dissertation. Cornell University, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
9. Bronfenbrenner, Kate, et al. 1998. Introduction to Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, edited by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, and Ronald L. Seeber. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press.
10. _. 1998. "It Takes More Than Housecalls: Organizing to Win with a Comprehensive Union-Building Strategy." Pp. 19-36 in Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, edited by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, and Ronald L. Seeber. Ithaca: ILR Press. Bronfenbrenner, Kate, and Tom Juravich. 1994. "Seeds of Resurgence: The Promise of Organizing in the Public and Private Sectors." Working paper. Institute for the Study of Labor Organizations, Washington, D.C.
11. _. 1998. "It Takes More Than Housecalls: Organizing to Win with a Comprehensive Union-Building Strategy." Pp. 19-36 in Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, edited by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, and Ronald L. Seeber. Ithaca: ILR Press. Bronfenbrenner, Kate, and Tom Juravich. 1994. "Seeds of Resurgence: The Promise of Organizing in the Public and Private Sectors." Working paper. Institute for the Study of Labor Organizations, Washington, D.C.
12. Bronfenbrenner, Kate, and Tom Juravich. 1994. "Seeds of Resurgence: The Promise of Organizing in the Public and Private Sectors." Working paper. Institute for the Study of Labor Organizations, Washington, D.C.
13. Clemens, Elisabeth. 1993. "Organizational Repertoires and Institutional Change: Women's Groups and the Transformation of U.S. Politics, 1890-1920." American Journal of Sociology 98:755-98.
14. Costain, Anne. 1992. Inviting Women's Rebellion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
15. Delacroix, Jacques, and Anand Swaminathan. 1991. "Cosmetic, Speculative, and Adaptive Organizational Change in the Wine Industry: A Longitudinal Study." Administrative Science Quarterly 36:631-61.
16. Delaney, John, Paul Jarley, and Jack Fiorito. 1996. "Planning for Change: Determinants of Innovation in U.S. National Unions." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 49: 597-614.
17. DiMaggio, Paul. 1988. "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory." Pp. 3-22 in Institutional Patterns and Organizations, edited by Lynne G. Zucker. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.
18. DiMaggio, Paul, and Walter Powell. 1991a. Introduction to The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19. _. 1991b. "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality." Pp. 63-82 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
20. Duffhues, Tom, and Albert Felling. 1989. "The Development, Change, and Decline of the Dutch Catholic Movement." Pp. 95-114 in Organizing for Change, edited by Bert Klandermans. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.
21. Edelstein, David, and Malcolm Warner. 1976. Comparative Union Democracy: Organization and Opposition in British and American Unions. New York: Wiley.
22. Epstein, Barbara. 1991. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
23. Fantasia, Rick. 1988. Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
24. Fiorito, Jack, Paul Jarley, and John Thomas Delaney. 1995. "National Union Effectiveness in Organizing: Measures and Influences." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 48 (4): 613-35.
25. Fischer, Robert. 1994. Let the People Decide: Neighborhood Organizing in America. New York: Twayne Publishers.
26. Fletcher, Bill, Jr., and Richard W. Hurd. 1999. "Political Will, Local Union Transformation, and the Organizing Imperative." Pp. 191-216 in Which Direction for Organized Labor? edited by Bruce Nissen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
27. Fligstein, Neil. 1985. "The Spread of the Multidivisional Form among Large Firms, 1919-1979." American Sociological Review 50:377-91.
28. _. 1991. "The Structural Transformation of American Industry: An Institutional Account of the Causes of Diversification in the Largest Firms, 1919-1979." Pp. 311-36 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29. Freeman, Richard B. 1985. "Why Are Unions Faring Poorly in NLRB Representation Elections?" Pp. 45-64 in Challenges and Choices Facing American Labor, edited by T. A. Kochan. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
30. Freeman, Richard B., and James L. Medoff. 1984. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books.
31. Friedman, Sheldon, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald, and Ronald L. Seeber, eds. 1994. Restoring the Promise of American Labor Law. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
32. Gamson, William. 1990. The Strategy of Social Protest, 2d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.
33. Gamson, William A., and Emilie Schmeidler. 1984. "Organizing the Poor." Theory and Society 13:567-85.
34. Gillespie, David P. 1983. "Conservative Tactics in Social Movement Organizations." Pp. 262-75 in Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, edited by Jo Freeman. White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.
