The Making of Union Democracy

The Making of Union DemocracyAuthor(s): Judith Stepan-NorrisSource: Social Forces, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Dec., 1997), pp. 475-510Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2580721 .

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The Making of Union Democracy*

JUDITH STEPAN-NORRIS, University of California

Abstract

Lipset, Trow and Coleman argue that the possibilitiesfor significant and widespread union democracy in labor unions are slight. They base their pessimism on their understanding of where democracy is likely to develop: in unions with highly skilled and highly paid workers, with moderately sized units, and with autonomous subunits. Autonomous subunits are likely to develop only in small-scale and not highly rationalized industries. Here I reexamine the bases for this pessimism by comparing the highly democratic International Typographical Union with United Automobile Workers Local 600, which displayed equally impressive levels of democracy, but entirely different structural andpolitical characteristics. This historical and comparative analysis isfollowed by an in-depth empirical analysis of the political processes within Local 600. The latterfinds that while unionfactions based on Communist-influenced ideology acted as a boost to union democracy(measured here by the level of electoral contention),factions based on the more conservative Association of Catholic Trade Unionists acted to suppress high levels of electoral contention. Hence, factionalism's impact on union democracy depends in part on the ideological orientation driving it.

The raison d'etre of labor unions is to democratize industrial relations, that is, to give ordinary workers a voice in determining the conditions that shape their work lives. Yet as American unions grew during the 1940s and 1950s and themselves became large-scale organizations both academics and government officials scrutinized their internal practices. In particular, they sought to determine if unions were internally democratic and therefore representative of workers' views and concerns, or if they were oligarchic and reflected the interests of top union officials.

*I am gratefulfor constructive comments on earlier versions of this article by Francesca Cancian, Deborah Kaplan, Quan Nguyen, Caleb Southworth, David Smith, Maurice Zeitlin, and two anonymous Social Forces referees. This work was funded in part by research grants from the School of Social Sciences at UCI. Direct all correspondence to Judith Stepan-Norris, Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100. E-mail: [email protected].

? The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, December 1997, 76(2):475-5 10



476 / Social Forces 76:2, December 1997

Such concerns came to the fore during the 1950s, when organized labor was at its peak and waned with the precipitous decline in union membership. The focus of late has been on the decline and possible irrelevance of unions (Brody 1991; Drucker 1982).

Yet unions remain the most important representatives of working people's class interests, and their existence continues to contribute to societal democracy (Lipset 1981). Moreover, it has been argued that union democracy contributes to union survival and success by enhancing efficiency (leaders in democratic unions have a greater understanding of the members' priorities), recruiting and training unpaid leaders, fostering a sense of commitment to the union (which is necessary for successful strikes), and making the union more attractive during organizing drives (Strauss 1991).

This article reconsiders the issue of union democracy by taking an in-depth look at the political processes within "the biggest local union in the world:" United Automobile Workers Local 600, organized at the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Local 600's extraordinary level of democracy allows us to consider additional supports to democratic systems. I examine the 1940s through the mid 1980s for the local-level analysis and the late 1940s through the late 1950s for the internal (unit-level) analysis.

UNION DEMOCRACY CONCEPTUALIZED AND MEASURED

This article tailors the concept of democracy to address the issue of union democracy.1 It recognizes constitutional rights and guarantees as a crucial foundation for the achievement of democracy. Rights that together provide the necessary groundwork for union democracy include political rights that ensure equality of the franchise and equal access to public office, personal civil rights specifying security of the person, the right to a fair trial and the prohibition of unreasonable searches, and societal civil rights (rights of association) guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly (Dahl 1971; Neumann 1957; Rueschemeyer, Stephens & Stephens 1992; Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin 1996a). Still, while the existence of such clauses in union constitutions provide the possibility for democracy, they never ensure it. Factors crucial for democratic functioning include the extent and quality of membership participation and especially the extent to which organized opposition is empowered and legitimized or at least tolerated by the absence of retaliatory measures.

In their attempts to measure union democracy, researchers have relied on two main approaches. The "legalistic" approach focuses on formal measures, including constitutional structures (Cook 1963; Edelstein & Warner 1976; Leiserson 1959), powers of the top leadership (Kovner 1952; Taft 1948) and civil and political rights guaranteed to individual and minority members in union constitutions (ACLU 1952; Cook 1963; Shister 1945; Zeitlin & Stepan-Norris 1992). The behavioral approach, in contrast, focuses on the existence of an institutional opposition (Lipset



The Making of Union Democracy / 477

et al. 1956) and the extent to which such opposition (if in fact one exists) is effective in keeping leaders accountable to members (Strauss 1991:207-208).2

The behavioral approach normally assesses accountability by the amount of contention in union elections. It is argued that "the need to pass through the gauntlet of a periodic election makes [the leader] more responsive to the will of his [sic] constituents" (Taft 1944:264). Close elections are thought to result from "competition among contenders of equal status, power, and reputation, which is resolved by an electorate formally subdivided into potential supporters (e.g., regions) of equal electoral strength, under voting systems that ameliorate rather than exaggerate any structurally produced inequalities" (Edelstein & Warner 1976:66, emphasis in original). Edelstein and Warner have shown that these two main ways of measuring democracy - constitutional structures and contentious elections -are highly related. It is also generally agreed that membership participation is relevant for, if not related to, democracy (Edelstein & Warner 1976; Strauss 1991; Tannenbaum & Kahn 1958). Still, some argue that high levels of participation do not necessarily indicate a high level of democracy because, as Lipset, Trow and Coleman (1956:11) contend, "dictatorships also find participation useful."3

Though focusing mainly on sustained opposition, this analysis submits that all three aspects - constitutional guarantees, the realization of sustained opposition, and participation - contribute essential components to democratic union systems.

UNION DEMOCRACY AS THE EXCEPTION?

