Doctoral Dissertation Research: Innovation, Revitalization and Organizational Change in the American Labor Movement

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This dissertation research examines revitalization in American labor unions. After decades of quiescence, more and more unions are abandoning an older model of "business" unionism for one that emphasizes strategic creativity, worker mobilization, community coalition, and the organization of workers outside the exclusionary bounds of the post-war labor movement: low-wage service workers, women, people of color, and immigrants. In order to explain these changes in the labor movement, the project compares two national unions that have undergone significant organizational reform with two that have not. The former includes Service Employees International Union and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union and the latter, the more traditional United Food and Commercial Workers Union and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Data will be collected from in-depth interviews with union staff and elected union officials who were present during key organizational transitions in the 1980s and 1990s. Change may occur in organizations when leaders are elected is a political process where reformers with new ideas gain the confidence of rank-and-file members and key leaders by offering compelling interpretations of problems and their solutions and by substantiating their new vision through instances of concrete success. It is hypothesized that in the 1980s and 1990s this was more likely to occur in national unions that were structured to facilitate local innovations. Broader Impact. Research on the pathways and obstacles to reform within the American labor movement will help us to better understand the process of change in democratic organizations.