Work Organization and Wildcat Strikes in the U.S. Automobile Industry, 1946 to 1963

After World War II, U.S. auto workers waged wildcat strikes within an institutional structure that outlawed such strikes and mobilized considerable resources to crush them. I specify and test a theory that locates the source of these wildcat strikes in a distinctive type of labor process. This labor process forced workers to coordinate their moment-by-moment activities to accomplish immediate work tasks. It generated group-level commitment to common work goals and created workgroup solidarity. This pre-existing solidarity enabled workers to mobilize effectively a commitment to wildcat action. I use logistic regression models to test this workgroup-solidarity thesis against hypotheses derived from alternative theoretical frameworks. Results strongly support the workgroup-solidarity thesis