In 1944, Taft (1944:260) identified the International Typographical Union (ITU) in contrast to "virtually all unions in the United States" with regard to its effective two-party system, for which he documents 44 years of contentious presidential elections. In Union Democracy, published in 1956, Lipset et al. set out to explain the ITU as an anomaly, and conclude that democracy is not likely in the average labor union. Since the publication of this work, no other comparable U.S. case has been documented. Edelstein and Warner's analysis of closeness in periodic elections between 1949 and 1966 (which was confined to international unions with referendum elections of their presidents) in both the U.S. and Great Britain found relatively low levels of contention.4 But they find substantial democracy in some unions and locate democratic potential in constitutionally defined structures that disperse power.

Others have found evidence of sporadic union democracy. For example, Cornfield (1989) found that the turnover among the general executive board of the Furniture Workers Union was relatively high in the union's formative period, low in its period of stability, and higher (although not as high as in the formative period) during the union's period of decline. Similarly, Craig and Gross (1970) found recurrent periods of electoral contention followed by long periods of uncontested elections in the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.5




There is a qualitative difference between unions that are able to sustain democracy uninterrupted and those that appear to be democratic only periodically. When thinking of the determinants of democracy in voluntary organizations, we should distinguish between the cases of sustained and intermittent democracy. While the cases of the sustained are more likely to be based in ever present structures, the intermittent may be based on more historically contingent, sporadic, or changing internal and external conditions. Or it might be that some combination of the two could result in sustained democracy, especially when the contingent conditions supportive of democracy are operative during the unions' organizing period.

In this analysis, I compare democracy in UAW Local 600 with democracy in the famed ITU.6 Local 600 is the only known U.S. case with comparable size and levels of sustained electoral contention.7 This is a significant find in that it allows us to ponder the structural bases of such high levels of democracy, given an additional set of structures and historical conditions. Yet because the case was not revealed through a systematic comparison of many cases, the utility of the ITU- Local 600 comparison is suggestive rather than definitive. The internal unit comparison, described below, allows more systematic analysis.

Analysis proceeds on two levels. After a description of Lipset et al.'s theory of democracy, its implications and a discussion of some possible alternative factors involved in supporting democratic systems, I present a comparative historical examination of UAW Local 600's constitutional structure and factional system vis- a-vis those present in the ITU. Second, I focus on an empirical analysis of the closeness of elections within Local 600 subunits.8 This analysis seeks to deepen our understanding of the roles of two alternative factors in union democracy - radicalism and factions based on outside organizations - while holding the structural variables constant. The analysis uses contingency analysis and multiple regression to provide a relative assessment of the influence of various political ideologies as well as two "outside" organizations, the Communist Party (CP) and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (ACTU), on union democracy, as measured by closeness in elections.

Contrary to the Lipset et al. hypothesis, I argue that radical ideology and factionalism based on outside organizations can indeed provide long-term9 structural support for democratic functioning within environments that have been defined as not conducive to democracy. Further, I suggest that when factions are based on ideological differences, the content of the ideas that they represent is crucial for maintaining worker interest and participation. Factions are bigger boosts to democracy when they offer workers real choices that resonate with their interests.




Theories of Union Democracy

Lipset et al. begin with Michels "Iron Law of Oligarchy," which posits that it is the complexity and size of organizations that inevitably necessitate a division of labor between the leaders and the led, thereby giving rise to oligarchy. This cynical view emphasizes the increasing centralization of power at the top in large-scale bureaucracies and the resulting apathy of members. Leaders grow to expect their privileged styles of life and become increasingly reluctant to release their leadership positions. Their monopoly of both communication channels and leadership development allows them to perpetuate their control.

In response to Michels, Lipset et al. based their theory of democracy on three basic propositions. The first, drawn from Aristotle, suggests that democracy can only exist in a predominantly middle-class society. This implies that union democracy will be greatest where members' incomes and security are high and where the status gap between the leaders and members is not great. The second is that democracy works best in small units, where direct participation is possible. And the third and most important proposition is that democracy is supported when members are organized into structured subgroups, which provide autonomous centers of power. Autonomous centers of power create the conditions necessary for opposition by providing: forums where new ideas are generated; communication networks; training opportunities for potential leaders; opportunities to get individuals involved; and independent groups outside of the control of the administration which are capable of forming an opposition. In order for democracy to function, it is important that legitimacy (or at least tolerance) is accorded to that opposition.

So democracy "necessarily rests on a multitude of independent organizations" (Lipset et al. 1956:80), which have considerable power vis-a-vis the central administration. These subunits provide the basis for factions (or parties) and resulting contested elections. The ITU's two-party system and the high level of electoral contention that it fostered are explained by the unions autonomous chapel system, and its extensive network of voluntary organizations that made possible a printers' occupational community. Together, these created a situation where there was support for organized sources of power outside the administration, in contrast to the average large trade union with only the union leadership apparatus on the one hand and a mass of atomized individual members on the other.

The autonomy of the chapel system was possible in the ITU, Lipset et al. argue, due to the unique structure of the printing industry and the political structure and process of the printers' union. Because of the print industry's small scale and unique character, its industry employers did not demand the rational and predictable union behavior that was necessary in large-scale industries. Thus, printers' unions have had the luxury to give autonomy to their chapels. In contrast, the auto industry is a highly rationalized system in which individual production processes are interrelated, thereby requiring bureaucratic and centralized union leadership (Lipset




et al. 1956). The unique structure of the printing industry also provides a workforce that was more highly skilled: printers shared in common high income and status levels. This factor is important because it avoids the usual conflict between individual's expectations for rising mobility and the norms of union democracy (which necessitate stepping down when voted out of office) and also nourishes the development of informal networks (Lipset et al. 1956:404).

The printers' occupational community, which is central to understanding ITU democracy, is, according to Lipset et al. (1956:69), "scarcely less striking, and as unique among American unions" as its two-party system. And what is most significant about this vast network of voluntary organizations is that it has no formal connection with the union. Because the chance that other groups of workers could develop such a network is slim, the authors are pessimistic about the possibilities for union democracy in other times and places (1956:405).

