The Printers and the "Iron Law"

...It is my impression that much of this evidence could be duplicated in other crafts and occupations without adducing a special relationship to union democracy, or the absence of it...

...Whatever the difficulties elsewhere, such are the facts in the ITU...

...This, however, leads us back to those qualities of a generic democracy which can train leaders...

...it is clearly a responsibility of union leadership to underscore this rare possession, the more so as better than half the members today are "new," having entered the union within the last ten years or so...

...So many intangibles of history and craft personality are involved that guesses, suppositions, impressions (the authors acknowledge this) must be, employed where the utility of sociological techniques ends...

...so far, there is every reason to believe that it can...

...Not merely in the large historical or sociological sense which so often serves to conceal intrinsic bureaucratization, but in the day to day realities of union life and operation...

...Yet what remains most significant is that while the authority of the international office has grown over the years, it has not undermined the democratic structure of the union...

...Consider how difficult it is for the average person, no matter how well informed, to make a simple speech before a small audience...

...the sec and something more than the son of a past president...

...In the ITU, with active and democratic union life beginning on the chapel (shop) level, and accumulating in party meetings, general membership meetings, derivative clubs and so forth, the occasion is provided to develop the experiences of leadership, which do indeed come down to such mundane skills as chairing a meeting, presenting a motion, or making a speech (not always brief...

...Even literacy, which is obviously a craft distinction, and which would seem to bear intimately on rank and file sensitivity to union issues, cannot be said to figure prominently in the ITU situation...

...UNION DEMOCRACY, by Seymour Martin Lipset, Martin Trow and James Coleman...

...IT IS NOT a topic which lends itself easily to sociological examination...

...In a concluding section, the authors of Union Democracy (subtitled "The Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union") observe, "For men of good will, there is much to learn in the history, institutions and arguments of American printers...

...Their study, write the authors, has not " 'disproved' Michels' theory...

...Democracy is, so to speak, built in...

...And, of course, democracy is under daily test and strain in the ITU as new developments in machinery and organization press hard on the craft...

...Very likely, Reuther or Dubinsky would prefer to staff the union, outside of legal and clerical help, with men drawn from the shops...

...Lipset, Trow and Coleman have not attempted to refute Michels...

...It obviously hasn't influenced other voluntary, and literate, associations...

...There are indeed peculiarities in the situation of the printers...

...One of the problems facing any union, above all a union with a wellintentioned leadership, is how to develop leaders within the ranks...

...Here, in this larger framework which is the essential concern of the book, lies its special value to "men of good will...

...The salaries it pays its officers are, by the standards of other unions, low...

...on the contrary, they write as social scientists who remain in Michels' debt, convinced of the basic soundness of his views...

...there have been other cases, with books equally interest...

...It has rather, they think, confirmed it to the extent of "demonstrating that where an effective and organized opposition does exist, it does so only because the incumbent administration does not hold a monopoly over the resources of politics...

...It is also one of the finest studies of the labor movement ever written...

...And in so far as Union Democracy treats this scantily, it is my one serious complaint in regard to factual presentation...

...it is also a price we should have learned to pay gladly to avoid the terrors of bureaucratic efficiency...

...In its own way I think it a tribute to the union that its leaders have welcomed the book as the tremendous compliment that it is...

...Accordingly, it is possible to quarrel with degrees of emphasis or occasional statements, to oppose one's own impression to the authors', without seriously invalidating the text: the work is so thorough as to make criticism incidental...

...which is what happens...

...I refer particularly to the requirement that every official of the union must be an active, working member of the trade (or a pensioner...

...ing, where the union leadership has preferred its flattery undiluted...

...Since Robert Michels first postulated his "Iron Law of Oligarchy" in the early years of this century the world has accumulated evidence to sustain it more rapidly than critics could find arguments to dispute it...

...Unique and deviant it may be, yet the experience of the ITU does challenge the "Iron Law of Oligarchy...

