UNLQN DEMOCEZACY; A COMPARATIVE SWDY

Thesis far the Degree 0f M. A.
MICHMN STATE UNEVERSITY
ANNE MCMARGR
1957

 

   
   

L I B RA R Y
Michigan $9”
Universlt)’

I I III III III IIIIII III III II II III II IIIIII IIII

 

UNION DEMOCRACY; A COMPARATIVE STUDY
BY

Anne McMahon

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Sociology

1967

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge some of the many persons who gave willingly
of their time and energy throughout the thesis process. Dr. James B. McKee
was generous with his time and interest in supervising the research. Grate-
ful acknowledgement is also extended to the other members of the committee,
Dr. William A. Faunce, Dr. Fred B. Waisenan and Dr. William H. Form,
for their suggestions, criticisms and interest in this research project.

I am especially indebted to my father for aiding me in gaining access to
the locals studied and to the full-time officers of each of the locals for their
time, patience, and commitment to the value of this study. Lastly, I wish
to thank the various members of these unions for making me feel so welcome
in their homes and for the seriousness and frankness with which they responded
to the interview.

It is delightful to do research when one has such interested and helpful

cooperation from all persons involved.

IND EX

INTRODUCTION ....................... 1
An Exception to the Law ................ 2
The Present Research. ................. 3

RESEARCH DESIGN

Hypothesis ....................... 5
Further Specification of Variables ............ 6
Research Population and Sample ............. 7
Data Collection Procedure ................ 10

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Four Preliminary Profiles ................ 11
The Monthly Meetings. ................. l7

Perceived Importance of Officers in Decision-Making . . . 20

Accountability of Officers ................ 21
Control Over the Ballot ................. 24
Friendship Structure .................. 26
Perceived Meaning of Trade Union Democracy ...... 27
A Visual Summary ................... 28
Additional Remarks and Interpretation ......... 29
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ....... . . . ..... . 34

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........ ' ............... 39

INDEX OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table l .................. 18a
Table 2 . ................ 20a
Table 3 .................. 20b
Table 4 .................. 20b
Table 5 .................. 22a
Table 6 .................. 263
Table 7 .......... . ....... 263
Table 8 .................. 27‘s.

Robert Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy" has stimulated much research in
Sociology; the value of this research is less in whether or not the law is
proven or disproven than in the resulting discussions regarding the nature of
democracy and the issue of power. Are oligarchy and democracy two mutually
exclusive categories into which all instances of power distribution in the ex-
tant world can be divided or are they end points on a continuum? Is a demo-
cratic organization one in which there are channels through which the non-
leaders can make their feelings known to the leaders, or is it to be defined
as one in which the non-leaders do, in fact, utilize these channels with
effect. Is a benign oligarchy a form of democracy? How much voice need
the non-leaders in an organization possess in order for that organization to
qualify as a democracy?

Michels' law asserts that every instance of formal organization requires
that there be a designation of a few leaders to carry out necessary tasks. It
would indeed be difficult to argue against this. However, the conclusion from
that —- namely that the very act of separating out a small group of leaders
from the general body of members leads to membership apathy, which in turn
tends to increase and perpetuate the power of those leaders -- is open to test.
It is not a conclusion which must be granted on grounds of logic nor even on
the grounds that one cannot at the moment think of an exception.

Michels is very clear and very correct in identifying the critical issue
involved, however. What makes an oligarchy an oligarchy is m located
in the hands of a small group of leaders. This may seem self-evident —-
almost a definitional .matter -- with respect to the concept of oligarchy.
However, when reading about an alternate form of power distribution, demo-

cracy, the issue of power is often ignored or treated only implicity. What

makes democracy different from oligarchy is simply the matter of where
power lies. In a 'fpure" or "ideal type" of democracy, the power to de-
termine all of the actions of I the organization lies entirely in the hands of
the general membership. The leaders have no areas of autonomous dis-

cretion .

AN EXCEPTION TO THE LAW

Lipset, Trow and Coleman, in their classic work, Union Democracy,

 

report an intensive case study of the T ypographical Union, an organization
which appears to be an exception to Michels' law. Their evidence demon-
strating that this organization is, in fact, a democracy and has endured
over several centuries without any sign of oligarchy is impressive. Un-
fortunately, the book's contribution to a more general understanding of
democracy is small. Since it places such emphasis upon the dependency
of ITU democracy on the informal friendship structure of the membership,
one is lead to wonder whether it is not after all impossible to have a
democratic formal organization unless there is such a friendship system
supporting it. Secondly, the treatment of this union is such as to make
it a unique historical anomaly -- a single exception. The central con-
cept -- democracy .-- is defined as a strong two-party system of politics.
No other labor union has such a structure, and, therefore, no other union
is democratic . It could be argued that I am pushing the authors too far
on this point. The question is whether they really meant to be this
specific. Is the ITU political structure itself necessary for democracy

or does their system represent only one form of a more general phenomenon

which leads to legitimacy of opposition, and it is this latter which is
necessary for democracy.

The book is fairly clear on its stand that ITU democracy can be
defined in terms of its two-party system and that this system arose out
of certain historical events (which events are shared by several other
unions, as the book itself admits) and is sustained over time by a strong
friendship system (which the authors, in a totally undocumented position,
state is probably not to be found in most other unions). This exception
to the "law", then, appears to be a product of certain historical events
and of an informal friendship structure, both peculiar to this union.

This is not an idle issue. If the two-party system of the ITU as such

is necessary for democracy and if it is the result of unique circumstances,
then 'we do not have much by way of generalizable knowledge and the ITU
is but a lonely exception to Michels' argument. If, on the other hand, it
is legitimacy of opposition which is vital and if there are more than one
set of historical conditions which can lead to it, then we are led to

search for other instances of democracy.

THE PRESENT RESEARCH

The purpose of the present study was to compare a local of the ITU,
which has quite different demographic characteristics than Big Six studied

in Union Democracy, with three other printing trades locals. Since these

 

three locals share much of the ITU historical backdrop and since they re-

present fairly comparable occupations, the focus was on differences in

in power distribution and informal friendship structure.

Finding an initial definition of democracy with which to work was
difficult. All four unions claim to be highly democratic. Since this was
a comparative study, there was no value in initially defining democracy

as that political structure unique to the ITU. Seidman1

suggests that the
test of democracy in a union lies in the responsiveness of the leaders
to the rank-and-file members. Since responsiveness may range from
very little to very great, this is not a great deal of help. In the ITU,
for example, the officers are responsive to their members because
there is no other alternative open to them. In one of the other locals
in the study, the Bookbinders' Union, the officers have the power to
make most decisions but they choose to carefully feel out their membership
before doing so. Both sets of officers, then, tend to be highly responsive
to their membership, but the first because theyliyf to be and the second
because they choose to be. Seidman's criterion does not meaningfully
distinguish between the two.

