Kim Voss

Breaking the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Union Revitalization in the American Labor Movement1

This article addresses the question of how social movement organizations are able to break out of bureaucratic conservatism. In‐depth interviews with union organizers and other data are used to identify the sources of radical transformation in labor organizations by comparing local unions that have substantially altered their goals and tactics with those that have changed little. This analysis highlights three factors: the occurrence of a political crisis in the local leading to new leadership, the presence of leaders with activist experience outside the labor movement who interpret the decline of labor’s power as a mandate to change, and the influence of the international union in favor of innovation. The article concludes by drawing out the theoretical implications of the finding that bureaucratic conservatism can sometimes be overcome in mature social movements.

Democratic dilemmas: union democracy and union renewal

This article examines the academic debate over union democracy and compares it with recent research on union renewal in the United States. The juxtaposition reveals that revitalization in US unions has not happened in the ways assumed in the literature on union democracy. Rather than being largely a bottom-up process, revitalization has contained a strong element of centralism and coordination. I suggest that union democracy has too often been framed in singular terms, as only involving the curbing of the illegitimate accumulation of power by union leaders. Yet a key problem faced by unions today — how they might best aggregate the interests of diverse workers and represent new constituencies — is also fundamentally a democratic concern, one that can be addressed only by broadening our understanding of union democracy. Le présent article examine le débat académique sur la démocratie syndicale et le compare avec des études récentes sur le renouveau syndical aux États-Unis. Il en ressort que la redynamisation des syndicats américains ne s’est pas déroulée de la façon prévue par la littérature traitant de la démocratie syndicale. Plutôt que d’être un processus essentiellement ascendant, la redynamisation a comporté un puissant élément de centralisme et de coordination. L’auteur pense que la démocratie syndicale a trop souvent été formulée en des termes singuliers et envisagée uniquement comme un moyen de restreindre l’accumulation illégitime de pouvoirs par les dirigeants syndicaux. Pourtant, un problème majeur auquel les syndicats sont aujourd’hui confrontés, à savoir comment mieux rassembler les intérêts des différents travailleurs et représenter les nouveaux groupes d’appui, constitue fondamentalement une préoccupation démocratique, qui ne peut être abordée que par l’approfondissement de notre compréhension de la démocratie syndicale. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der wissenschaftlichen Debatte über Gewerkschaftsdemokratie und vergleicht sie mit jüngsten Forschungsarbeiten zur Erneuerung der Gewerkschaften in den Vereinigten Staaten. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass die Wiederbelebung der US-amerikanischen Gewerkschaften nicht so verlaufen ist, wie in der Fachliteratur über Gewerkschaftsdemokratie angenommen wird. Tatsächlich beruht diese Wiederbelebung weniger auf einem Bottom-up-Prozess, sondern verdankt sich zu großen Teilen zentralistischen Ansätzen und einer guten Koordinierung. In diesem Beitrag wird die Ansicht vertreten, dass der Begriff der Gewerkschaftsdemokratie insofern häufig zu eng gefasst wird, als es dabei nur um die Eindämmung illegitimer Machtanhäufung von Gewerkschaftsführern geht. Eines der großen Probleme, das sich für die Gewerkschaften heute stellt, nämlich wie sie die Interessen verschiedener Arbeitskräfte am besten berücksichtigen und neue Zielgruppen vertreten können, ist ebenfalls grundsätzlich mit der Frage der Demokratie verbunden und kann nur bewältigt werden, wenn wir unser Verständnis der Gewerkschaftsdemokratie erweitern.

The local in the global: rethinking social movements in the new millennium

In this article we discuss the failure of social movement theories to adequately understand and theorize locally based, grassroots social movements like the landless workers movement in Brazil, ‘livability movements’ in third-world cities, and living wage movements in the USA. Movements such as these come to the attention of most social movement analysts only when the activists who participate in them come together in the streets of Seattle or international forums like the World Social Forum. To date, it is the transnational character of these protests that have excited the most attention. Building on scholarship that looks at the link between participatory democracy and social movements, this article takes a different tack. We show how some social movements have shifted their repertoire of practices from large mass events aimed at making demands on the national state to local-level capacity building. It is the local struggles, especially the ways in which they have created and used institutions in civil society through extending and deepening democracy, that may be the most significant aspect of recent social movements, both for our theories and for our societies. Yet these aspects have received less attention, we believe, because they are less well understood by dominant social movement theories, which tend to focus on high-profile protest events. We look at the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement and the Justice for Janitors Campaign in Los Angeles to illustrate the important terrain of civil society as well as the role of community organizing.