35. Goldfield, Michael. 1987. The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36. Grabelsky, Jeffrey, and Richard Hurd. 1994. "Reinventing an Organizing Union: Strategies for Change." Pp. 84-95 in Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Association, edited by Paula S. Voos. Madison, Wisc.: Industrial Relations Research Association.
37. Green, James, and Chris Tilly. 1987. "Service Unionism: Directions for Organizing." Labor Law Journal 38 (August): 486-95.
38. Greenhouse, Steven. 1999. "Labor Revitalized with New Recruiting." New York Times, October 19, p. 14.
39. Greenstone, J. David. 1969. Labor in American Politics. New York: Knopf.
40. Gusfield, Joseph. 1968. "Social Movements: The Study." Pp. 445-52 in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, no. 14. Edited by David Stills. New York: MacMillan.
41. Hannan, Michael T., and John H. Freeman. 1984. "Structural Inertia and Organizational Change." American Sociological Review 49:149-64.
42. Howley, John. 1990. "Justice for Janitors: The Challenge of Organizing in Contract Services." Labor Research Review 15:61-71.
43. Ikenberry, G. J. 1989. "Explaining the Diffusion of State Norms: Coercion, Competition, and Learning in the International System." Paper presented at the annual meetings of the International Studies Association, London.
44. Jenkins, J. Craig. 1977. "Radical Transformations of Organizational Goals." Administrative Sciences Quarterly 22:568-86.
45. _. 1985. The Politics of Insurgency. New York: Columbia University Press.
46. Jenkins, J. Craig, and Craig Eckert. 1986. "Elite Patronage and the Channeling of Social Protest." American Sociological Review 51:812-29.
47. Johnston, Paul. 1994. Success while Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press.
48. Koopmans, Ruud. 1993. "The Dynamics of Protest Waves: West Germany, 1965 to 1989." American Sociological Review 58:637-58.
49. Kriesi, Hanspeter, R. Koopmans, J. W. Duyvendak, and M. G. Giugni. 1995. The Politics of New Social Movements in Western Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
50. Labor Research Review. 1991. Thematic issue: "An Organizing Model of Unionism." Labor Research Review, vol. 17.
51. _. 1991/92. Thematic issue: "Let's Get Moving: Organizing for the 90s." Labor Research Review, vol. 18 (fall/winter).
52. _. 1993. Thematic issue: "No More Business as Usual: Labor's Corporate Campaigns." Labor Research Review, vol. 21 (fall/winter).
53. Lang, Kurt, and Gladys Lang. 1961. Collective Dynamics. New York: Crowell.
54. Lipset, Seymour M., Martin Trow, and James Coleman. 1956. Union Democracy. New York: Free Press.
55. McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
56. _. 1983. "Tactical Innovation and the Pace of Insurgency." American Sociological Review 48:735-54.
57. _. 1988. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press.
58. Messinger, Sheldon. 1955. "Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of a Declining Social Movement." American Sociological Review 20:3-10.
59. Meyer, David S., and Suzanne Staggenborg. 1996. "Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity." American Journal of Sociology 101: 1628-60.
60. Meyer, David S., and Nancy Whittier. 1994. "Social Movement Spillover." Social Problems 41:277-98.
61. Michels, Robert. (1915) 1962. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Dover.
62. Milkman, Ruth, ed. 2000. Immigrants and Union Organizing. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
63. Minkoff, Debra C. 1994. "From Service Provision to Institutional Advocacy: The Shifting Legitimacy of Organizational Forms." Social Forces 72 (4): 943-69.
64. _. 1999. "Bending with the Wind: Strategic Change and Adaptation by Women's and Racial Minority Organizations." American Journal of Sociology 104:1666-703.
65. Morris, Aldon. 1981. "Black Southern Student Sit-in Movement: An Analysis of Internal Organization." American Sociological Review 46:744-67.