I have chosen, then, to view democracy as an ideal type after the
fashion discussed earlier. As an ideal type, Democracy exists when all
of the decisions within an organization must be made by all of the members
of that organization. From the point of view of the officers, then, the
more democratic a union is, the fewer and less important are the areas
of autonomous discretion of the leaders .

The research is an attempt to discover the degree to which the

four locals approximate that ideal.

 

1Joel Seidman, "Democracy in the Labor Movement", Bulletin 39;
February, 1958; Ithica, New York: New York State School of Industrial
and Labor Relations; Cornell University; 1958.

 

Hypotheses

‘ Since percentage of turn-out of rank-and-file at meetings is fre-
quently considered a formal measure of degree of democracy in unions,
and since the ITU reported higher percentages of turn-out at meetings
than the other locals in the study, it was initially decided to formulate
the hypotheses in such a way as to account for the differences in meeting
attendance rates . That is, if rate of formal participation is a valid
indicant of democracy, then differences among the four locals' partici-
pation rates ought to vary with differences in informal friendship systems

(given the Union Democrag position) and/or with the degree to which the

 

officers of the four locals control decision-making. The initial hypotheses,
then, were:

1) that rate of formal participation in union affairs is a
.. function of a strong friendship system;

2) that rate of participation is a result of perceived power
.. in union decision-making on the part of the rank-and-file
members and of felt-dependence on rank-and-file on the
part of the leaders.
This approach is based on the assumption that turn-out at meetings refers
to a similar phenomenon in all four unions. However, during the study
it became apparent that in only two of the locals did the meetings consti-
tute decision-making bodies. Consequently, it was not at all clear what
any systematic differences among the unions in terms of (1) and/or (2)
would really be explaining. Since it is unclear just what rate of partici-
pation really measures and given that we have defined democracy essen-

tially in terms of the distribution of power over decision-making within

a union, the actual hypotheses were simply the sensitizing questions:

1) Are there any differences among the four unions with

respect to their informal friendship systems and, if
so, what is the impact of these differences;

2) Do the unions differ systematically with respect to per-
ceived power in decision-making by rank-and-file members
and perceived dependence of officers on rank-and-file.

If so, what factors do the data suggest as giving rise to
these dflierences.

Given the Union Democracy hypothesis regarding the importance of the

 

informal friendship system, then, it is possible that one of the factors
causing systematic differences in (2) might be systematic differences
in (1).

Further Specification of Variables

 

Indices of informal friendship patterns included membership in
union recreational and relaxational clubs, residential contiguity at the
neighborhood level, and all off ~the-job social and athletic relationships
with members of one's own union. Respondents were also asked about
similar relationships with people not in their union and about membership
in organizations unrelated to the union so as to estimate proportional
time spent with fellow union members in relation to the wider community.

Decision-making included election of officers, policy making, for-
mulating union laws, control over the dues system and expenditure of
union funds, contract settlements and the like.

One could easily take issue with the procedure of using perceived
role in decision-making as a measure of actual role. The main purpose
in doing so was to avoid the danger of assuming that some objective
criterion of democracy (e. g. a meeting which opens the floor for free
discussion and vote) does, in fact, give the members power in decision-

making when it may not. As mentioned earlier, all four locals in the

study have meetings as described above; yet in only two of them are
the meetings opportunities to exert power over decision-making.

To avoid an equally dangerous error -- namely that of inaccurate
or distorted perception on the part of the respondents -- the unions
were first ranked on democracy by objective criteria. These included,
in addition to average number of rank-and-file turnout at meetings,
percentage of membership who participate in elections, presence or
absence of referendum and the number of issues for which the referen-
dum is constitutionally required, turnover in office, and the definition
of the authority of officers as listed in the constitutions . A ranking
of the four locals on these criteria resulted in the same rank order as
was later arrived at from using the perceived responses. In addition,
the respondents' reports were remarkably consistent with each other
within each union, even on very open ended questions. If there is mis-

perception at work, it is certainly going on at a massive scale.

Research Population and Sample

 

The study was conducted in Portland, Oregon. The locals were
small ones. This served certain practical purposes in terms of the time
allotted for the study and also proved to be an interesting comparison
With Lipset, Trow and Coleman's work, since the bulk of their data con-
cerns the large, New York City local of the ITU.

Specifically, the locals studied were:

The Portland local of the International Typographical Union, whose
total membership at the time of the study was 300;

The Portland local of the Lithographer-Photo-engravers' Union,

whose total membership was 200;

The Portland local of the International Bookbinders' Union, whose
membership totaled 200;

and the Portland local of the Printing Pressmen's Union, which
has 180 members. Due to a recent newspaper strike which the unions
lost, all of the members of each of the unions were currently employed
in job shops.

During the pre—test stage of the research, it was discovered that
not all of the members of the unions could be considered as part of
the research population for this study. The Typographical Union had a
dozen deaf members, and the interview situation did not lend itself to
communication with these members. The Lithographer-photo-engravers'
Union had 40 members who were geographically inaccessable due to
its unusually large area of jurisdiction. It was also learned that re-
sponses of retired members or members without permanent situations
were not comparable to those of most of the members since they re-
fered to the union as it was years ago and only rarely to the current
state of affairs . Consequently, the total number of members in each
union included in the population to be sampled was:

Typographical Union -- 210

Lithographer-Photo-engravers' Union -- 160

BookbinderS' Union -- 150

Pressmen's Union -- 180.

Since each Of these locals has a law against making public their roster
of membership, it was necessary to ask the full-time officer of each
local to select the sample. Though care was taken to explain the impor-
tance of a random sample to the research and though each officer was

asked to simply select every tenth name on the list of membership, the

sample probably cannot be considered to be a strictly random one.

In one of the locals the mailing list was organized according to shops,

in a second according to home residence and in a third according to
seniority. Though I was unable to find any systematic bias in the samples
selected in the ITU, LPIU or Bookbinders' Union, it is improbable that
they were strictly random. (The full-time officer of the Pressmen's Union
(i.e. the Secretary) promised full cooperation and a list of a sample of
his membership; but, in spite of my proddings, he did not fulfill that
promise. Two weeks before the completion of the study, the president

of the local, who had heard about the study at his place of work, phoned
and offered to set up interviews with as many of his members as I had
time for. Given the brief length of time left, it'was possible to interview
only 8 of the total 180 members of this local. Since the responses of
these 8 were so dramatically consistent and since they fell in the direction
one would expect, given the rest of the study, they are included in the re-
search presentation. However, the certitude with which one can make can
make conclusions about this local is clearly limited by the small number
of respondents and by the clearly non-random fashion in which they were
selected.