Edelstein (1967), in contrast, has convincingly argued that supports for democracy can be found within unions' formal structures. Elections tend to be closer where the major subunits are large, autonomous, more equal in their voting strength, and have more full-time officials under their own control. Factors that contribute to close elections are the existence of intermediate levels between the organization and its subunits, powerful national committees, a higher percentage of elected full-time officials, more levels of elected officers, narrow status gaps between adjacent high offices, and a hierarchy with two or more officers of the same rank at each level.

If the criteria outlined by Lipset et al. are necessary preconditions for democracy, we should expect the majority of industrial (Congress of Industrial Organizations [CIO]) unions to be oligarchic since they are necessarily organized along the same lines as the highly rationalized and centralized industries from which they sprang. And on the whole, we should expect American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions to be more democratic than CIO unions since they share more characteristics conducive to democracy. Yet the McClellan Committee's hearings (1958:176) during the 1950s revealed pervasive abuses in several AFL unions and very little in CIO unions. Other evidence indicates that during the 1940s, CIO unions were much less likely than AFL unions to have centralized power structures and were less discriminatory in their admissions criteria than were AFL unions (Stepan- Norris & Zeitlin 1996a; Summers 1946; Taft 1948). Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin (1996a) found that during the same time period, the overwhelming majority (about 70%) of CIO unions had highly or moderately democratic constitutions. What accounts for these findings that suggest that CIO unions were more democratic than AFL unions, when it was AFL members who supposedly worked in settings more conducive to the development of both occupational communities and subunits with autonomous centers of power? Perhaps factionalism, based on left and centrist10 ideologies that animated the CIO during this period, provided the support for its early democracy.




"Faction is the life blood of [union] democracy" (Martin 1968:207; see also Magrath 1959:505) in that it "provides an active guardianship of membership interests"(McConnell 1958:604). Although the institutionalized two-party system is, for the most part, unique to the ITU, Lipset et al. concede that factional systems, which may perform the same functions as formal political parties, developed in the early histories of several CIO unions. Yet, they claim, these factional systems did not develop into full-fledged party systems because the sources of power that supported them in mass production industries were not enduring (1956). Large- scale industries, and especially the highly rationalized automobile industry, put their "organizational stamp on the unions with which they deal, and rarely do their structures allow room for the administrative decentralization and shop and local autonomy that we find in the ITU"(1956:146). Temporary factional systems could not provide the stability of a party system where incumbents challenge the administration "continuously, in good times and bad" (Lipset et al. 1956:244).

Although most of the early CIO factional systems did dissolve, it is not clear that this was due to mass production industries' "organizational stamp." Coincident with the disappearance of CIO factionalism was its officials' decision, as the Cold War dawned, to expel eleven "Communist-dominated" unions from its ranks. The CIO expulsion, which worked in concert with state intervention (see Caute 1978), eliminated the left-wing unions, many of which had internal opposition factions, and it also set in motion the largely successful drive to rid the CIO of Communist factions in non-Communist unions, thereby eliminating the embodiment of opposition politics. What were the consequences of this purge?

Research indicates that factionalism makes a difference for democracy. Edelstein and Warner (1976) conducted an empirical study of union democracy and compared closeness in U.S. and British union elections. They found that opposition in important elections was "more frequent and successful than many observers would have thought possible in trade unions" (112). Although factionalism was not common in U.S. unions during the period of their study, it had begun to reemerge by the end of their period, and was more extensive than in British unions.11 Edelstein and Warner suggest that perhaps factionalism contributed to a higher level of democracy than they had predicted for the U.S. unions (1976).

Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin (1996a; see also Zeitlin & Stepan-Norris 1992) found that the presence of factions in CIO unions during the 1940s was related to lower levels of union centralization, less restrictive admissions policies, and to constitutional democracy. They also find that factionalism itself is not born full blown, but rather, results from the intraclass struggles involved in the unions' organizing processes. Given the history of Communist involvement in the labor movement, it is no surprise that factionalism arose when Communists participated.'2 Most CIO factionalism during the 1940s set the Communists and their allies against the anti-Communists. But Lipset et al. (1956) disregarded the possibility that Communists could run democratic unions: "Communist ideology does not tolerate the existence of an organized opposition, so that any rise to power




by Communists also means an attempt to destroy the opposition" (248).13 Hence, they rejected the idea that CIO factionalism could enhance union democracy.

It may sound incredible that Communist unionists could provide the basis for democratic unionism because Communists, it has been extensively argued, follow totalitarian methods that are directly at odds with democratic procedures (Taft 1948; Lipset et al. 1956; Pitzele 1947; U.S. Chamber of Commerce 1947). This is why Taft, when he found that Communist-led unions were more likely to have decentralized power structures, sardonically asked, "Does the absence of a strong executive make political domination easier, in that it eliminates the possibility of the defection of the chief officer changing the policy of the union?" (1948:460-461).14 In this way, he disregarded his own finding that CIO Communist unionists were more democratic.

Although Lipset et al. rejected the possibility of democratic unions with powerful Communist factions, they don't disregard the role of radical ideology in supporting democracy. Lipset, following Gouldner (1947) has argued that leaders who adhere to socialist ideology tend to view their union positions as "callings" rather than as careers. Whereas leaders with callings may be no more democratic in practice, "they are often more accessible to the membership, more aggressive in their tactics, more concerned with violations of a union ethic of service to the membership, and have greater personal integrity" (Lipset 1960:234). But, he continues, Socialists and other radicals are more likely than Communists to exert such behavior.