The political economy of inequality in the "age of extremes"

Massey spresidential address correctly points to growing economic inequality as one of the pressing issues of our day, but his analysis gives short shrift to the political institutions that underlie the economic trends. We supplement his analysis with a review of some of those institutions. In particular we point out how politics mediates between computerized production and inequality, between the segregation of education and inequality, and (drawing directly from American Apartheid) between housing markets and residential segregation.

Made in the USA, Imported into Britain: The Organizing Model and the Limits of Transferability

The organising model of trade unionism, developed in the United States since the early 1990s, has been subject to a good deal of scrutiny. Accounts stemming from the AFL-CIO, or those close to it, are, unsurprisingly, enthusiastic and largely uncritical (Mort, 1998). On the left of American social thought, there are critics who contend that the changes wrought by the new leadership of the Federation are of little significance and charges that older forms of business unionism and class collaboration still dominate practice (Moody, 1999; Slaughter, 1999). Between these poles are a number of writers who are supportive, but have criticisms and concerns about aspects of the programme being developed by the AFL-CIO and amongst unions more generally. These issues range from union attitudes towards the Democrats (Brecher & Costello, 1999), through the lack of innovative tactics adopted to gain certification (Bronfenbrenner, 1997), to the absence of internal democracy (Benson, 1999). Questions have also been raised about the very adequacy of the organising model to address the problems facing the working class of America as a whole (Eisencher, 1999a).

Enduring Legacy? Charles Tilly and Durable Inequality

This article assesses Charles Tilly’s Durable Inequality and traces its influence. In writing Durable Inequality, Tilly sought to shift the research agenda of stratification scholars. But the book’s initial impact was disappointing. In recent years, however, its influence has grown, suggesting a more enduring legacy.

New Unity for Labor

From the “Editor’s Introduction”: Within today’s AFL-CIO, a different set of frustrations with the bureaucratic structure and leadership is simmering. The relative lack of new organizing and the continuous toll of jurisdictional rivalries have produced a call for radical restructuring, or “New Unity Partnership” (NUP). As articulated by the leaders of some of the most powerful and dynamic of federation affiliates, including the Service Employees International Union’s president Andrew L. Stern, the promise (or threat, depending on one’s point of view) of the NUP deserves full scrutiny. To that end, we are pleased to present a forum organized by Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss of the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment, focused on the core concepts of the NUP proposal. The edited discussion features four labor policy experts: Stephen Lerner, director of the SEIU’s Building Services Division and a leading NUP draftsman; Kate Bronfenbrenner of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Dan Clawson, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Jane Slaughter, of Labor Notes.

Labor History symposium: Gay W. Seidman, Beyond the Boycott

In Beyond the Boycott, eminent labor sociologist Gay Seidman takes a highly creative and persuasive approach to the urgent question of how labor rights can be established and upheld in an increasingly integrated world economy. Specifically, she analyzes three diverse campaigns – in India, South Africa, and Guatemala – in which activists effectively used threats of consumer boycotts to force companies to accept labor codes of conduct and independent workplace monitoring. Seidman assesses the factors that led to success as well as the serious limitations of this non-governmental approach. She concludes that transnational consumer boycotts can improve the bargaining power of workers worldwide, but they can never replace the need to pressure national governments or local labor organizing. With essays from an impressive quartet of labor scholars, this symposium will be of interest to all readers interested in social justice and labor rights.

Disposition Is Not Action: The Rise and Demise of the Knights of Labor

Disposition is Not Action; The Rise and Demise of the Knights of Labor Kim Voss University of California, Berkeley November 1988 This work is part of a larger study of the American working class and the Knights of Labor. Comments and criticisms are most welcome. I would like to thank the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California for intellectual and financial support, and the scholars at the Center for Studies of Social Change at the New School for Social Research for providing many helpful suggestions as well as a wonderful place to spend a semesters leave.

Same as It Ever Was? New Labor, the CIO Organizing Model, and the Future of American Unions

Jane McAlevey makes a significant contribution in her critique of labor’s growing use of the corporate campaign to stem union decline. But in placing the blame for the strategy’s adoption on the excessive influence of Saul Alinsky’s organizing model, she misses a much more fundamental cause: the changed nature of capital.