The sample, then, consisted of a 10% sample of the research popu-
lation in the ITU (21 respondents), the LPIU (16 respondents) and the
Bookbinders' Union (15 respondents) -- plus the eight Pressmen. These
figures include all of the major officers of each local, with the remaining
respondents including highly active members, moderately active ones and

long-time inactives . In every case, the respondent himself and the officer

who drew the sample agreed on the extent to which the respondent could

10

be considered an active member of the union.

Each of the 21 ITU members and the 16 LPIU members agreed to
the interview. There were no non-respondents. Of the 15 Bookbinders
selected, 4 declined the interview leaving 11 respondents . Each of the
four members was a long-time inactive; none of them attended meetings

or voted .

Data Collection Procedure

 

After the initial interviews with the four full-time officers, each
of the persons whose name appeared in the sample (in the case of the
Pressmen, each person who was mentioned by the President) was con-
tacted by phone. It was explained to each how his name and phone
number had been gotten, the nature of the research and the importance
of his cooperation, and that he was quite free to decline the interview
if he did not wish to participate. All but the four Bookbinders men-
tioned earlier agreed to participate and an appointment for the inrer-
view was set.

The interview schedule itself is fairly long (the average interview
ranging between 1 and 1-1/2 hours in length) and is largly open-ended.
It centers not so much on whether the members feel that their local is
democratic (they all do), but on just how much they feel they can control
and determine any significant decision made in their local. Respondents
were not asked about hypothetical situations; they were questioned on real
issues which occur regularly in their local. In addition, there were a
number of questions directed at patterns of friendship within, between and

outside of the unions.

11

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Four Preliminary Profiles

 

While the two political parties of the International Typographical Union
(the Progressives and the Independents) operate in the Portland local, they do
not have a formally organized structure and certainly are not political

"machines" such as outlined in Union Democracy for the Big Six of New York.

 

The formally affiliated Progressives far outnumber the card-holding Inde-
pendents in this local, but there are a large number of "anti-proggsl' who
are not affiliated with the Independents . . I

The local handles allmajor issues by referendum ballot. The ballot
is sent to each member's place of employment (or, in the case of members
not at the trade, to his bedside, as one officer put it). The members
vote at work, turn in the ballots to the Chapel Chairman who must have
them back to the union office within 12 hours, under pain of fine. There
is an institutionalized means whereby the rank-and-file members may
force any issue to referendum and the respondents evidenced detailed
familiarity with that procedure. All sanctions associated with the rules of
the union are consistently levied. For example, if a member has not paid
his dues by the deadline, he is not allowed to report back to work until
he does so. Sanctions are employed against officers and non-officers im-
partially. While all four locals have sanctions for their rules, this is the
only one which makes use of them in anything but extreme cases .

The average turnout at meetings is 25% of the total membership (as
reported by the full-time officer). This is low for most locals in the ITU.

It must be remembered that all of the members of this local work in shops

12

as opposed to newspapers, and the Portland printing shops are small ones.

Both the data in Union Democracy and my own suggest that members in

 

small shops do not typically attend union meetings with great regularity. In
a small shop, an employer can (and does) keep track of his employees'

union activities. This is particularly true for the ITU, since it is the most
powerful of the printing trades unions and it is the only one with union mach-
inery in the shop itself (i.e. the Chapel). The Typographical Union is
always first to bargain with management, and those unions which follow may
be sure of securing a contract roughly equal in benefits to that negotiated

by the ITU. In order to secure opportunities for advancement and peaceful
on-the-job relations, these men tend to avoid taking any enthusiastic part

in their union as well as on-the-job union discussions.

This local showed the highest turnover among officers in recent years
and an absence of officer "recruitment" . In the other three locals, there
seems to be an informal procedure whereby the major incumbant officers
seek out what they consider "good, potential leaders" and ask them if they
would like to run in the next election. This appears to be the major way
in which names appear on the ballot for all but the ITU local.

Lastly, the ITU local charter is far more explicit in defining the
duties and authority of its officers than the constitutions of the other three
locals. The president may not cast the deciding vote in a tie, as in the
other three. The officers interpret the laws and contracts, but they may
not make exceptions to them as can the Pressmen and Bookbinder officers .
There are clearly institutionalized methods for impeaching and fining an

officer and for counteracting any decision which the officers may have made

13

during the summer recess of meetings, which is the only opportunity the
officers have to make significant decisions without consulting the member-
ship body.1 There is a clearly stated procedure whereby members can send
to referendum any issue which was decided at a meeting whenever a suffi-
cient number of members wish to challenge the decision. These procedures
were clearly and frequently cited by all ITU respondents including the very
inactive ones who had not been to a meeting in years, and they were re-
ported as having been used.

This local will hereafter be referred to as the ITU with the under-
standing that, except where specified otherwise, it shall mean the Port-

land Local of the International Typographical Union.
I The Lithographer-Photo-engravers' Union in Portland also uses the
referendum ballot. None of the respondents mentioned any procedures by
which the rank-and-file membership could use it as a means to counteract
previous decisions or as a weapon for the power of initiative, though there
are provisions for this in the constitution. The referendum seems to be
viewed simply as a more equitable method of vote-casting than that which
occurs at meetings, particularly in view of the number of out-of-town
members who are unable to attend meetings .

Turnover in office is a senseless question to ask of this local since
it has only been in existence since January, 1966. The local is a result
of a merger between the old Amalgumated Lithographers Association and
the Photo-Engravers' Union. For all officers, then, this is the first term
of tenure. However, the highest officers in the merged union were also

major officers in the pre-merged unions.

14

The lithographers far out-number the photo-engravers (by about 4
to 1). Hence, the photo-engravers were fearful that the merger might
result in a union which would not adequately represent their needs and
interests. Because of this, the constitution states that for a period of
three years, the officers must be evenly divided between the two crafts.
Since the photo-engravers are concerned about what will happen at the end
of the three years, they are not willing to give much power to the officers
on a constitutional basis. Likewise, since the Lithographers feel that
the photo-engravers are currently over-represented on the executive board,
they are unwilling to grant much autonomous authority to the officers .
Rather than agree to a constitution which would grant much authority to
officers who may or may not represent their interests, the members have
chosen to keep most of the power in their own hands. The two craft
identities, then, seem to function much like the two political parties in
the ITU in terms of limiting the areas of discretion of their officers .

The significant difference between the process in the ITU and that
in the Lithographer-Photo-engravers' Union is that the internal competition
of interest groups and the resultant unwillingness to grant much authority
to officers is granted full legitimacy in the ITU; whereas in the LPIU it
is considered an understandable, but hopeftu temporary, phenomenon.

In the latter, the hope is that after the initial three years, the commitments
to craft identies will vanish and that the whole membership will be of one
accord and will then place more trust in their officers.