As noted above, Communists represented the most active outside group involved in internal CIO politics. It has been noted that involvement by outside organizations in internal union (or other organizational) politics may have positive effects on internal democracy. For, "an opposition party with finances or motivation provided by outside groups and loyalties, such as the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists or various radical political parties, could perhaps by itself offer sufficient competition to the administration's control of the organs of information and opinion"(Lipset et al. 1956:104). Similarly, Craig and Gross (1970), in seeking to understand recurrent periods of electoral contention followed by long periods of uncontested elections in the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, reasoned that democratic potential cannot be exclusively located in permanent organizational characteristics. Rather, they propose a "forum theory of internal democracy" which suggests that when organizations remain open to outside organizational or party influences, they are likely to experience periodic electoral contention. They add that the mechanism of forum provision may be "rather widespread' and note that political organizations, such as the Communist Party, have provided such input in the past. Duverger agrees, in his study of political parties, that "even totalitarian parties, like the Communist Party, make a contribution in some countries to the existence of democracy" (1959:425).

Given that recent research casts doubt on the one-sided view of U.S. Communist union leadership (see Keeran 1980; Kimeldorf 1988; Prickett 1975; Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin 1991, 1995, 1996a; Zeitlin & Stepan-Norris 1992), we may consider the




possibility that Communist Party members, by forming factions, contributed to union democracy. Further, if we assume that Communists and their allies exhibited some of the same traits attributed to other radicals, they may have lent further support for union democracy. So despite the U.S. Communist Party's highly contentious rhetoric and its defense of Stalinism, did rank and file Communists working within the CIO (with the backing and support of the Party) make such a contribution?

The Case of UAW Local 600

This analysis takes an in-depth look at UAW Local 600 where factionalism, Communist leadership, and a mass production industry setting resulted not in oligarchy, but a high, if not extraordinary, level of union democracy. It had a "Progressive Caucus,' led by Communists and non-Communist progressives and a "Right Wing Caucus," backed by the executive officers of the UAW international union and by the ACTU. These caucuses functioned, in all but name, as an institutionalized political party system. The caucuses, active year round, elected their own officers and executive boards and held meetings fairly regularly (Moore 1994).

Local 600 represented auto workers at the largest industrial plant in the world; postwar employment ranged in the mid to high 60,000s but began to decline after 1950 due to the Ford Motor Company's decentralization plan (see Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin 1996b). Employment in 1952 was roughly 50,000. The Rouge complex represented Henry Ford's attempt to bring together in one plant all the operations necessary to produce automobiles. As many as 20 different building units, each of which had a distinct operation,'5 comprised the Ford complex.

LOCAL 600'S CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE

Once the UAW won bargaining rights at Ford in 1941, organizers from both political camps proceeded to set up an elaborate and sophisticated formal union government that democratically reflected the Rouge production system..6 Local 600 activists consciously devised a system of autonomous units, each with its own by-laws, to "give a full measure of self-government to each Unit within the confines of Local #600" (Ford Local 600 By-Laws Committee 1942:14). So the local, like the production facility, was internally divided into approximately 20 building units, each of which elected its own representatives. Political contention characterized both local and unit-level politics. Units varied in their political and social makeups: some favored the Progressive Caucus, others the Right Wing Caucus, and still others remained mixed, independent, or intermittently supported the various caucuses.




At the local level, union members elected a president, vice president, recording secretary, financial secretary, sergeant-at-arms, guide, and three trustees yearly (except for the trustees, who were elected every one, two and three years). Each unit also elected its own set of nine officers as well as a unit executive board (consisting of at least 15 members), a unit council (which had anywhere from 15 to 100 members), and a large number of unit and department committeemen.17

Local 600's Executive Board was composed of its seven top officers in addition to the chairmen of each of the building units. It met at least twice a month and was authorized to carry out union business "between meetings of the General Council, subject to the approval of the General Council" (Ford Local 600 By-Laws Committee 1942:12).

The General Council was designated the highest governing body of the local.'8 It consisted of a proportional number of elected members from each autonomous building unit (in 1947 it had 209 delegates ["General Council Allocation of Delegates" 1947]). The President of the Local served as chairman of the General Council and the Local's general officers served as its officers. The chairman of each unit was automatically a delegate to the Council, and in addition, each unit elected one delegate for every 400 union members or fraction thereof. It met at least once a month, and special meetings could be called by a two thirds vote of the council, a majority of the Executive Board, the President, or at the request of 25% of the delegates representing 25% of the units. Hence, the General Council, the Local's highest governing body, was decentralized and guaranteed proportional representation to each of the units.

Because Local 600 constituted the General Council as its highest governing body, the major decisions of the local rested in the hands of over 200 delegates representing the units. The local president became relatively powerless in the face of opposition control of the Council. This is evident by the remarks of frustrated ACTU activists who recalled the consequences of earlier left-wing control of the Council: "It is fresh in all of our minds of what happened the last time the General Council went left wing. Thousands of dollars were sent to foreign governments and additional thousands of dollars went in the coffers of various commie-front organizations. Any such repeat performance in the event [Carl Stellato, the President of Local 600 at the time] loses control of the Council would seriously jeopardize Local 600 as well as the rest of the UAW' (ACTU, n.d.:1-2). The General Council could not be controlled from the top.

This elaborate local government involved a minimum of 700 elected officials plus over 200 committeemen. In this environment, political rivalry thrived and member participation was heightened. This participation was reflected in high levels of Local election turnout19 and close elections. Ford Rouge workers were alert and involved in their union, as the Local's then Recording Secretary William H. Johnson (U.S. Congress 1954:5278) told the House Un-American Activities Committee in Detroit: "We have always congratulated ourselves on the fact that we think we have perhaps the most wide awake group of rank-and-file members in our union and




in any comparable union anywhere in the world." This is particularly important since as Communist labor leader, William Z. Foster (1947:252) accurately noted years ago: "Correct constitutional laws alone will not insure a union's being democratic, for in the last analysis this depends upon the alertness and political development of the membership."

