Contest, social valuation and change in American labor-union organizing, 1961-2004

Abstract

In this thesis I explore the connections between changes to the formal procedures by which American labor unions enroll new members and the subsequent meanings and purposes that potential members and third parties attribute to unions. In the first essay I use a new, multi-stage model of union organizing to demonstrate that previous research has underestimated the difficulties that unions face in enrolling new members, particularly when charges of employer illegality are involved. In the second essay I theorize that this alteration of the union-formation process, by focusing members' attention on the necessary first step of becoming organized rather than on contract negotiations, has contributed to the erosion of the unions' long-established and once robust system of exclusive jurisdictions. I argue that union voters' shift toward diversified unions is an example of how categories are used in the process of social valuation and how changes in valuation can help organizational sociologists understand why category systems can suddenly change. In the third essay (co-authored with Thomas A. Kochan and Lucio Baccaro) I discuss other historical episodes where changes to the laws governing union organizing have been associated with changes in the definition of a legitimate union member and draw several implications for the prospects that current labor-law reform being debated in Congress will have a large effect on union membership.