Powerful Events? Comparing San Francisco Unions in the Aftermath of the 1934 General Strike

• In Event: 397 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Labor Movements and Protest

Abstract

In this paper on the 1934 San Francisco general strike, I demonstrate empirically the transformative impact of an event, an approach that William Sewell (1996) calls “eventful sociology.” His perspective entails viewing events not as unique occurrences and thus outside the scope of (structuralist) sociology, but rather as the sites of both personal and structural transformation. Though Sewell’s approach encouraged, and indeed inspired, subsequent work that highlighted the importance of events, it has generated far more theorizing than empirical analysis. By examining controlled comparisons of subsequent levels of solidarity exhibited by San Francisco unions that participated in the general strike with those that did not, I add an analysis of systematic empirical data to the body of work intended to elucidate this crucial topic.

Author

• Leslie A. Bunnage, Seton Hall University