The Local constitution, like that of its parent union, was careful to include comprehensive due process procedures for members against whom charges had been made. Such strict procedures oftentimes frustrated opponents of the Communists. The ACTU, in the midst of its attempt to rid the union of its Communist influence, expressed barely hidden dismay over the Local's democratic procedures: "The Union's democratic procedures guaranteed under its constitution which give all the breaks to the defendants and put the entire onus on the accusers is a guaranteed bar against railroading anyone out of the Union or out of office. In fact, if these defendants are found guilty [of subservience to the Communist Party] they can only be removed from their Union positions and not from their jobs. The Taft-Hartley law protects the commies from loss of their jobs if nothing else does"(ACTU, N.D.:2). Of course, these same due process procedures also protected right-wing members and leaders.

Local 600's structure conforms to Edelstein's idea of a formal democratic system, with its substantial subunit autonomy, multiple layers of elected positions and administration, an abundance of elected officials, heightened member participation, and sufficient due process. Nevertheless, it is unanticipated by Lipset et al.'s theory, which predicts that formal subunit autonomy would be unlikely due to the structure of the auto industry and the fact that the average size of the units is larger than optimal for democracy. Furthermore, it suggests that the status gap between leaders and the led is such that oligarchy would be favored.

The social distance between leaders and led has been emphasized as a major factor in the development of-oligarchy (Lipset et al. 1956; Michels 1962). Michels (1962:207) argues that status gaps motivate leaders to perpetuate their positions: leaders representing manual workers quickly lose their aptitude for their former occupations. "For them, the loss of their positions would be a financial disaster, and in most cases it would be altogether impossible for them to return to their ordinary way of life." Social distance is also widened when officers experience a more palatable day-to-day working life, as auto union officials do.

Anderson (1978) found that local union presidential salaries over $5,000 in 1978 were associated with less frequent turnover and less contentious elections. The president of Local 600 was paid $5,000 in 1941, and the Vice President, Recording Secretary and Financial Secretary each received $4,500. At this time, Ford skilled workers earned approximately $3,016 per year and the semi- and unskilled workers, $2,392. Given that Local 600 officer salaries in 1941 were equivalent to approximately $23,000 in 1978 (the year of Anderson's study),




Anderson's findings lead us to predict low levels of officer turnover for these top local positions.

But the situation with unit officers is less clear. Their salaries were set by the pay that they received in the shop before they were elected. Therefore, their salaries were held in line with those of the workers they represented. This policy tended to reduce the status gap. Still, unit officers were able to escape routine factory work. Presidents were completely off their regular jobs and the other officers were allowed to leave their jobs to attend to union business as necessary. Officers, then, were privileged in their alternative work duties, especially their ability to break from routine factory work. This made union office, especially the position of unit president, highly desired. So Local 600 developed a democratic system despite a relatively large status gap between leaders and members.

Lipset et al. would also predict that the relatively low skill level of auto work and the heterogeneous nature of the workforce would mitigate the development of an occupational community. The local did have an extensive network of extracurricular activities, and a social system that resembled an occupational community, but activities were organized through the local's athletic director, and thus was not formally independent of the leadership.

The Role of Outside Organizations

External groups such as Communist, Trotskyist, Catholic, Masonic, and others served to further the diffusion of power within the Local. Communists had a long history of participation in the local, commencing in the 1920s, when the Party targeted the Rouge as its "concentration point." First through the Trade Union Unity League's (TUUL), Auto Workers Union (AWU), and later through an AFL-affiliated federal local union, Communists remained prominent in Rouge organizing efforts. By 1941, when the joint UAW-CIO organizing drive finally succeeded in organizing the plant, 150-250 Communists worked in the plant and were organized into "stable clubs in all the Rouge's major buildings" (Saperstein 1977:29). According to Saul Wellman, who headed the Communist Party's Michigan Auto Section in the post-WWII period, the Party had approximately 450 members organized into clubs within the units during 1947-50.

While the Communist Party provided the ideological and organizational support for the Rouge Progressive Caucus, the ACTU, which was also active in the local's organizing drive, supported the Right Wing Caucus. These and other outside groups provided crucial funding and other support to opposition caucuses and provided Rouge workers with opportunities to develop their leadership skills. Outside organizations also contributed to open channels of communication, which are necessary for democracy. Three outside newspapers provided information to Rouge workers concerning their local affairs: The Daily Worker, the official organ




of the Communist Party, which was often distributed at the Rouge gates, The Wage Earner (formerly The Labor Leader), produced weekly by the Detroit chapter of the ACTU; and The Militant published weekly by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In addition to these, several Detroit ethnic groups published their own papers, which frequently commented on Rouge internal politics. The Polish newspaper "Glos Ludowy" was probably the most important of these. The nature of the local's paper, "Ford Facts," which was distributed to all members weekly, also contributed greatly to open communication channels. Because some of the units were led by right, and others by left-wing leaders, each caucus had regular access to publish its news and views in the unit chairmen's regular columns. In addition, during election time, Rouge candidates, caucuses, and building units printed numerous newsletters and pamphlets outlining candidates platforms and election promises.

LOCAL 600's TWO-CAUCUS SYSTEM20

A defacto two-party system with the Progressive Caucus on the one side and the Right Wing Caucus on the other operated in Local 600. The caucuses competed for electoral support in the multitude of local positions. Electoral contention was so intense that it was only after the UAW administratorship over Local 600 in 195221 ended, and local members strongly rejected any further international union interference in their affairs, that "a candidate for President received a majority vote from every unit at Rouge" (Ford Facts 1953:4).

This extraordinary level of electoral contention is evident when reviewing the local's elections. For the twenty-five elections between 1942 and 1984 the runner up in the presidential race received an average of 48 votes for every 100 received by the winner (see Table 1). This is somewhat lower than the ITU average of 62.5 (for the years 1898-42), yet the difference is accounted for by the existence in Local 600 elections of an average of over 3 contenders (which, of course, took votes away from the runner up) whereas ITU elections were strictly two party battles (with a few exceptions). An average of 62.3% of the vote went to the Local 600 presidential winner, as opposed to 64.1% in the ITU. Thus, Local 600 Presidential races between 1942 and 1984 were comparable to, if not more contentious than, those of the ITU during its heyday, 1898 through 1942.

