Union democracy reexamined

Politics and Society

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 203-228

  Levi, Margaret ^a,b   Olson, David ^b   Agnone, Jon ^b   Kelly, Devin ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY   (Australia)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

Democratic theory; ILWU; Longshore unions; Participatory democracy; Union democracy

Indexed keywords

EID: 67650433170     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: 15527514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329209333925     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. A.J. Muste, "Factional Fights in Trade Unions: A View of Human Relations in the Labor Movement," in American Labor Dynamics in the Light of Post-War Developments, ed. J. B. S. Hardman (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928).
2. This quote is attributed to various people, including J. B. S. Hardman, in whose book Muste's piece appears; C. Wright Mills, The New Men of Power (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1948), makes a similar statement; indeed, he paraphrases Muste, crediting him in a footnote.
3. Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies (New York: The Free Press, 1975).
4. Aseem Prakash and Mathew Potoski, eds., Voluntary Programs: A Club Theory Perspective (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008).
5. Archon Fung, Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
6. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm)
7. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963).
8. Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff, What Do Unions Do? (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
9. Bruce E. Kaufman, "Historical Insights: The Early Institutionalists on Trade Unionism and Labor Policy," Journal of Labor Research XXVI, no. 1 (2005).
10. Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, On Democracy (New York: Penguin Books, 1983).
11. Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (New York: The Free Press, 1962 [1919]).
12. Seymour Martin Lipset, Martin Trow, and James Coleman, Union Democracy (Garden City, New Jersey: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1956).
13. Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America's Industrial Unions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
14. Kim Voss and Rachel Sherman, "Breaking the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Union Revitalization in the American Labor Movement," American Journal of Sociology 106, no. 2 (2000).
15. Samuel Estreicher, "Deregulating Union Democracy," Journal of Labor Research 21, no. 2 (2000).
16. Freeman and Medoff, What Do Unions Do? See page 213.
17. For other countries see, e.g., Lucio Baccaro, "'Aggregative' and 'Deliberative' Decision-making Procedures in Trade Unions: A Comparison of Two Southern Italian Factories," Politics & Society 29, no. 2 (2001);
18. Peter Gahan, '"Voice within Voice': Member Responses to Dissatisfaction with Their Union," in Work and Employment Rights Research Centre (Melbourne: Monash University, 2008).
19. Baccaro, "'Aggregative' and 'Deliberative' Decision-making Procedures in Trade Unions: A Comparison of Two Southern Italian Factories";
20. L. Baccaro, K. Hamann, and L. Turner, "The Politics of Labour Movement Revitalization: The Need for a Revitalized Perspective," European Journal of Industrial Relations 9, no. 1 (2003);
21. Edmund Heery and John Kelly, "Professional, Participative, and Managerial Unionism: An Interpretation of Change in Trade Unions," Work, Employment & Society 8, no. 1 (1994).
22. Lipset, Trow, and Coleman, Union Democracy.
23. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
24. J. David Edelstein and Malcolm Warner, Comparative Union Democracy: Organisation and Opposition in British and American Unions (New York: Wiley, 1976);
25. Estreicher, "Deregulating Union Democracy"; Will Herberg, "Bureaucracy and Democracy in Labor Unions," Antioch Review 3 (Fall, 1943);
26. Joel Seidman, "Democracy in Labor Unions," Journal of Political Economy 61 (1953).
27. Lipset, Trow, and Coleman, Union Democracy.
28. Edelstein and Warner, Comparative Union Democracy: Organisation and Opposition in British and American Unions.
29. Kay Stratton, "Union Democracy in the International Typographical Union: Thirty Years Later," Journal of Labor Research 10 (1989).
30. Also see Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, "Insurgency, Radicalism, and Democracy in America's Industrial Unions," Social Forces 75, no. 1 (1996).
31. Paul Jarley, Jack Fiorito, and John T. Delaney, "National Union Governance: An Empirically-Grounded Systems Approach," Journal of Labor Research 21, no. 2 (2000);
32. Huw Morris and Patricia Frosh, "Measuring Trade Union Democracy: The Case of the U.K. Civil and Public Services Association," British Journal of Industrial Democracy 38, no. 1 (March, 2000).
