Lévesque, Christian, and Gregor Murray. 2010. "Understanding union power: resources and capabilities for renewing union capacity". Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research. 16 (3): 333-350.
- “The historical foundations of union power are shifting” (334) thanks to globalization
- strategies for union renewal must be focused on power (335)
- Thinking Union Power
- resources are understood as fixed or path-dependent assets that an actor can normally access and mobilize (335)
- also need actor capabilities
- and need a combination of resources and capabilities: the tools and the people to use them (336)
- a full account of union power would include:
- union capacity (power resources and actor capabilities)
- institutional arrangements in which the actors operate
- particular opportunity structures
- the capacity of other actors in these sets of relationships
- (the article focuses on union capacity only)
- POWER RESOURCES
- 4 types: internal solidarity, network embeddedness, narrative resources, and infrastructural resources
- Internal Solidarity
- ((cohesive identities, though many say these have become less salient with new identity politics (336, 337)))
- features:
- cohesive collective identity
- deliberative vitality
- links between members, other groups
- active participation of members
- Network embeddedness
- Structural change (globalization...my word) in labor and product markets creates new sources of division between workers/unemployed of all stripes (338)
- Solidarity is built through horizontal and vertical links within and between unions and the community (338)
- trade unions integrated into a larger network are more likely to develop and promote their own agenda (339)
- two dimensions of network embeddedness (339):
- diversity
- extent to which a union is either isolated, connected to other unions (homogenous network), or connected to many different types of organizations (heterogenous networks)
- density = strength of ties with networks
- strong, deep ties are great, but weaker ones may come in handy in certain situations...further research needs to be done on the latter contention
- Narrative resources
- the stories, values that aggregates identities and interests (339)
- Infrastructural Resources
- material and human resources, and organizational practices, policies and programs (340)
- dimensions:
- different ways a union can generate material resources
- dues
- from Mexican experience (outside of paper) state coffers
- people/human resources
- are specialists available in “bridge institutions” (Ganz et al. 2004)
- talents of members
- organizational practices
- change the organizational setup, change (increase?) ability to get infrastructural resources
- STRATEGIC CAPABILITIES
- 4 important strategic capabilities: intermediation, framing, articulating, and learning capabilities (341)
- Intermediation
- ability of a union to mediate between contending interets
- ability to foster collaborative action
- ability to access, create, and activate salient social networks by managing intra-and inter-union channels and by fostering relationships with other networks/groups
- Framing
- “the ability to put forward an agenda that can be more or less inclusive and can be part of a broader social project” (343)
- Articulation
- determining the different levels of action necessary and acting across these levels and through time (343)
- Learning
- learn from teh past and present, change the organization to deal with, anticipate future changes
- make sure learning is done by all members of union, not just leaders (344)
- Hyman (2007): learning is essential to adaptation and innovation, otherwise leaders fall back on familiar strategies (344)
- learning is thus critical to the renewal process (345)
- Conclusion
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