Comparative Union Democracy: Organisation and Opposition in British and American UnionsTransaction Publishers - 388 pages A major empirical study of thirty-one British and fifty-one American national trade unions provides the background to this presentation of a new, organizationally oriented theory of union democracy. Supported by in-depth studies of the political process in the British Mineworkers' Union and the Engineers' Union, the book develops and illustrates a general theory of how, in a country with democratic norms, formal organization itself can constrain a tendency toward oligarchy by stimulating union competition among full-time officers attempting to rise in the union hierarchy. The broad theoretical framework also has implications for democracy in other types of large organizations and should be indispensable for students seeking to understand the political life of such organizations and their potential for democracy. "Comparative Union Democracy is a stimulating work of original scholarship which all involved or interested in union affairs, all those in any way concerned about the prospects for industrial democracy, should read." -Walter Kendall, Institute of Manpower Studies, University of Sussex. "Comparative Union Democracy is easily the best work on the subject that has appeared in years. It should be required reading for all those interested in organizational government, participatory democracy, generally, as well as in the labor movement." -Seymour Martin Lipset "For anyone seeking a better understanding of the workings of trade unions, it is both seminal and revelatory, and hence is required reading." -Nigel Nicholson "Overall, the book is theoretically insightful, methodologically sound, and exceptionally well-written." -J. David Lewis, University of Notre Dame |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 28 | |
An Organisational Theory of Union Democracy | 54 |
OVERALL FINDINGS | 85 |
Overall BritishAmerican Differences in Organisation and Opposition | 87 |
Organisation and Opposition in the United States | 115 |
Organisation and Opposition in Britain | 150 |
Opposition Factions and Political Culture | 188 |
CaseStudy 2 Sustained Electoral Opposition in the British Engineering Union | 263 |
CaseStudy 3 TopLevel Defeats in Certain American Unions | 319 |
CONCLUSIONS | 337 |
The Future of Union Democracy | 339 |
Epilogue to the Revised Edition | 359 |
Bibliography | 369 |
List of Tables | 380 |
Index | 381 |
CASESTUDIES IN OPPOSITION | 207 |
CaseStudy 1 Sustained Electoral Opposition in the British Mineworkers Union | 209 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American unions appeals appointed Area associated autonomy branch Britain British sample British unions campaign candidates cent close elections closeness of elections closeness of periodic closeness of top competition conference constitutional convention delegates correlations cracy David Edelstein defeats democratic differences direction district effect electoral opposition electoral system Engineers executive council executive councillors factions Factor VIII factors favourable federal full-time national officers full-time officers geographic organisation greater number incumbent internal Labour Party leaders leadership Lipset majority membership Mineworkers national committee national executive committee national unions next-to-top officers next-to-top posts nomination number of levels number of next-to-top oligarchy periodic group periodic unions permanent-post unions political postal ballot predictors president rank-and-file referendum regional relationship representation rules runner-up percentage Scanlon second-ranking shop stewards South Wales stewards strike structure tion top and next-to-top top officer top post top vacancies trade union union democracy United variables voting system Workers
Popular passages
Page 72 - The countenance of the government may become more democratic, but the soul that animates it will be more oligarchic. The machine will be enlarged, but the fewer, and often the more secret, will be the springs by which its motions are directed.
Page 31 - Every party organization represents an oligarchical power grounded upon a democratic basis. We find everywhere electors and elected. Also we find everywhere that the power of the elected leaders over the electing masses is almost unlimited. The oligarchical structure of the building suffocates the basic democratic principle.
Page 31 - Reduced to its most concise expression, the fundamental sociological law of political parties (the term "political" being here used in its most comprehensive significance) may be formulated in the following terms: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy.
Page vii - ... never be personally conscious of the conditions of the manual laborers. And though it may be assumed that the community as a whole would not deliberately oppress any section of its members, experience of all administration on a large scale, whether public or private, indicates how difficult it must always be, in any complicated organisation, for an isolated individual sufferer to obtain redress against the malice, caprice, or simple heedlessness of his official superior. Even a whole class or...
Page 32 - At the head of most private organizations stands a small group of men most of whom have held high office in the organization's government for a long time, and whose tenure and control is rarely threatened by a serious organized internal opposition. In such organizations, regardless of whether the membership has a nominal right to control through regular elections or conventions, the real and often permanent power rests with the men who hold the highest positions
Page 58 - If, then, the general will is to be truly expressed, it is essential that there be no subsidiary groups within the State...
Page 345 - The central defect in British industrial relations is the disorder in factory and workshop relations and pay structures promoted by the conflict between the formal and the informal systems.
Page 56 - There is no trace of Utopianism in Marx, in the sense of inventing or imagining a "new" society. No, he studies, as a process of natural history, the birth of the new society from the old, the forms of transition from the latter to the former. He takes the actual experience of a mass proletarian movement and tries to draw practical lessons from it.
Page 56 - The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time.
References to this book
The Meaning of Militancy?: Postal Workers and Industrial Relations Gregor Gall No preview available - 2003 |