Caraway 2008

Caraway, Teri. 2008. "Explaining the Dominance of Legacy Unions in New Democracies". Comparative Political Studies. 41 (10): 1371-1397.

• Legacy unions
• (previously) state-backed unions inherited from a non-democratic regime
• support comes from state, not from membership
• Democratization usually results in freedom of association, more ifor legacy unions
• most legacy unions ride on inherited advantages rather than adopting deep internal reforms
• inducements = legacies
• switching unions isn’t just a secret ballot, but risks losing workers’ job!
• legacies erode over time, however
• inclusionary versus exclusionary corporatism
• do rival unions have to poach (former), or organize the unorganized (latter)
• transition context also important
• weak economies make organizing more difficult (opposite in strong)
• nature of union competition
• competition fragmented? good for legacy unions
• new unions can’t deliver benefits to members?  good for legacy unions
• partisan links
• legacy unions have large numbers of members = attractive
• but if other unions able to get lots of members, they also become attractive

		Inherited advantages
		Many	Few
Transition context	Favorable	Carrots and Sticks	Carrots, Sticks, and Reform
	Unfavorable	Carrots, Sticks, and Reform	Reform

• Sticks
• protection unions: leave union, lose job!
• close relationship with management
• outright intimidation (Indonesia example)
• Carrots
• can offer resources to members that other unions can’t match
• close to centers of power, have seats on labor courts, office buildings, etc.
• Reform
• allows unions to retain existing members and recruit new members as well
• democracy:
• direct election of union president
• voting rights for plant-level unions in union congresses
• true test is not whether rules have changed, but if oligarchy has been dislodged