33. Gary Chaison and P. Andiappan, "An Analysis of the Barriers to Women Becoming Local Union Officers," Journal of Labor Research 10, no. 2 (1989).
34. Peter Bachrach and Aryeh Botwinick, Power and Empowerment: A Radical Theory of Participatory Democracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992);
35. Cohen and Rogers, On Democracy;
36. Fung, Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy;
37. Diana Carole Mutz, Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
38. Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989):
39. See, esp., chap. 8.
40. Freeman and Medoff, What Do Unions Do?
41. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, "Insurgency, Radicalism, and Democracy in America's Industrial Unions";
42. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America's Industrial Unions;
43. George Strauss, "Union Democracy," in State of the Union, ed. George Strauss, David Gallagher, and Jack Fiorito (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991).
44. Howard Kimeldorf, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
45. Lipset, Trow, and Coleman, Union Democracy.
46. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and Americas Industrial Unions.
47. Also, see the discussion of trade unions in Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics.
48. See, e.g., Margaret Levi and Gillian Murphy, "Coalitions of Contention: The Case of the WTO Protests in Seattle," Political Studies 54 (2006).
49. See Victoria Johnson, "The Cultural Foundation of Resources, the Resource Foundation of Political Cultures: An Explanation for the Outcomes of Two General Strikes," Politics & Society 28, no. 3 (2000);
50. Victoria L. Johnson, How Many Machine Guns Does It Take to Cook One Meal? The Seattle and San Francisco General Strikes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008);
51. Kimeldorf, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront;
52. David Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
53. Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront.
54. Off-duty printers often congregated at union headquarters and lively debates within the chapel (or shop) politicized workers. See Lipset, Trow, and Coleman, Union Democracy.
55. Although "An injury to one is an injury to all" is the slogan of the ILWU, it has been widely used among organized labor. The slogan originated with the Wobblies (International Workers of the World) but was appropriated by the ILWU and is now used by them. Beyond being widely utilized by organized labor, more direct connections exist between the ILWU the IWW: the Wobblies had a strong presence along the West Coast waterfront, and longtime leader Harry Bridges was a former member.
56. Tom Sheridan, "Australian Wharfies 1943-1967: Casual Attitudes, Militant Leadership and Workplace Change," Journal of Industrial Relations 36, no. 2 (1994).
57. The new ILWU constitution was drawn from the ILA's existing Pacific Coast District constitution, which Bridges and others crafted following the 1934 strike.
58. In 1953 these commitments were codified in the union's "Ten Guiding Principles." http://www.ilwu.org/about/principles/ten-principles.cfm (accessed November 22, 2006).
59. In "On the Beam," his column in The Dispatcher, Bridges regularly discussed issues of workplace radicalism, union democracy, and racial equality.
60. William Finlay, Work on the Waterfront: Worker Power and Technological Change in a West Coast Port (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).
61. Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront.
62. Even though authorization was granted, the rank and file would have voted on the issue prior to striking. Personal communication (December 1, 2006) with former Coast Committeeman and member of the 2002 contract bargaining team, Joe Wenzl.
63. Three recent examples are former International presidents David Arian and Brian McWilliams, who were defeated for re-election in 1994 and 2000, and former Coast Committeeman Joe Wenzl, who returned from the international office in San Francisco to the Seattle docks in 2006.
64. The data presented do not take into account membership subtraction of non-voting locals. Thus, turnout figures will be slightly higher than reported here. For updated data, see project website at http://depts.washington.edu/ilwu/ .
65. We determined total membership figures from per-capita payments to the International and from convention voting-strength records, while voting participation figures are found in validated election outcomes as reported in the union newspaper, The Dispatcher. Following the conventions of the ILWU employers association, the Pacific Maritime Association, we consider the Longshore division to include the clerks, foremen and watchmen locals as well as the Longshore locals.
