Joel Seidman

The Union Organizer and His Tactics: A Case Study

Typically, the professional union organizer probes for dissatisfaction and seeks to transform individual unrest into a collective phenomenon. He has set of rules by which to operate but must emphasize that aspect of unionism that will be attractive to the workers he is trying to convince. To workers with little or no prior union experience the union is an abstraction, and their judgment may turn on their estimate of the personality of the organizer. The presence of a professional organizer is responsible in many cases for unionization rather than continuation under nonunion conditions.

A Typology of Rank-And-File Union Members

From interviews with samples of members in three local unions, seven types of rank-and-file members appear, ranging from the ideological to the unwilling. Many circumstances, including family background, experiences within the union, type of bargaining relationship, and friendship patterns, influence the workers view of unionism. The tendency for union leaders to be chosen from among one or the other of two types, comprising a very small proportion of the membership, results in differences in the orientation of leaders and members.

Leadership in a Local Union

The circumstances of joining a union become relatively unimportant where the unions method of operation, the status it achieves, or the pressure of events leads people to become active in its affairs. All the leaders of a union local identified themselves with the union and believed it had brought about substantial gains. Such identification indicates that the union has become a way of life, serving the needs of its members apart from, and in additon to, the reasons that initially brought it into existence. Convictions such as these leaders reported make it appear certain that the union is here to stay.

Political Consciousness in a Local Union

Aside from its obvious function as an inhave as yet not fully recognized the possibility strument of large-scale collective bargaining, and value of concerted action in other spheres. the industrial union represents a relatively An earlier version of this paper was delivnew and potentially powerful unit of social ered by one of the authors before the Society and political organization. for Applied Anthropology in June, I951. In this article, the authors examine the role Joel Seidman is Associate Professor of and influence of a typical industrial local in Social Science at the University of Chicago. a mid-Western city. They conclude that while Jack London and Bernard Karsh are research the local is effective in the area of collective associates in the Industrial Relations Center bargaining, both its leaders and membership at the same university.

Labor Policy of the Communist Party during World War II

It has been repeatedly asserted that the Communist Party of the United States seeks to capture organized labor for the purpose of using the unions to advance the policies of the Kremlin. It is one thing, however, to assert this proposition and another thing to establish its truth. This article provides the proof. (Authors abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

The Hawaii Public Employment Relations Act: A Critical Analysis

Analyzes the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Act on public employment collective bargaining in Hawaii. Structure of the Hawaii Public Employment Relations Board; Determination of bargaining units; Scope of bargaining. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Management Views the Local Union

IN UNION-management affairs public attention is typically centered upon strikes or other evidence of conflict, because of their dramatic nature. In those union-management relationships which have had a stormy career, the common prevailing assumption is that management is basically antiunion and would welcome its disappearance. Yet, even where a conflict situation persists over a long period of time, the local union leaders and members of the management hierarchy must somehow solve the various problems that confront them, and this experience may have a profound effect upon their attitudes and their relations. Thus the authors were interested in inquiring whether there can be a growing acceptance of the union within the policy-making and operating levels of a company despite an apparently continuing conflict or armed-truce relationship between the company and the union. Does the management of the individual firm which has frequently clashed with the union view the local with which it has a bargaining relationship as a valuable and constructive influence or as an alien factor that impinges upon managerial prerogatives and interferes with productive efficiency? Do they believe that the union has been responsible for changes in the plant, and which of such changes are thought beneficial and which detrimental from managements point of view? How did managerial personnel view the union when it was organized, and how have their attitudes been affected by their work with the union over a period of years? Now that they have had experience with unionism, would they prefer to operate under union or nonunion conditions? On all these points, are there significant differences to be found as one goes up or down the management hierarchy? In an effort to assess the degree of acceptance of the union in a conflict situation, the authors sought answers to these questions, among others, in a study of the managerial group in a large basic steel company, 14,000 of whose employees are organized into a local of the United Steelworkers of America (CIO) which has maintained bargaining rights since 1937.1

Efforts toward Merger 1935–1955

Provides a historical overview of the merger between two trade union centers in the U.S., the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Cooperation and conflict between AFL and CIO during World War II; Creation of the United Labor Policy Committee; Changes in leadership. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

CHAMBERLAIN, NEIL W., and JANE METZGER SCHILLING. The Impact of Strikes: Their Social and Economic Costs. Pp. viii. 257. New York: Harper. & Brothers, 1954.

BENNETT, M. K. The World’s Food: A Study of the Interrelations of World Populations, National Diets, and Food Potentials. Pp. vi, 282. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.

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4.00. Reviewing a thousand years of population growth, Bennett concludes: &dquo;I hope that I have shown convincingly that consumption levels had risen over a large fraction of the population, that calorie consumption per capita cannot have fallen, that, again over a large fraction of the population, diets had become more diversified in composition, that famine from natural causes had fallen from its status as