Democracy in Unions
Barbash, Jack
BOOKS Democracy in Unions by JACK BARBASH The main focus of this collection is the government of a national union. The series has its origins in the concern for the quality of democracy in the...
...A second defect is the failure of the works to follow a fundamentally common or core plan...
...Heavy industry is represented by the unions in steel, autos, chemicals, and petroleum...
...Zander's great contribution to the union does not need this gloss...
...The unions which are on the other side, or are likely to be on the other side of the democratic spectrum, are the Carpenters and the Teamsters— but neither organization is a despotism...
...the building trades in the Carpenters' Union...
...Democracy in the International Association of Machinists, by Mark Perlman...
...Representativeness hinges on the variety of industrial environments in which each union functions and, in turn, the variations on the industrial environment theme played by diverse leadership styles, membership composition, and the employers' approach to industrial relations...
...The Government of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, by Melvin Rothbaum...
...The studies were undertaken in the climate generated by the McClellan Committee's investigation which, although primarily concerned with the honesty of unions, raised some significant questions about democraThe Retail Clerks, by Michael Harrington...
...On the vigorously democratic side are the Trainmen, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME...
...the Zander opposition in the union gets less than the objectivity it deserves...
...nor, conversely, is any union so devoid of democracy that it is an absolute despotism...
...Labor's Paradox: the American federation of state, county, and municipal employees afl-cio, by Leo Kramer...
...Mark Perlman's book on the Machinists spends too much space in arguing with critics of union democracy...
...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters: its government and structure, by Sam Romer...
...160 pp...
...200 pp...
...Edited by Walter Galenson...
...The most valuable feature of each of these books is the detail of the problems that are unique to each union...
...Some of the books are better than others...
...To remedy the paucity of facts, a committee under Clark Kerr, president of the University of California, commissioned competent scholars to investigate the quality of democratic government in nine representative unions...
...In general, the works are much too brief to provide the necessary detail of union government...
...The Government of the Steel Workers' Union, by Lloyd Ulman...
...Here again it is the essential decentralized character of the economic environment in which these unions operate that appears to be the most significant deterrent against despotic rule...
...The Structure and Government of the Carpenters' Union, by Morris A. Horowitz...
...Kramer is the assistant to Arnold Zander, president of the AFSCME, and he tries mightily to stand aside from the battle, but this is impossible...
...But the scope of national union authority is not "unduly wide" in terms of what it takes to make economic gains in the kind of economic environment which the steel industry represents...
...99 pp...
...The Retail Clerks have a great potential for undemocratic rule by a powerful president, but it is a potential which thus far has not been realized in fact, even though there is an absence of contending centers of power...
...The leadership factor ranges from the programmatic orientation of a Walter Reuther all the way over to the dynasties of James Hoffa in the Teamsters and Bill Hutcheson in the Carpenters...
...Seidman's Trainmen inquiry is interesting because the railroad unions, except in moments of crisis, are almost the forgotten labor movement—and I found all of the detail endlessly fascinating because of this...
...We have the beginnings of what hopefully can become an authentic political science of trade unionism...
...Some unions, according to the authors, are more democratic than others...
...The series has its origins in the concern for the quality of democracy in the labor movement by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, an offshoot of the Fund for the Republic...
...John Wiley and Sons...
...Michael Harrington's report on the Retail Clerks skillfully demonstrates the role of a union president with a purpose—the purpose of rehabilitating a creaking administrative mechanism into an effective organizing instrument...
...The president of the Retail Clerks has "enormous power" but, according to Michael Harrington, it has not been abused...
...cy in unions...
...Moreover—although nobody says so in summary form—there are now authoritative grounds for asserting that, with reservations, the government of the national union in general rates a respectable passing grade on its democratic performance...
...The necessary brevity of this review does not understandably do the books under consideration the justice they deserve...
...There is consequently a distinct unevenness in the detail with which the facts of union government are presented...
...Leo Kramer's book, Labor's Paradox: The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees AFL-CIO, is a hard book to make out...
...Joel Seidman's Trainmen study and Sam Romer's Teamster study are the best because they report the facts, highlight the significant characteristics, and draw conclusions which can be related to the facts...
...Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions...
...The UAW is also on the democratic side of the spectrum but, according to Jack Stieber, the "absence of continual and institutionalized opposition" is the one possible flaw...
...No union is a pure democracy...
...transportation in the quite different styles of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Teamsters...
...and the public employe sector is also represented in the latter...
...the white collar worker in the Retail Clerks and, to a degree, in the State and County Employees...
...In general, the series shares with almost all books on trade unions an inability to interweave the quality of leadership in the union's governmental processes...
...but, in a sense, the sponsors themselves are partly responsible by issuing the books all at one time...
...185 pp...
...Also on the democratic side, despite qualifications, is the International Association of Machinists...
...The important thing about this collection is that for the first time we now have remedied a grievous lack in our understanding of American trade unionism: the government of the national union...
...Series of Studies of Comparative Union Governments...
...Lloyd Ulman finds the Steelworkers a "civilized variant of monolithic government" with the great power in the national office—particularly the president—the chief criticism from the standpoint of democracy...
...Melvin Rothbaum's book, The Government of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, is interesting because of its study of the evolution of governmental forms, notably the "lay" convention and executive boards...
...207 pp...
...Stieber's report on the UAW is important because of its discerning treatment of the role of the staff and the politics of Negro representation...
...Governing the UAW, by Jack Stie-ber...
...113 pp...
...The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen: the internal political life of a national union, by Joel Seidman...
...174 pp...
...2.95 each...
...Ul-man's report on the Steelworkers' union is more of a commentary than a detailed, factual account of Steel-worker government, although the commentary is probing and suggestive in many places...
...The most conspicuous defect in the works, taken as a whole, is the absence of a consistent standpoint or theory of union democracy as a common perspective from which the national unions could be compared with each other...
...168 pp...
...And even though there is no Webb's Industrial Democracy among them, the authors of these books have executed their investigations competently and responsibly...
...188 pp...
...The natural thing, therefore, is to look at the verdicts which the investigators have passed on the democratic performance of the unions under investigation here...
Vol. 27 • July 1963 • No. 7