66. Of Bridges' nineteen presidential elections, he was only contested in 1941 and 1949. Bridges decisively won both.
67. IBT election data were compiled by Teamsters for a Democratic Union from IBT Election Officer reports. This information was secured by a request. We thank Barry Eidlin for his help.
68. See Kate Bronfenbrenner, "The Role of Union Strategies in NLRB Certification Elections," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 50, no. 2 (1997);
69. Bronfenbrenner et al., eds., Organizing to Win (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998);
70. Richard B. Freeman, "Contract and Expansion: The Divergence of Public Sector and Private Sector Unionism in the United States," The Journal of Economic Perspectives 2, no. 2 (1988);
71. Cheryl L. Maranto and Jack Fiorito, "The Effect of Union Characteristics on the Outcome of NLRB Certification Elections," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 40, no. 2 (1987);
72. and Jarley, Fiorito, and Delaney, "National Union Governance: An Empirically-Grounded Systems Approach" for good examples of this work.
73. Thomas I. Chacko, "Member Participation in Union Activities: Perceptions of Union Priorities, Performance and Satisfaction," Journal of Labor Research 6, no. 4 (1985);
74. Michelle and Lamont Stallworth Hoyman, "Participation in Local Unions: A Comparison of Blacks and Whites," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 40, no. 5 (1987);
75. Gregory E. Husczo, "Attitudinal and Behavioral Variables Related to Participation in Union Activities," Journal of Labor Research 4, no. 3 (1983).
76. Lipset, Trow, and Coleman, Union Democracy.
77. Averages provided by the authors, not the original citation.
78. Judith Stepan-Norris, "The Making of Union Democracy," Social Forces 76, no. 2 (1997).
79. At its peak, Local 600 was among the largest units in the UAW and would have been the seventh largest independent union in the country. Ibid., 503.
80. This takes us back to an older debate about the nature of democratic decisionmaking. See Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, "Two Faces of Power," American Political Science Review 56, no. 4 (1962). Both Levi and Olson were once immersed in this debate. They sided with Bachrach and Baratz then-and still do.
81. The full set of issues will eventually be available on our website.
82. This section draws heavily on a paper prepared by Nowell Bamberger.
83. The convention minutes suggest he had been considering the idea and developing a philosophy since as early as 1963. ILWU, Proceedings of the 19th Biennial Convention (San Francisco: 1971).
84. See speeches by delegates Ruth and Perisho in ILWU, Proceedings of the 21st Biennial Convention (San Francisco: 1975): 55-59, 62-69.
85. Charles P. Larrowe, Harry Bridges: The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S. (New York: Lawrence Hill and Co., 1972), argues that the real motivation was to prevent Goldblatt, who was in the warehouse division, from succeeding him.
86. Also see Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront.
87. Margaret Levi, Consent, Dissent and Patriotism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
88. Margaret Levi, "Inducing Preferences within Organizations," in Preferences and Situations: Points oflntersection between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism, ed. Ira Katznelson and Barry R. Weingast (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005).
89. However, a compelling body of ethnographic work suggests that union militancy, solidarity, and class consciousness are alive and well in the post-M&M ILWU locals; Finlay, Work on the Waterfront (1988);
90. Wellman, The Union Makes Us Strong: Radical Unionism on the San Francisco Waterfront;
91. William DiFazio, Longshoremen, Community and Resistance on the Brooklyn Waterfront (South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1985) finds similar results within ILA locals in Brooklyn, despite the ILA International being decidedly less radical and democratic than the ILWU.
92. This is a process we are currently studying in a project, "Provoking Preferences by Changing Beliefs," National Science Foundation SES-0717454.
93. Strauss, "Union Democracy," 5-7.
94. Baccaro, "'Aggregative' and 'Deliberative' Decision-making Procedures in Trade Unions: A Comparison of Two Southern Italian Factories."
95. Barry Eidlin, '"Upon This (Foundering) Rock': Minneapolis Teamsters and the Transformation of U.S. Business Unionism, 1934-1941," forthcoming in Labor History (2009).
96. Voss and Sherman, "Breaking the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Union Revitalization in the American Labor Movement."
97. Of course, the extent to which these funds actually translate into successful organizing drives remains an open question.