What Makes Unions Strong? An Organizational Perspective on Examining Union Power

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. The Politics of Work

Abstract

Janitors have made unprecedented gains since their first strike in L.A, 1990. Even in the midst of these challenging circumstances, the janitors’ union made a significant breakthrough. This paper is to find out what organizational characteristics of unions make this movement strong. Based on Emerson’s network theory(1962), I suggest two axes: dependence and cohesion. First, dependence indicates how much unions control the supply of workers and make an employer dependent on them. If a union has high dependence, a union will have higher bargaining power on the negotiation table. Second, cohesion indicates how much workers interact with others in the group. If a union is highly cohesive, it will make more workers participate in the strike. In order to examine these hypotheses, I bring four case studies to examine them. This study reveals why some unions are strong with an organizational perspective which includes employers, unions and workers.

Author

• Lanu Kim, University of Washington