Interpretation, Meaning, and Worker Solidarity

Abstract

This article examines the construction of worker solidarity, using an analysis of two union certification election campaigns at similarly structured hospitals. At one hospital, workers voted overwhelmingly to unionize, while at the other hospital, workers rejected the union by a wide margin. Through the use of qualitative interviews, I explore factors that might account for the different outcomes. By focusing on micromobilization contexts, I unpack the interpretive process through which working class collective histories are understood and inflected with particular subjective meanings. Within these contexts, the dynamic interplay between the conditions of work, past cultural contexts, discourse, and collective action affected the way potential union supporters understood the meaning of the movement, and whether or not the union made sense as a vehicle for change. Workers came to understand the meaning of unionism based on the complex interplay between the structural conditions of the workplace, the cultural constructions of past labor-relations regimes, and the discourse and action of the organizing drive itself.

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