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

本文主要研究美国工会的振兴问题。经过几十年的沉寂，越来越多的工会正在放弃旧的“商业”工会主义模式，转而强调战略创造力、工人动员、社区联盟，以及在战后劳工运动的排他范围之外组织工人：低薪服务工人、妇女、有色人种和移民。为了解释劳工运动的这些变化，该项目比较了两个进行了重大组织改革的国家工会和两个没有进行重大组织改革的国家工会。前者包括服务业雇员国际工会和酒店雇员和餐馆雇员工会，后者是更传统的联合食品和商业工人工会和美国州、县和市雇员联合会。数据将通过对工会工作人员和民选工会官员的深入访谈收集，这些人在20世纪80年代和90年代的关键组织转型期间在场。变革可能发生在组织中，当领导人被选举时，这是一个政治过程，具有新想法的改革者通过提供对问题及其解决方案的令人信服的解释，并通过具体的成功实例来证实他们的新愿景，从而获得普通成员和关键领导人的信任。据推测，在20世纪80年代和90年代，这种情况更有可能发生在旨在促进地方创新的全国性工会中。更广泛的影响。研究美国劳工运动内部改革的路径和障碍，将有助于我们更好地理解民主组织的变革过程。

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.