This local has an average participation rate ranging from 15% to 20%,

as reported by the full-time officer; and this is higher than either local

15

could boast before the merger. Hereafter, this local shall be referred to
as the LPIU with the understanding that, unless otherwise specified, it
refers to the Portland Local of the Lithographer-Photo-engravers' Interna-
tional Union .

The Bookbinders' and Bindery Women's Local in Portland (hereafter
referred to as the Bookbinders' Union) has approximately 10% turnout at
meetings (as reported by the full-time officer). It is not rare for a meet-
ing to be disbanded due to lack of a quorum (10 members). This local
does not use referendum. The definition of the officers' duties and auth-
ority scope in the constitution is vague and open to wide interpretation.

The constitutional sanctions are rarely used to enforce the rules . The
officers as a group are free to make exceptions to the rules, laws and
contracts when they feel the situation requires leniency. At no time during
any of the interviews with members of this local was nay mention made of
the constitution or by-laws of the Union.

The Portland local of the Printing Pressmen's Union (hereafter re-
ferred to as the Pressmen's Union) averages about 10% turnout at meetings
(as reported by the full-time officer). As in the case of the Bookbinders'
Union, this local does not always have a quorum (10 members). It is in-
teresting that no member of the ITU or the LPIU could remember a meeting
which failed to have a quorum. This local does not have the referendum
and officers tend to be "recruited" . The secretary's name does not always
appear on the ballot. In such instances, he is declared unanimously elected
at the nomination meeting. He has held this office (a full-time position) for

24 years and has run unopposed during that time. 9 He considers his posi-

16

tion an appointive one, by virtue of the ties he has made with the Inter-
national Headquarters .

The officers have much decision-making authority vested in them by
the constitution. There are no institutionalized mechanisms whereby the
members can appeal any issue to the general membership. This is the
only local of the four studied where exceptions to the rules of the union
are written into the contracts, just as the ITU is the only local of the four
whose contract always carries the stipulation that union laws are not subject
to negotiation. The secretary of the Pressmen's Union is free to make any
exception to either the union laws or the negotiated contract. There are
no written mechanisms whereby the members can appeal a decision made
by the executive board or any member thereof.

In addition to being of approximately the same size, these four
locals have roughly comparable wage scales and share similar working con-
ditions and hours. All of the officers in each union are men who came up
through the trade, and each full-time officer receives the average wage
scale for his union in salary. He does not earn more as an officer than he
would working at the trade. All of the officers seemed deeply concerned in
doing what is right and just for their membership. The difference seems to
be in what is considered to be the legitimate manner in deciding what is
right. The officers of the ITU, for example, felt that it was the member-
ship who should make this decision for themselves and the officers' task
is simply to impliment their dictates. The secretary of the Pressmen's
local, on the other hand, felt that the membership could not often be

trusted to make a fair decision which would hold for the general welfare,

17

so that decision as well as its implimentation was his moral obligation.

The Monthly Meetings

 

The officers of all four unions were deeply concerned about the
low participation rate in their locals . Low turnout at meetings was con-
sidered a major problem. In the ITU, however, it was felt that this was
not a problem which the officers could solve, or should even try to solve.
ITU meetings are held at 11:00 a.m. on the third Sunday of each month.
There is no attempt on the part of the officers to hurry or shorten the
meeting (though all. four sets of officers agreed that long meetings tend
to reduce attendance). One newly elected officer of the ITU mentioned
that she had been to nearly every meeting for years and that until she
took office, she had never been able to sit through an entire meeting --
she always had to leave to fix dinner for her family. The average ITU
meeting runs until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. In the other three locals, however,
there were clearly admitted attempts by the officers to keep the meetings
brief. The average length of time for each ranges from l-l/2 to 2 hours.
In addition, these three locals have frequent shifts in meeting day and time,
trying to find a time which would be most convenient to the general member-
ship. The LPIU serves free beer following the meeting in an effort to draw
more members. The general consensus of all officers in these three locals
is that none of these incentives results in any appreciable increase in mem-
bership attendance. All of them expressed amazement at the ability of the
ITU to draw- members to their meetings at such an obviously inopportune
time and for such long, drawn-out sessions .

It is also important to note that since so much of the ITU important

business is handled through the Chapel and the referendum, it is technically

18

unnecessary for the ITU members to attend meetings at all in order to
participate in m decision-making.

Why do the ITU members attend their meetings? The contention
here is that the ITU members hold far more decision-making power in
their local than do the rank-and-file members of the other three unions and
not all ITU decisions are made in the Chapel. That is, the meetings are
one place where some decisions are, in fact, made; and the members go
there to make them. Let us look at the evidence.

All of the respondents were asked whether or not they felt their
monthly union I meetings were important. One ITU member, an inactive,
said no because the really important decisions in his local were made at
work through referendum. Two Bookbinders and one Pressman felt their
meetings were not particularly important. All other respondents felt
their meetings were highly important. However, as Table 1 indicates,
their reasons for granting meetings importance were clearly not the same.

Fourteen ITU members felt that their meetings were important be-
cause they constituted the governing body of the Union. If the members
did not come to meetings, then all those decisions made at the meetings
would have to go undecided. The respondents clearly indicated that, ex-
cept for the referendum, the membership body assembled at meetings was
the only decision-making group in their union. Another 5 ITU members
felt that the major importance of meetings lay in the fact that this was a
main channel through which the membership could express itself on the
afiairs of its union. This is a less strong statement than the one given

by the other fourteen. Only one respondent in the ITU gave as a reason

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19

for the importance of meetings that they served as a means through
which the members become informed about what is going on in their
union.

In the LPIU, four respondents gave the authority-to-govern reason
for the importance of meetings, while another six felt that membership
expression of opinions constituted their major importance. Six more re-
plied that the importance of a meeting lay in its informative function.

Of the nine Bookbinders who felt meetings were important, there
was one response in the authority-to-govern catagory, one in the member-
ship expression category and seven who said that the informative function
of the meeting was its primary importance.

By and large, the Pressmen were unable to give a reason for why
they thought meetings were important. One respondent listed the member-
ship expression function of a meeting as his reason and another gave the
informing the rank-and-file response.

Thus, while all four unions have monthly meetings at which all
respondents reported feeling free to express themselves, there was a clear
differentiation as to the perceived function of these meetings . The ITU
members see their meetings as decision-making bodies; the Bookbinders
see theirs as a means through which the officers can inform the member-
ship about their activities and decisions; the LPIU members are somewhat
divided on the issue; and the Pressmen seem unable to say just what the
importance of their meetings is.

