IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/treure/v16y2010i3p369-382.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democratic dilemmas: union democracy and union renewal

Author

Listed:
  • Kim Voss

    (Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, kimvoss@berkeley.edu)

Abstract

This article examines the academic debate over union democracy and compares it with recent research on union renewal in the United States. The juxtaposition reveals that revitalization in US unions has not happened in the ways assumed in the literature on union democracy. Rather than being largely a bottom-up process, revitalization has contained a strong element of centralism and coordination. I suggest that union democracy has too often been framed in singular terms, as only involving the curbing of the illegitimate accumulation of power by union leaders. Yet a key problem faced by unions today — how they might best aggregate the interests of diverse workers and represent new constituencies — is also fundamentally a democratic concern, one that can be addressed only by broadening our understanding of union democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim Voss, 2010. "Democratic dilemmas: union democracy and union renewal," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 16(3), pages 369-382, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:16:y:2010:i:3:p:369-382
    DOI: 10.1177/1024258910373868
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1024258910373868
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1024258910373868?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clyde W. Summers, 2000. "From Industrial Democracy to Union Democracy," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 21(1), pages 3-14, January.
    2. Robert Hickey & Sarosh Kuruvilla & Tashlin Lakhani, 2010. "No Panacea for Success: Member Activism, Organizing and Union Renewal," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 53-83, March.
    3. Paul Jarley & Jack Fiorito & John T. Delaney, 2000. "National Union Governance: An Empirically-Grounded Systems Approach," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 21(2), pages 227-246, April.
    4. Philip Taft, 1945. "Judicial Procedure in Labor Unions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 59(3), pages 370-385.
    5. Emanuel Stein, 1963. "The Dilemma of Union Democracy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 350(1), pages 46-54, November.
    6. Bruce E. Kaufman, 2000. "The Early Institutionalists on Industrial Democracy and Union Democracy," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 21(2), pages 189-209, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Kallas, 2023. "Retooling militancy: Labour revitalization and fixed‐duration strikes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 68-88, March.
    2. Jane PARKER & Ozan ALAKAVUKLAR, 2023. "Union collective action, social movement unionism and worker freedom in New Zealand," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 162(1), pages 147-170, March.
    3. Uwe Jirjahn, 2025. "Political Spillovers of Worker Representation: With or Without Workplace Democracy?," Research Papers in Economics 2025-02, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    4. Linda Briskin, 2011. "The militancy of nurses and union renewal," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(4), pages 485-499, November.
    5. Phil James & Joanna Karmowska, 2012. "Unions and migrant workers: strategic challenges in Britain," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 18(2), pages 201-212, May.
    6. Magdalena Bernaciak & Aurora Trif, 2023. "Multiple strategies but small gains: Trade union revitalization and power resources in Central Eastern Europe after 2008," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 29(1), pages 83-102, March.
    7. Adrien Thomas, 2017. "Conglomerate Unions and Transformations of Union Democracy," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(3), pages 648-671, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simon Pek, 2019. "Rekindling Union Democracy Through the Use of Sortition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 1033-1051, April.
    2. Melanie Simms, 2015. "Accounting for Greenfield Union Organizing Outcomes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 397-422, September.
    3. Jack Fiorito & Irene Padavic & Philip S. DeOrtentiis, 2015. "Reconsidering Union Activism and Its Meaning," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 556-579, September.
    4. Rémi Bourguignon & Karel Yon, 2018. "The Political Effects of Accounting Normalization on Trade Unions: An Analysis of Financial Transparency Reform in France," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 418-441, June.
    5. Linda Briskin, 2011. "The militancy of nurses and union renewal," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(4), pages 485-499, November.
    6. John Kallas, 2023. "Retooling militancy: Labour revitalization and fixed‐duration strikes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 68-88, March.
    7. Peter Fairbrother, 2015. "Rethinking trade unionism: Union renewal as transition," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 26(4), pages 561-576, December.
    8. Sébastien Gand & Mathias Béjean, 2013. "Organizing sustainable democratic firms: processes of regeneration as the design of new models of cooperation," Post-Print hal-00881721, HAL.
    9. Geraint Harvey & Andy Hodder & Stephen Brammer, 2017. "Trade union participation in CSR deliberation: an evaluation," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 42-55, January.
    10. Suzanne Muna, 2017. "Partners in protest: parents, unions and anti-academy campaigns," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 326-344, July.
    11. Stavros Drakopoulos & Ioannis Katselidis, 2014. "The Development of Trade Union Theory and Mainstream Economic Methodology," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 1133-1149, December.
    12. Gregor Gall & Jack Fiorito, 2012. "Union Commitment and Activism in Britain and the United States: Searching for Synthesis and Synergy for Renewal," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 50(2), pages 189-213, June.
    13. Vincent Pasquier & Thibault Daudigeos & Marcos Barros, 2020. "Towards a New Flashmob Unionism: The Case of the Fight for 15 Movement," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 336-363, June.
    14. Kim Moody, 2009. "The Direction of Union Mergers in the United States: The Rise of Conglomerate Unionism," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 676-700, December.
    15. Bradon Ellem & Caleb Goods & Patricia Todd, 2020. "Rethinking Power, Strategy and Renewal: Members and Unions in Crisis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 424-446, June.
    16. Jack Fiorito & Irene Padavic & Zachary Russell, 2014. "Union Beliefs and Activism: A Research Note," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 346-357, December.
    17. Jimmy Donaghey & Juliane Reinecke, 2018. "When Industrial Democracy Meets Corporate Social Responsibility — A Comparison of the Bangladesh Accord and Alliance as Responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 14-42, March.
    18. Monica Bielski Boris & Jeff Grabelsky, 2014. "Building Power Together: Union Support for Central Labour Bodies," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 682-704, December.
    19. Ann Cecilie Bergene & Cathrine Egeland, 2016. "Interventionism as a union strategy? The strategies of the Norwegian Nurses Organisation in relation to temporary agency work," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 22(4), pages 521-534, November.
    20. Ioannis A. Katselidis, 2019. "Institutions, Policy and the Labour Market: The Contribution of the Old Institutional Economics," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 8, pages 13-30, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Union democracy; labour revitalization;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:16:y:2010:i:3:p:369-382. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.