The races for next-to-top offices were also as close in Local 600 as they were in the ITU: winners received an average of 60.5% of the vote in ITU, and 64.4% in Local 600 elections. Again, Local 600 elections generally consisted of more than two candidates, whereas ITU elections most often consisted of two candidates.

As mentioned above, Lipset et al.'s definition of democracy requires that the opposition forces are accorded legitimacy and tolerance. One chance to observe the legitimacy accorded the Progressive Caucus by the Right Wing Caucus is during the period when the international union put an administratorship over the local, with the aim of eliminating Communist candidates from eligibility for office in the Local. In this context, the international was, in effect, aiding the Right Wing




TABLEA 1: Closeness of Union Presidential Elections: UAW Local 600 1942- 1984 and ITU 1898-1942

UAW Local 600 ITU Num. Total Votes to Percent Num. Total Votes to Percent Candi- Votes Runner-up Vote to Candi- Votes Runner-up Vote to

Year dates Cast /100 Winner Winner Year dates cast /100 Winner Winner

1942 7 45,269 1 10.Oa 33.0 1898 4 19,076 59.3 58.6 1944 3 30,000 65.0 50.9 1900 2 23,759 67.9 59.6 1945 3 26,227 87.0 48.7 1902 2 27,765 34.6 74.3 1946 2 25,657 54.5 64.7 1904 2 33,505 66.7 60.0 1947 5 31,578 34.4 66.3 1906 (1) 24,420 0.0 100.0 1948 4 30,125 61.2b 44.3 1908 2 34,447 63.4 61.2 1949 5 44,391 62.3 56.8 1910 2 37,833 72.0 58.1 1950 5 37,194 94.9b 38.2 1912 2 43,169 79.5 55.6 1951 4 37,871 55.6b 48.4 1914 (1) 33,921 0.0 100.0 1952 (1) 22,898 0.0 85.9 1916 (1) 37,127 0.0 100.0 1953 3 35,749 41.7 64.8 1918 2 41,997 56.0 64.0 1955 3 35,375 17.3 79.9 1920 2 55,184 94.9 51.3 1957 6 32,994 15.8 73.6 1922 2 52,971 84.2 54.3 1959 3 27,572 56.1 60.8 1924 2 56,153 91.0 52.3 1961 4 26,399 84.4 51.7 1926 2 58,552 93.2 51.7 1963 3 25,773 98.4b 49.6 1928 2 58,001 56.5 63.9 1965 2 30,061 86.3 53.7 1930 3 47,576 39.0 71.9 1967 3 26,331 12.9 84.2 1932 2 55,030 83.3 54.6 1969 4 25,633 61.0 57.1 1934 2 47,897 74.3 57.4 1971 2 23,312 20.5 82.9 1936 2 50,734 72.0 58.1 1973 3 23,617 16.4 76.7 1938 2 60,563 62.7 61.5 1975 3 20,358 19.4 71.9 1940 2 59,198 93.2 52.0 1978 (1) 21,468 0.0 71.5 1942 2 56,844 93.0 52.8 1981 3 20,694 41.3 58.7 1984 (1) 15,002 0.0 83.9

Mean 3.3 28,862 47.9 62.3 2.0 44,162 62.5 64.1

Note: Data missing for 1943. Sources: ITU Data from Taft (1944) and Lipset et al. (1956). a Candidate with more votes in the primarylost. b Run-off election. (= only one candidate.

Caucus by attempting to remove its strongest opponent. Despite the fact that local Right Wing opposition to this would cause friction with their allies in the international union, their response was mixed. Right Winger Horace Sheffield, one-time president of the production foundry who later went on the international union's staff said of the Local's response to the administratorship: "There was no general uproar. I mean in other words, there was no meaningful uproar. Clearly, you know, that the left wing agitated against it but in terms of a huge ground swell,




there was none" (Sheffield 1986). On the other hand, former rolling mill president John Mando said of the workers 1n his Right Wing unit: "They were aware that there was a change made and they probably didn't, was not in favor of a change being made, but the fact that it was made did not effect them all that much" (Mando 1984).

Evidence of the Right Wing's tolerance of the Progressive Caucus is also found in some of the political pamphlets put out by the Right Wing during this period. One urges workers to get rid of the Communists "The American way - your vote will do it!" Another put out by a Right Wing candidate who claims to have signed a petition that would have made a removed Communist officer eligible to run against him, suggests that the Communist candidate should be allowed to run because "he would get the whipping of his life" (Political Pamphlets, WPR collection). So it is clear that at least some legitimacy was accorded the Progressive Caucus by the Right Wing Caucus during this time of repression. Since the existence of the Right Wing Caucus was never challenged in this way, we do not have similar evidence for the legitimacy accorded the Right Wing Caucus by the Progressive Caucus. We do have evidence though that in the two largest left-wing units (the motor building and the production foundry), Right Wing leaders were intermittently elected to the presidency. This indicates that the opposition was able to maintain considerable support in the midst of long-term control by the opposite Caucus.

So overall, Local 600 was able to sustain a high level of democracy despite the fact that it was situated in what Lipset et al. considered to be a highly unfavorable environment for the development of union democracy. This extraordinary achievement is in part due to participation by outside organizations. But as previous studies have shown, such involvement is usually conducive to intermittent, not sustained democracy. Even though the subunits in Local 600 were considerably larger than those in the ITU NewYork local's biggest (200 plus member) units, the system of autonomous Rouge building units served to boost its democratic potential, and allowed for sustained democracy. The local's abundant extracurricular activities in combination with those offered by outside organizations also contributed to a sort of occupational community where workers interacted outside of the workplace. But if this network of activities constituted an occupational community,22 it must be noted that the Communist Party acted as a coordinating influence within it (see Saperstein 1977; Stepan-Norris 1997). Nevertheless, the high degree of social interaction most likely contributed to Rouge workers' interest in union politics and to the ability of opposition candidates to challenge the existing leadership.