Table 2 indicates a similar pattern in responses to the question,

"Do you think that the really important decisions made in your local are

20

made at the union meetings?" and, if not, "Where would you say they are
made, and by whom?" Only five of the ITU respondents said that the de-
cisions in their local were made either entirely by the Board or made by
the Board and merely ratified at the meetings. Eleven LPIU members,
six Bookbinders and four Pressmen felt this was the case in their union.
The proportion of ITU members who see the votes taken at meetings as
only legitimation of policy or decisions already made by the officers is

smaller than that in the other locals.

Perceived Importance of Officers in Decision-making

 

Table 3 is a summary of the responses regarding the degree to
which officers are perceived as the most important group involved in union
decision-making. Only three ITU members felt that such was the case in
their union. Six LPIU members considered this to be the case, as did
seven Bookbinders and four Pressmen. It is interesting that of the five
Pressmen officers,only the Secretary thought the Board was the most in-
fluential participant in decision-making, while the three non-officers agreed
with him. To the non-officer, any decision given by the president at a
meeting represents an action of the Executive Board. Yet the other officers
do not agree that they play such a significant role in their union. From
the interviews, one get the clear impression that the Secretary makes the
bulk of the decisions essentially by himself, brings them to the Board
meetings for discussion and then to the general meeting for ratification.
There was no evidence to suggest that any similar process operates in

the other three locals.

20a

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LPIU
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LPIU
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DECISION -MAKING

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18

 

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20b

WHETHER OR NOT OFFICERS ARE SEEN AS THE MOST IMPORTANT GROUP IN

FREQUENCY WITH WHICH MEMBERS WOULD TAKE SUGGESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS
ONLY TO THE OFFICERS

 

21

Table 4 summarizes the responses to a related question: "If you
had a suggestion or complaint to raise about matters related to your uniOn,
would you go to the officers to discuss it or raise it directly at the meet-
ing? Perhaps you would do both of these Or neither. Can you tell me what
you would do?" Only two ITU members reported that they would go only to
the officers and let them take it from there. Eleven LPIU respondents men-
tioned this course of action as did four Bookbinders andfour Pressmen.
Two of these Pressmen stated that they would go specifically and only to
the Secretary. There were no "don't know" replies to this question. It
would seem, then, that the degree to which complaints and issues of ini-
tiative are mediated through the officers before reaching the union meeting

is less for the ITU than for the other three locals.

Accountability of Officers

 

Each of the respondents was asked to rank the officers of his union
on accountability to the general membership using a scale of ten, where ten
represented highest accountability. Almost without exception, every respon-
dent ranked his officers at number ten. Following that, they were asked to
indicate why they felt that their officers were so accountable and what in
their experience with the union made them feel this way. As Table 5 in-
dicates, all of the ITU respondents were able to give a reason for their
response (that is, something other than "I don't know, but I'm sure no
one could be more accountable than our officers are".) In addition, all
the ITU members agreed on their reasons. Without exception, their reasons
consisted of a citation of specific procedures for. impeaching officers, laws

which govern every aspect of the officers' duties, and the process by which

 

22

the membership can force any issue to referendum. Appended to this in
most cases was a statement similar to: "The members make all the de-
cisions in our local and the officers cannot do anything without the prior
approval of the membership; so they must be accountable because they are
not given the opportunity to be otherwise." Of the eleven LPIU respondents
who were able to say why they had ranked their officers high on accounta-
bility, one cited the membership's power of impeachment as his reason.
All other answers centered around the trustworthiness of the officers .

That is, there were answers like: "I know our officers are honest men";
"Our officers aren't snobs"; and "I never heard of any underhanded
activities going on, except. once when the president absconded with the
funds". Only four Bookbinders could give reasons for their rankings . The
three non-officers said something to the effect that if the officers did not
account for their actions they were subject to the sanction (which sanction
they could not specify) of either the union body OR OF THE EXECUTIVE
BOARD. Apparently, accountability of officers to each other is sufficient.
The one officer who was able to give a reason for his ranking said that he
and the other Bookbinder officers were accountable to their membership
"because the officers preferred it that way".

Two Pressmen could give reasons for ranking their officers as they
had. One was a non-officer who was an exception to the rule of ranking
one's own officers high on this issue. He said that'he had ranked them low
because "things are kept quiet and not brought up before the membership".
The other was an officer who said, "We report whatever we do to the

membership. Our by-laws allow for repeal of any officer at the annual

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23

elections -- except the full-time Officer". '"Repeal" occurs only during
regular elections and the full-time officer is exempt from such censure.

It seemed in talking with these men that they found it difficult to
give reasons for their rankings on this question not because they did not
understand the meaning of accountability of officers but because it was
(except for the ITU) a concept inappropriate to their philosophy of unionism.
Obviously, if one is dissatisfied with an officer, he does not re-elect him
for another term. This they understood, but they also realized that this
was not total accountability. All three of these locals stress electing good,
honest, dedicated officers in the first place, rather than institutionalized
means for keeping strict tabs on them during tenure or procedures for im-
peaching them or reversing their decisions . If there is a wise election,
such procedures become unnecessary. The non-ITU respondents felt that
the use of such procedures implied derogatory things about their officers,
who, after all, are men at the trade like themselves.

The ITU, on the other hand, seems to assume the worst about human
nature. Every man makes mistakes and is potentially corruptable. They be-
lieve in having an organization in which an officer cannot be dishonest, even
if he is a dishonest man. Their remarks indicated that if there is an inci-
dent of office mismanagement, it is as much the fault of the members for
permitting an organization structured such that he was not prevented from
carrying out the misdeamenor as it is the fault of the offender. Such mis-
management in the other three locals, however, is viewed as the result of
electing the wrong man and the only way to avoid a repetition of a similar

incident is to be more ‘careful in future elections . This philosophy carries

24

over into particular incidences of decision-making. For example, most
members of the three unions expressed a sentiment to this effect: "Members
of our union will go along with the officers even if they don't agree on the
grounds that it was an honest decision." The honesty of an officer's de-

cision is a fairly irrelevant issue in the ITU.

Control over the Ballot

 

It was mentioned earlier that all four unions have annual elections of
officers, two by referendum vote (the ITU and LPIU) and two by ballot which
must be carried to the union hall (the Bookbinders and Pressmen). All four
use secret and printed ballots. There was no evidence in any of the locals
of intimidation by officers with respect to the voting process.

A critical issue, then, is the nature of the process by which candi-
dates' names appear on the ballot. In the ITU, it can accurately be said
that a candidate "runs" for office. A member must actively solicit nomina-
tion. An incumbant officer who is doing any kind of satisfactory job can
rest assured that he will be nominated for re-election, .but this in no way
means that he will win the election. There is open and vigorous campaign-
ing among ITU candidates for office. In the other three locals, however,
there is no open campaigning and candidates are primarily recruited by the
incumbant officers . In reply to the question,, "Do you intend to run for this
same office in the next election?", no member of the ITU responded with
"I don't know; it depends on whether they (the officers) ask me to". This
was the one outstanding answer to the question in the other three locals.
The more typical I'IU answer was: "It depends a lot on who else decides

to run. I keep deciding not to run but every time someone decides to run

 

25

whom I. don't think would do a very good job."

