Insurgency, Radicalism, and Democracy in America's Industrial Unions

Contrary to the theory that oligarchy in labor unions is an immanent necessity of organization, we argue that oligarchy is no more immanent or necessary than democracy. Rather, both are alternative possible paths of union development. Which path a union takes is determined by relatively contingent political struggles among workers' parties, and by both the resultant pattern of internal political relations and the political consciousness, radical or conservative, of their leadership. Analysis of data on CIO international unions reveals that the strategy and practices involved in organizing them, internal factionalism, and their political camp - left, right, or center - had substantial independent effects in determining the odds that, as of the late 1940s, they were democratic or oligarchical