...Admittedly this is no easy matter in the bigger unions where staff requirements are perhaps larger than available skill in the ranks...

...Wage differentials between leaders and rank and file are not so extreme as to demand a catastrophic change in manner of living...

...as sociologists they have done their work with uncommon skill, and in doing it have ranged far into relevant history and political theory...

...Thus, I would question whether certain aspects of the occupational community-for example, frequent association in off-work hours, and the motives for such association...

...Whether by referendum, convention, or general membership meeting (and sometimes for ill as well as for good) its decisions are intimately affected by rank and file opinion...

...If the method has its own traps and limitations, it is a complaint which cannot properly be lodged against the authors...

...The leadership is drawn from the ranks, and only from the ranks...

...A McDonald, a Hutcheson could not rise to leadership were ITU rules to prevail in their unions...

...What they have tried to do is to sort out and investigate those factors which may be said to be relevant...

...It seems to me particularly cogent that such evils as cliquism and secrecy, which arose in the union's struggle to preserve itself, eventuated not in bureaucratization but ultimately served to legitimate the party system...

...What they have done is to explore an exception to the "law...

...Union Democracy is most revealing in the historical sections dealing with the structure of the union and the development of the party system...

...Nor do they suggest that the ITU is a stencil which other institutions can duplicate...

...the first would have had to be a steelworker in a mill...

...Financial accounting to the membership, of the most detailed kind, is structured into the union...

...UPSET and his co-authors do not pretend that they have pin-pointed beyond quibble the whys of democracy in the ITU...

...The ITU is uniquely democratic (or deviant) among unions: Its officers, from lowest to highest, are chosen by referendum vote in the shop...

...are as significant as the attention given them in this book...

...the variety of fraternal, athletic and social clubs which have a quasi-official relation to the union...

...Adequate consideration is, however, given a concomitant "peculiarity": namely, the defeated union leader, with rare (and scorned) exceptions, goes back to the shop...

...Another is the late development of a strong national center...

...And there is always the chance of re-election next time around...

...And it is protected by what is the heart of the entire democratic edifice: a multi-party (most commonly, a two-party) system which operates the year 'round and on virtually every level of union activity...

...What remains most important in reading how and why it was done, is that it was done in the ITU...

...They chose the International Typographical Union (ITU) because almost alone among established unions (one might easily add, almost alone among voluntary associations of any kind or size) the ITU is genuinely democratic...

...To which one could add that the union is more democratic today than fifty years ago despite the discouragement of sheer "readingness" among printers under the impact of mass production pressures, technological changes-and, of course, our TVized culture...

...Each election, whether international or local, is a fierce contestif not always of ideology then of personality-and the results are often not certain until the last ballot is counted...

...True, democracy is sometimes cost ly and cumbersome with its referendums and long discussions...

...The very age of the union (it is the oldest in the country), with the habits of tradition and pride it implies, is such a "peculiarity...

...Whether it can survive the mechanical (photo-electric) revolution, which the union has sought to master, not to oppose, remains to be seen...

...others support it...

...Certainly a consciously directed educational campaign is indicated...

...Strong and weak locals oppose the international administration...

...income status, etc...

...Democracy has its painful aspects too...

...Imagine Dave Beck trying to maintain his style on a truck driver's wage...

...There are indeed party members ("Progressives" or "Independents") in the ITU who would gladly see opposition disappear...

...but that too, like the suspicion of "politics," is part of the democratic process...

...Such "men of good will" would do well to start with this book, which is surely one of the most important of recent times...

...Collateral with this "built-in" democracy, making it practical in any case, are constitutional regulations which, I believe, are not adequately stressed in Union Democracy...

...How and why this party system developed, and maintained itself to the point where only a cataclysm in the union could alter it, is the core of the study...

...Quite the contrary...

...The very fact of a political life perpetuates the political system as members remain critical and divided on issues, and experienced in dealing with them...

...Freedom of speech is taken for granted, and utilized...