A similar difference was found in responses to a question asking why
the officer had run in the last election for the office he now held. ITU re-
spondents typically ran because they felt they could do the job better than
someone else who had decided to run. The non-fulltime officers of the
other locals replied that they were "asked to run", "railroaded into it",
or "drafted" by the incumbant officers. The recruiting officers appear to
be the major, long-incumbancy officers (i.e., full-time officer, the presi-
dent, a retiring officer). In most cases, the prospective candidate is dis-
cussed among at least several of the incumbant officers respecting his de-
sirability before he is approached.

The only long-incumbancy officer in the Pressmen's Union is the
Secretary, and he considers his position to be appointed by the International.
His name does not usually appear on the ballot. The two most important
LPIU officers were the heads of the two pre-merged locals; they ran un-
opposed in the last elections. The Secretary of the Bookbinders' Local
has run unopposed for years and expects to continue to do so until she
choses to retire. She reported that she expects to retire within the next
five years and has selected the person whom she feels would make a good
successor. Upon her request, he ran (unopposed) in the last elections for
a position on the Executive Board, since both she and he felt this would
better insure his winning the Secretary's position when the time came.

The fulltime officer of the ITU generally runs opposed and openly campaigns
for his position.

It seems safe to say that while the voting procedure is free and un-

inhibited in all four locals, officer control over the nomination procedure is

 

26

not equivalent for the four.

Friendship Structure

 

Lipset, Trow and Coleman spend many pages demonstrating the degree
to which ITU democracy is dependent upon the strong, informal friendship
structure found among printers due tothe unusual nature of their occupation.
A close scrutiny of these pages indicates that their case is built more on

logic than on data. To disprove the Union Democracy thesis on this issue

 

would be enormously more difficult than to try to prove that it is correct.
Such was not my main purpose. However, since the book is so reputable
and since it accords high importance to the friendship structure, every attempt
was made to account for this factor in the present study. In the end, how-
ever, it did not appear as a significant factor. The friendship patterns are
quite similar among the four unions. Of the total 168 friendships mentioned
in response to several questions about such relationships, only nineteen in-
volved persons who at some time or other had not worked together for at
least one year. Of the nineteen exceptions, most were relationships between
fellow officers which had grown during their terms of occupancy. .All of.
the members of the several unions mentioned at least one other organization
besides the union in which they were active and had close friends . Only
five respondents said that they spent more free time with people in the print-
ing trades than with people of other occupations: one ITU officer, two LPIU '
officers, one Bookbinder officer, and one Pressman non-officer.

All respondents were asked the question: "Now think of your three
closest friends. What are their occupations?" The number of friends men-

tioned who were in the respondent's own union are summarized as follows .

26a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE 6
Number Union Ratio Percentile
Twenty-one ITU 20 .32
63—
Sixteen LPIU E .31
48
Eleven Bookbinders 12 . 39
33'
Eight Pres smen 7 . 29
74'
The replies to the question, "Now think of all the various places where

you are likely to visit with other people in the printing trades off the job. Where

would this be likely to happen for you and how often?" are summarized in Table 7.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE 7
FREQUENCY
Number Union Place monthly % twice a year % Total
, or less often
Twenty-one I'I'U Union function 14 (.666) 7 (.334) 1.00
if
' Sixteen LPIU Union function I16 (.687) 5 (.313) 1.00
Eleven Bookbinde s Union function 1% (.636) 4 (.364) 1.00
Eight Pressmen Union function _3_ (.625) 3 (.375) 1.00

 

Since all of the respondents agree that various union functions are the only

places where they are likely to visit with other union members off the job,

 

27

it is not. surprising that the ITU and LPIU show somewhat higher percentages
of such visits than the Bookbinders or the Pressmen. Still, the figures are
remarkably similar for the four locals, in spite of their differences in average
participation rates in union meetings .

"Given the small N in each case, not much confidence can be placed
in the percentiles on the previous two tables. However, since the respond-
ents in: the four locals clearly differentiated themselves according to union
membership on the other variables studied yet fafled to do so on the ques-
tions regarding friendship patterns, it does not appear that, for these locals,
at least, friendship structure is an important variable in the explanation of

their different power distributions .

Perceived Meaning of Trade Union Democracy

One of the most interesting questions in the study, in terms of the
responses it elicited, was the one: "What does the term, Trade Union Demo-
cracy, mean to you?" In spite of the open-endedness of the item, the answers
were remarkably patterned, as Table 6 clearly indicates . Before continuing,
however, it should be pointed out that just as nearly all the respondents felt
that their officers were as accountable as possible, so they felt their union
was as democratic as possible, with the exception of one Pressman. But
members of the different unions do not mean the same thing by democracy.

Nineteen ITU respondents agreed that democracy in a union means that
the union is run by the rank-and-file membership. "All decisions are made
by the members;" "T he direction of the union remains entirely in the hands of
the members;" "There are no rules from the top, we do not—have a real

hierarchy. Every member is as important as the President;" "It is the ab-

sence of an oligarchy.'." The two remaining ITU respondents gave the reply

 

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28

that is most typical of the LPIU members -- namely, that democracy in a
union means freedom of expression and free and secret elections. Ten of
the LPIU respondents replied in this manner. Three LPIU members gave
the typical ITU reply and the remaining three gave the response most
characteristic of the Bookbinders -- that is, they said they didn't know what
the term meant. Ten Bookbinders said this. "I really don't know"; "I've
never considered the term democracy with respect to a labor union before,
I really don't know what it means". The eleventh Bookbinder responded
like most of the LPIU members. One Pressman replied like the bulk of
the Bookbinders, and another replied: "That's what we don't have in our
union." The remaining six said that they knew what democracy "in theory"
was (though they could not define it at all), but they felt the question was
irrelevant because democracy is certainly unattainable and probably ineffi-
cient in labor unions .

An interesting fact which can be clearly seen on the Table is that
for each union, those responses which are not in agreement with the modal
response of the local always fall in cells immediately adjacent to the cell
which contains the modal responses. The non-modal responses (which are

few to begin with) are not random in their variance from the dominant re-

sponse of their union.

A Visual Summary

 

At this point it might be helpful to visually represent the distribution
of power in each union as suggested by the preceding data. Figure 9 is a
visual diagram representing degree of power over all significant decision-

making held respectively by the full-time officer, the executive board as a

group, and the rank-and-file membership in each of the four locals .