66. Mort, Joann. 1998. Not Your Father's Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO. New York: Verso.
67. Perry, Charles R. 1987. Union Corporate Campaigns. Philadelphia: Wharton School of Business.
68. Peterson, Richard, Thomas Lee, and Barbara Finnegan. 1992. "Strategies and Tactics in Union Organizing Campaigns." Industrial Relations 31 (2): 370-81.
69. Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage.
70. Rosenthal, Naomi, and Michael Schwartz, 1989. "Spontaneity and Democracy in Social Movements." Pp. 33-59 in Organizing for Change, edited by Bert Klandermans. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.
71. Rothschild-Whitt, Joyce. 1976. "Conditions Facilitating Participatory-Democratic Organizations." Sociological Inquiry 46 (2): 75-86.
72. Rucht, Dieter. 1998. "The Structure and Culture of Collective Protest in Germany since 1950." Pp. 29-58 in The Social Movement Society, edited by David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
73. Schmidt, Alvin. 1973. Oligarchy in Fraternal Organizations: A Study in Organizational Leadership. Detroit: Gale Research Company.
74. Schutt, R. K. 1986. Organization in a Changing Environment: Unionization of Welfare Employees. Albany: State University of New York Press.
75. Scott, W. Richard. 1995. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
76. Selznick, Philip. 1943. "An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy." American Sociological Review 8:47-54.
77. _. 1948. "Foundations of the Theory of Organization." American Sociological Review 13:25-35.
78. _. 1957. Leadership in Administration. New York: Harper & Row.
79. Sherman, Rachel, and Kim Voss. 2000. "Organize or Die: Labor's New Tactics and Immigrant Workers." Pp. 81-108 in Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California, edited by Ruth Milkman. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
80. Simon, Herbert. 1957. Administrative Behavior. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
81. Singh, Jitendra, and Charles Lumsden. 1990. "Theory and Research in Organizational Ecology." Annual Review of Sociology 16:161-95.
82. Singh, Jitendra, David Tucker, and Agnes Meinhard. 1991. "Institutional Change and Ecological Dynamics." Pp. 390-422 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
83. Smith, Christian. 1996. Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
84. Staggenborg, Suzanne. 1988. "The Consequences of Professionalization and Formalization in the Pro-Choice Movement." American Sociological Review 53: 585-606.
85. _. 1991. The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press.
86. Tarrow, Sidney. 1989. Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965-1975. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
87. Tilly, Charles. 1972. "How Protest Modernized France, 1845-1855." Pp. 192-255 in The Dimensions of Quantitative Research in History, edited by W. O. Aydelotte, Allan G. Bogue, and R. W. Fogel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
88. _. 1982. "Britain Creates the Social Movement." Pp. 21-51 in Social Conflict and the Political Order in Modern Britain, edited by James Cronin and Jonathan Schneer. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
89. _. 1986. The Contentious French. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
90. _. 1995. Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
91. Tolbert, Pamela S., and Lynne G. Zucker. 1983. "Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935." Administrative Science Quarterly 28:22-39.
92. Troy, Leo. 1990. "Is the U.S. Unique in the Decline of Private Sector Unionism?" Journal of Labor Research 11:111-43.
93. Turner, Lowell. 1999. "Revitalizing Labor in the U.S., Britain and Germany: Social Movements and Institutional Change." Unpublished manuscript. Cornell University, Department of Industrial and Labor Relations.
94. Useem, Bert, and Mayer Zald. 1987. "From Pressure Group to Social Movement: Efforts to Promote the Use of Nuclear Power." Pp. 273-88 in Social Movements in an Organizational Society, edited by Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
95. Western, Bruce. 1997. Between Class and Market. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
96. White, James W. 1995. Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
97. Whittier, Nancy. 1995. Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women's Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
98. Yates, Michael D. 1998. Why Unions Matter. New York: Monthly Review Press.
99. Zald, Mayer, and Roberta Ash. 1966. "Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay, and Change." Social Forces 44:327-40.
100. Zald, Mayer, and Bert Useem. 1987. "Movement and Countermovement Interaction: Mobilization, Tactics, and State Involvement." Pp. 247-72 in Social Movements in an Organizational Society, edited by Mayer N. Zald and John D. McCarthy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
101. Zucker, Lynne G. 1991. "The Role of Institutionalism in Cultural Persistence." Pp. 83-107 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by Walter Powell and Paul DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.