Comparing UAW Local 600 to the highly democratic ITU has revealed several important insights. First, we find that although their bases are distinct, autonomous subunits are important for democracy in both Local 600 and in the ITU. By locating such structures in Local 600, though, we have shown that it is possible for them to develop in large-scale and highly rationalized industries without the dominant influence of an independent occupational community. On the other hand, what




seems to be more crucial to the maintenance of democracy in the Rouge case was the diversity of political views of the leaders in the various autonomous building units, which prevented the possibility of a unified local leadership. This diversity was made possible, in large part, by the involvement of outside organizations. Still, even when the influence of these outside organizations waned, levels of democratic contention remained high.

I now turn to more fine-grained distinctions by employing an internal analysis of Local 600 subunits. Here, while holding occupational community and autonomous status of the building units constant, we can compare levels of electoral contention in the various units within the local. In particular, we can test the influence of leadership political orientation (Communist-influenced vs. Catholic- influenced ideology) and participation by outside organizations (CP vs. ACTU).

LOCAL 600 INTERNAL UNIT DEMOCRACY

Although the existence of ideological factions and participation by outside organizations were highly interrelated at the Rouge, we may distinguish them both conceptually and empirically. The Rouge Progressive Caucus was active throughout the Local and was dominant in several building units.23 The Progressive Caucus was active year round, but was most active around election times, when it proposed slates of candidates in most building units. Many leaders of the Progressive Caucus were either close to or members of the Communist Party, and the Communist Party clubs acted as organized caucuses within the Progressive Caucus in units where they existed.24 So although the Communist Party dubs and their training of leaders was important for the Progressive Caucus, the Caucus was officially independent of the Communist Party. So we can compare elections in units where the Progressive Caucus was dominant with those where it was not, in order to reveal the impact of left-wing leadership on the closeness of elections. An important caveat, though, is that this left-wing caucus operated in the context of an international union that was hostile to Communist involvement. In settings where Communists were in control of the international leadership, the impact of left-wing ideology at the local level may be different.

Similarly, the influence of Walter Reuther and the ACTU on the Right Wing Caucus were both important, but the Right Wing Caucus too was officially independent of these forces.25 The closeness of elections in Right Wing units represents the influence of more conservative ideology (again, this conservatism is relative, since most Rouge Right Wingers were to the left of most others in the UAW). So what are the bases of any hypothesized differences between units dominated by the Progressive Caucus versus those dominated by the Right Wing Caucus, and those dominated by neither?

Howe and Widick (1949:407) note that the "the more specific the functions of the union, the less involvement of members, and the more diffuse its relations to the members, the more involvement." They attribute diffuse relations to either an




"occupational community, as in the case of the ITU, or ... a political ideology which widens the definition of the role of the union." The Local 600 Progressive Caucus advocated active involvement in city, state, and national politics, local housing issues and race relations, and a whole host of other issues. Its outward orientation widened the definition of the union's role, and in this way, I suggest, contributed to member participation and consequently, union democracy.

The Rouge Progressive Caucus projected new and innovative ideas. It continually urged workers to pay attention to and take stands on the collective bargaining contracts won by the Reuther administration. Progressives opposed the diminution of workers voices in job standards, company security clauses, and decreases in committeemen representation. Outside of contract negotiations, they argued for a "strong democratic union,""open negotiations," "no discrimination," "independent political action," and many other positions (Save Our Union N.D. [Probably 1946]).

The Right-wing election platforms sometimes looked similar to the Progressive's platform, but in practice, the Right-Wing spent much of its energy on red-baiting. According to the ACTU newspaper, The Wage Earner (April 4, 1947) "Anti- Communists made much of the Communist issue during the campaign, but the two most prominent Communists, John Gallo, guide, and William McKie were winners." According to Progressive Caucus member and Local 600 President Walter Dorosh (1984), "the progressives were always initiating new ideas and the right wing generally wanted to just leave things alone and things will take care of themselves. Progressives were generally initiators of new dimensions for negotiations and this is the way I had always seen it." Henry McCusker (1983), Right-Wing member and former President of the aircraft unit, suggested that Right-Wing leaders "were honest and they were honest with the membership, generally speaking, that happened. And they had as much to offer and sometimes more to offer than the others. I don't say that a commie couldn't have something good to offer. And because there was a commie, that thought, because it was good, it shouldn't be supported."

Although the Right Wing Caucus was crucial for the local's electoral system as a whole (in that it provided an alternative point of view or a "second party"), I suspect that its contribution to democracy was more passive than active. That is to say, it opposed plans and objectives brought forth by other leaders, but it did not tend to project new ideas onto the agenda.26 As a result, it was less likely to arouse workers' interest. So in contrast to my hypothesis concerning the Progressive Caucus, I hypothesize that the Right Wing Caucus did not make as important a contribution to union democracy.

Besides Progressive and Right Wing units, were "Center" units that fell somewhere between the two more distinct caucuses. Most of the units in this category oscillated between the major caucuses, others entertained minor caucuses, and still others had no caucuses. Because they included the former, they had relatively high levels of turnover, and I expect this to be reflected in close elections.