 

 

 

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29

Additional Remarks and Interpretation

 

In any fairly long, open-ended interview, many of the remarks made
by the respondents which are not directly in reply to a specific question
prove to be quite interesting. What follows is a digest of these remarks
for each union. All pertinent remarks of each respondent are included,
though in cases of duplication only one of the responses was used. The
attempt was made to be inclusive and not selective -- only duplications were

deleted. These digests proved to be highly consistent with the other data.

ITU

"All Unions should be run democratically. I can't think of any group
who could run the union better than the members themselves. . . .If you
become an officer, you must be prepared to lose an office just as you got
it -- through the vote. . . .Policy is not formed in this office (ITU head-
quarters), in anyone's Chapel Room, or in anyone's living room. It is
formed on the floor of the union hall. . . .It isn't what the union will do
for its members what what the members are going to do together for them-
selves . . . .Our officers are very receptive to the membership, except when
it concerns the laws . . . .No officer can, under the constitution and by-laws,
do what he thinks is best. He must always be guided by the laws and the
superior body (the membership). . . .An officer could not do what he thought
was best in the (ITU. If he tried, they'd stop him. . . .The membership is
always the ultimate governing body. . . .If you are working against the jury
of the membership, you will not have any effect. . . .Our officers are

afraid to go to the john without taking a vote first. . . .The members always

must have the right to be wrong. No matter what, they make the decisions

 

kl-

30

in our union. . . .Disagreement is the test of leadership on the union floor.

. . .Having the union dictate to you is not much better than the guy you are
working for doing it. It defeats its own purpose. .. .After all, the officer
is there to serve you. He should go along with the membership. They

pay his wages and he works for them. . . .T hey are free to exercise their
rights as officers according to our by-laws . They can't do very much that
they shouldn't do if they stick to our by-laws . . . .Suppression through the
union would be as bad as suppression from management. . . .We're not
heared around. We read a lot. We'd feel like a fool if we let somebody tell
us how to do something. . . .An officer in our local does not have to be
'concerned' for the welfare of the members. He merely carries out what we
tell him to do. We don't need any help from an officer. . ..The word of an
officer carries as much weight as anybody else's. They have as much and
as little voice as anybody else. They have one vote and I have one vote --
and they don't even have that in a tie. . . .A printer will giv_e you anything,
but you can't t_ak_e_ anything from him. . . .We're a peculiar breed of people.
Anybody can become a printer but a printer can't become anything else.

. ..The ITU isn't a union; it‘s a cult."

There are at least four clear statements which are implicit in the
above. The ITU rank-and-file have strong power over decisions made in
their local and over their officers . ITU laws limit the behavior and author-
ity of the officers. There is a strong commitment on the part of ITU members
to qnen disagreement with their officers. ITU members consider themselves to

belong to a unique, cult-like organization.

31

"I (the president) see things on a higher level than most people in
the union. I have a fuller understanding and greater insight into the problems
we face. . . .Decisions are ratified in the meetings, not made there. . . .Before
the regular meeting is the council's. meeting and that's where the decisions
are made. . ..The council is an important body of men. All gripes and pro-
blems are brought to them. Their opinion in favor or opposed to a situation
is pointed out to the members. The membership then decides for itself.

. ..They (the members) attend meetings but like sheep. .They are led by
those that will say something. It is rare that any motion is turned down.

. ..Members will go along with the officers even if they don't agree on the
grounds that it was an honest decision. . . .The members listen when I
speak -- if they didn't, I shouldn't be an officer. ...Our union is run by a
clique. . . .A lot of things go on that never come to the union floor. . . .We
inform the membership of everything. . . .Things have been pretty well dis-
cussed and gone over by the time they reach the members. . ..Our president
is a Lithographer, and he does not know about the problems of the Photo;
engravers. . . .I see no point in unnecessary opposition. . . . If you have a
good team, stick with it.”

It seems safe to make at least these three implications from the
above, particularly in view of the previous data. LPIU officers perceive
themselves -- and are perceived by their members -- as having high power,
at least on the basis of charisma and expertise. Decisions are made at the
executive board meetings and the membership generally feels obliged to ratify

these decisions on the grounds that the decisions are honest and are probably

 

 

32

based on better information than the general membership possesses . Internal
divisivness and opposition to officers are not considered legitimate, but craft

identities are protected.

Bookbinders

 

"Our membership are very concerned in their union but it does not
express itself through the attendance at meetings. They just call the secre-
tary on the phone. . . .They are informed about what is happening in the
union. It is their right to know what is going on. .. .Of course, there will
always be a few who run any organization -- an oligarchy. You may as well
forget trying to get everyone interested. . . .The toughest unions are not run
democratically. . . .The democratic process is very slow and does not always
accomplish the things you want it to. . . .I always take my suggestions to the
officers. 1 don't like making a lot of unnecessary noise at the meetings.

. . .In general, the membership do not know what they want. . . .There is no
adequate representation in our union. The employers get by with violations

of the contract. Our union is afraid to take a stand against management.

. ..The Executive Board makes the policy, nobody else has much to say about

it. Only a vote. It's a fair union, though, and democratic. .. .It is suggested
to US hOW we Should vote, but we are not to_ld_. . ..We never make a recommen-
dation to the members at a meeting until we have reached unanimous agreement
on the issue in the Executive Board meetings."

The above implies four things about the Bookbinders' Local which seem
to be in keeping with the rest of the data. Decision-making is strongly in
the hands of the Executive Board of the Local. The officers present a united

and prescriptive front to the members in presenting their suggestions and de-

 

 

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33

cisions for ratification. There is a belief in the inevitability of oligarchy
and the inefficiency of democracy, at least in part because they feel that
the general body of members do not usually know what they really want.

The vote is not seen as a major power weapon.

Pressmen

"The Executive Board makes the policy; nobody else has much to say
about it. Only a vote. . . .There is no adequate representation in our
union. . . .The membership is weak because we have no one to lead it.
. ..Decisions are made by the executive board and _S£l_d_ to us at the
meetings. .. .Our local is dominated by one mind and he will sway the minds
of the membership to what he thinks is right. If you go to the meetings with
the intention of voting against something he wants, your vote won't count.
. . .When your union falls down as ours is more and more, you lose interest
in it because you don't see any future in it for yourself. . . .I've been to so
many meetings and heard the same old things hashed and rehashed and never
any change in attitude or achievement. . . .I lost a job for upholding a union
law. Ours is a weak union; it affords no protection. . . .AppOinted positions
have greater responsibility than elected ones. You are appointed because you
are considered 321:. I've seen poorly qualified people being elected. Elec-
tions are not always democracy at work. They are often popularity contests .
. . .It takes a wise man to know where to stop and that's hard to do in your
so-called democracy, due to the narrow viewpoint of the selfish individual.

