Sources of Legitimate Power in Polyarchic Trade Union Government

Abstract

The Webbs1 described how the growth of trade union membership resulted in a necessary change of administrative methods from that of the small group to that of bureaucracy, accompanied by an equally necessary change in democratic procedures from primitive democracy to representative democracy. Not only the Webbs but also Michels2 and others interpreted these trends as signalling the decline of trade union democracy and the growth in its place of trade union oligarchy. It is within this tradition that the debate on trade union government has been pursued. Work by Lipset et aP and by Allen4 tended to reinforce the view that trade unions would be oligarchic in all but exceptional circumstances. Later work has highlighted the considerable constraints on the 'iron law of oligarchy' in trade unions. Martin5 has suggested a framework for analyzing union democracy which stresses the constraints upon leaders to tolerate factions while Edelstein et al 6 have developed an elaborate electoral model of democracy which focuses on the success, rather than just existence, of opposition within unions. However, the debate between Martin and Edelstein seems to be a remarkably sterile one. One may agree with Martin that trade union government proceeds by a process of loose coalitions and soundings of opinion rather than by the either/or dichotomy of electoral closeness, but equally one may take Edelstein's point that factions can exist for years without success and this may make little contribution to democracy. As Cook7 suggests, the constraints on oligarchy are numerous and the attempt to account for democracy primarily in terms of one constraint or another is likely to be fruitless. The argument of this paper is that the failings of the democracy debate go deeper than the problem of identifying adequate measures of democracy or oligarchy. The difficulties stem from a model of government which emphasizes a dichotomy between a leadership and a membership. This model has been retained even in more recent work such as that of Child et a/,8 Hemingway,9 and Undy,10 which has otherwise avoided the limitations of a single measure of democracy. Most trade unions consist of a hierarchical structure of collectivities such as shop stewards' organizations, local or regional committees, trade groups and national executives. Activists are distributed throughout the union hierarchy and the simple dichotomy between leadership and rank and file is no longer tenable since a leadership of sorts occurs within each collectivity. Rather than oligarchic or democratic, this form of government may more aptly be referred to as polyarchic. This paper outlines the main features of a polyarchic process of government and attempts to identify the means whereby internal conflicts in trade unions are resolved. In so doing, a model of union government is proposed which takes some exploratory first steps away from the more usual model based on the democracy/oligarchy dichotomy.

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