Psychology, Unions, and The Law: Folk Models and the History of Shrimpers' Unions in Mississippi

Abstract

Folk models hold that shrimpers on the Gulf Coast are too psychologically independent to band together for sustained collective action. In Mississippi, unions were ineffective while packers' schooners supplied their own shrimp. When shrimpers began trawling in their own motor boats in the 1930s, they began to control the supply of shrimp and their unions were effective. In the 1950s, when they borrowed heavily to buy gulf boats and processors began importing shrimp, shrimpers again lost control of the supply of shrimp and their unions became ineffective. At the same time, they were outlawed. The lack of unions is not a consequence of shrimper psychology, but of the law and relative control of resources.

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