. . .Unionism helps the weak at the expense of the Strong. , , ,If I fe1t that

an issue was of prime importance to the membership as a whole, I would

discuss it with the officers so that they would speak along the same lines

 

34

to inform the membership that this is what they need. . ..I ran for this
office to see to it that the union is run in a democratic manner and to make
sure that questionable people don't get into office."

The Pressmen evidence high dissatisfaction with their union and
powerlessness to change it. The vote is not seen as a tool of power over
the officers. The importance of the officers, in particular of the Secre-
tary, in decision-making is very high. There seems to be a general dis-
enchantment with democracy as 'an effective way to run a union.

All of this seems to verify what we have said before -- namely,
that as one goes from the ITU to the LPIU the Bookbinders' Union and
the Pressmen's Union (in that order), there is a decrease in the perceived
power of rank-and-file members over decision-making, an increase in the
power of officers in decision-making, a decrease in the commitment to
democracy as an efficient and effective way to run a union, and a decrease

in the perceived power of the vote.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

 

The main purpose of this research has been to document the distri-
bution of power within each of these four locals in an attempt to understand
what factors account for the differences in their distributions. If one grants
that clear and systematic differences in power distribution have been demon-
strated, the question remains as to why this is so.

There seem to be two ways in which these locals differ systematically,
besides in their power distributions. The first centers around the laws which
relate to the dueites of the officers. ITU officers have almost no areas of

discretion. This is to say that there is almost no area of the officers'

35

activities which is not regulated by a law (established by referendum) or
which is not required by law to be sent to membership vote. The LPIU
officers are similarly regulated. Like the ITU officers, they are not free
to make major decisions or to establish rules or levy taxes. Nor are they
free to make exceptions to rules and contracts .

This is not the case with the officers of the Bookbinder or Pressmen
unions . Their activities are not clearly defined or limited by laws, and
most union rules and contract stipulations have a clause which allows for
their exception provided the Executive Board deems it necessary. For these
two unions, then, decision-making is formally defined within the scope of
responsibility of the officers, while in the cases of the other two, it clearly
is not.

The second difference among the unions concerns legitimacy of oppo-
sition to officers . Since ITU candidates for office generally represent only
one of the two political parties, an incumbant officer is always aware that
there are many members of his union who are not "in his camp", so to
speak. He expects that many of the persons he serves will not agree with
his beliefs about the best way to run the union. Any decision, election, or
the like is expected to be the result of a battle between the opposing groups .
This opposition is considered fully legitimate. The ITU two-party political
system, then, is a form of internal competition which appears to lead to
opposition to officers with respect to decision-making.

In the LPIU, the competition between the two crafts seems to operate
in much the same fashion as the political parties of the ITU . That is,
when an officer speaks, he realizes that members of the other craft will be

suspect of his intentions on the grounds that they might not serve the interests

36

of both crafts equally well. This internal divisiveness seems to have led to
certain legal limitations on the power of officers and at least some covert
opposition to them over decision-making. However, this is not considered
legitimate in the LPIU Members and officers alike agree that this conflict
is understandable in that one cannot expect craft identities to disappear
immediately; but the hope is clearly that, with time, such competition will
fade away and the membership can then grant more freedom to their officers.
A lack of internal conflict and the consequent delimiting of the authority of
officers is considered vital if the new union is to survive.

Both the Pressmen and Bookbinders expressed a similar sentiment.
If a union is to be strong, effective and efficient, it must operate with in-
ternal harmony and the membership must be behind their officers "all the
way".

All of the members of the non-ITU unions expressed amazement at
the efficiency and power of the ITU in view of its internal divisiveness . Like
Lipset, Trow and Coleman, they think of the ITU as a unique exception to
the laws of the way things are in the world. Their system shouldn't work
for them and it certainly wouldn't work for anyone else. There are too many
rules limiting the ITU officers; they enforce their rules almost mercilously;
they are constantly fighting among each other. Yet they consistently have
the most powerful and effective organization and secure the best contracts .
It is perhaps unfortunate that the ITU members have perpetuated the idea
that they are a "cult", a "unique breed of people". They are believed.

In this respect, the LPIU is perhpas the most interesting case in
this comparison. Their merger has proven to be highly successful. Both

together are stronger and more powerful than either was before the merger.

37

It has resulted in higher membership participation and interest. But they do
not see that this is in any way a result of competition between craft interests .
In fact, they consider this competition the only point of failure in the new
union.

This is no matter of insignificance. The LPIU represents the first
of a series. of planned mergers which, hopefully, will result in an Allied
Printing Trades Union. The test of whether other crafts will join in the
merger movement depends upon the success of the LPIU. To prove their
success, they feel they must show that competition among crafts will not
lead to a weak, inefficient union which cannot. present a "united front"
against management. Since it is fundamentally assumed that craft competi-
tion (or any internal strife) DOES hinder efficient and effective unionism,
they must show that craft identities will be abandoned. '

As might be expected from this, even though there is a clear plan
by which the various crafts will be asked to participate in the merger move-
ment, the ITU --1 the strongest and most powerful of the printing trades
unions -- does not appear on that schedule. The reason is fairly clear. The
ITU has demonstrated in the past that it will not belong to any organization
which denies it the right to political parties nor in one which takes any
power from the hands of the membership so as to extend the areas of auth-
ority of the officers. The other crafts, denying any legitimacy to internal
strife and strict limitations on officers because of the belief that the result
will be inefficiency and ineffectiveness, are unwilling to formally affiliate
with a union which would permit political parties (or any other form of

institutionalized competition) and deny officers authority to make "necessary"

38

exceptions to the rules and important decisions in "emergency" situations .

If this impasse is ever to be bridged, the ITU must be "de-cultized",
if you will forgive the word. The majority of the ITU respondents said they
considered members of their union the elite of the industry and that their
system works largely because it is a good system to begin with but also be-
cause they are "more intelligent people, by nature of their trade".

The point being made here is that ITU democracy and effectiveness
does not seem to be explained on the grounds that its members are a
"unique breed of people" or because of any exceptionally strong friendship
structure. Rather, they seem to have an organization such that the members
must make their own decisions and in which the officers may not extend their
own power; in order to exist on these grounds, they have had to find ways to
make democratic channels efficient. This legal structure, plus their firm
commitment in the value and legitimacy of opposition to leadership which
arises out of their particular form of internal competition, seems to better
explain the ITU phenomenon.

The LPIU merger resulted in an organization more like the ITU than
any of the other crafts because it was forced to structure the organization --
at least temporarily -- so that power remained in the hands of the general
membership in order to win agreement from two opposing crafts on the merger.
This seems to suggest that democratic distribution of power can be built into
a system almost deliberately and prove to be effective. The ITU's history indi-
caste that once such a system is established, it can endure over time; and
that internal opposition does not, in and of its elf, make for a weak, inefficient

organization .

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