Parallel hypotheses may be put forward for the role of CP and ACTU involvement. As discussed above, Lipset et al. suggest that only non-Communist factions have the potential to contribute to democracy. In contrast, I argue that Communist factions are more likely than non-Communist factions to contribute to union democracy for two reasons. The first reason is because Communist factions offered workers a platform that amounted to a meaningful alternative to the status quo (e.g., it resonated with workers' interests) (see Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin 1991). Just as any faction that offers a choice to union members contributes to democratic functioning (Strauss 1991), so too do Communists factions. The second reason is because Communist leaders favored democratic functioning in unions. This is so because first, the Communist faction "inherited from the I.W.W. [Industrial Workers of the World] a distrust of leadership in general and of labor leadership in particular"(Davis 1953:236).27 In addition, rank and file Communists and their allies, like other socialists and progressives who favor the expansion of workers' rights, theoretically favor union democracy (Marx [1871] 1973: 223,2227; Engels [ 1891] 1973:188-9; Foster 1927: 271-3, 323). And for reasons of practical survival, Communists opposed centralized power structures since union suspensions .and receiverships were "used mostly against 'Communists"'(David 1951:236). Communist factions, therefore, especially in the context of an anti- Communist international union, had both theoretical and practical reasons to preserve minority rights.

In terms of personal characteristics, Rouge Communist and non-Communist Progressives tended to be educated on the job and in the streets (mostly in the context of the Great Depression and the Unemployed Council movement), not in the classroom or by the Comintern. Many, if not most, never read Marx (much less Lenin),28 so the esoteric theoretical debates of the Party were not of much concern to them. When the interests of the Party and the union conflicted, Rouge Communists usually made decisions that allowed them to retain the support and respect of their fellow workers.

Although the ACTU constituted a minority party, (something that is necessary in a functioning democracy), its main purpose was to challenge and eventually eliminate the Communist factions, not to offer a genuine alternative to the existing program. On a national scale, the ACTU was in favor of cooperative labor relations that stressed "reciprocal rights and duties of employers and workers" along with "social peace and social justice"(Seaton 1981:29). ACTU chapters differed in their orientations: those founded by priests tended to have little worker input, whereas those started by lay workers "tended to be more radical and had an orientation against collaboration with companies"(Goode 1994:127). This is an important distinction since, as has been noted, "a union may be led into undemocratic internal procedures in an effort to achieve a harmonious relation with management"(Lipset, quoted in Tannenbaum & Kahn 1958:17).

The Detroit ACTU chapter was founded by lay workers, so collaboration is not likely to have been an issue. Still, as indicated by several quotes cited above, some




ACTU activists in the Rouge put aside their interests in democracy when democratic procedures and guarantees interfered with the ultimate goal of eliminating Communists from union participation.

Finally, the ACTU had no interest in long-term survival, given the accomplishment of its goals (Seaton 1981:95-7,108-9). Evidence that the ACTU was not interested in profound change or longevity is lent by the fact that it disappeared once the "Communist menace" was handled by the CIO. For all of these reasons, I expect to find that the Communist factions were associated with more democratic elections, and the ACTU with either less democratic or with no different elections within the context of the Ford River Rouge UAW Local 600. Units with both clubs should exhibit the highest levels of contention, and those with no clubs the lowest levels.

Measuring Political Orientation and the Presence of Outside Organizations

The political orientation of the unit's leadership is measured by combining assessments of the political characterizations of the units over the period of the 1940s through the early 1960s, made by seven retired officials from Local 600 (oral history interviews conducted by the author) along with documentation located in the Wayne State UniversityArchives of Labor and Urban Affairs. The latter includes assessments by the ACTU in 1944 and by UAW President Walter Reuther in 1952, and information on the number of unit officers removed from office during the UAW administratorship over Local 600 in 1952. Units are classified in one of three categories: Progressive units are those in which the Progressive Caucus was dominant; Center units either were split between the Progressive and Right Wing Caucuses, or had minor or no organized caucuses, and the Right Wing units were dominated by the Right Wing Caucus.29 These classifications represent the pattern of real political control in each unit over more than a decade, not merely the results of one or two elections.

The measures of involvement by outside organizations are derived from archival sources. These measures are not entirely satisfactory, since we have information for only one point in time for each organization (and these points are separated by 8 years). Unfortunately, they constitute the only available information. In 1944, the ACTU listed seven units in which it had organized clubs, and in 1952, the House Un-American Activities Committee listed ten units in which the Communist Party had organized clubs.30 A unit was coded as having an ACTU club if it appeared only on the 1944 ACTU list, and as having a CP club if it was only listed by HUAC in 1952, as both if it was named on both lists, and as no clubs if it appeared on neither list. It is possible that organized ACTU clubs dissolved before the end of the period under study. If this were the case though, the remnants of the faction may still have impacted levels of electoral contention.




Dependent Variable Measures

In this empirical analysis, I use three measures that tap the closeness of elections in order to assess the effectiveness of opposition. First, in order to measure interest, participation, and the availability of potential candidates, I employ the number of candidates that ran in the election (the natural log of the number of candidates is the actual measure). Higher numbers of candidates are taken to indicate a higher level of interest and contention. Of course, union democracy suffers when the office is not contested. In such cases, the incumbent automatically wins by placing his or her name on the ballot. In most local elections, two candidates run for any given office. At the Rouge, it was not uncommon to have more than two candidates running for each post. Since the number of candidates is an important predictor of closeness in elections, it may be included as an independent variable in the subsequent models. But as will be shown below, our independent variables of interest that predict the number of candidates also predict closeness of elections. If we were to include the number of candidates in subsequent models, we would greatly enhance our model's predictive power (adjusted R2's are .53 for votes to the runner up and .83 for the percent to the winner with the number of candidates in the model), but they also reduce the impact of our variables of interest. This is because indirect effects (through the number of candidates) are not accounted for in these models. Because we are mainly interested in these independent variables, we exclude the number of candidates from the models.

One measure of election closeness is the percent of the vote to the winner. When a successful candidate receives a large proportion of the total vote, the contest was, by definition, not close. This measure is highly and negatively correlated (- .78) with the number of candidates running for election, since every additional candidate has the capacity to draw votes away from the winner. A large proportion of the vote to the winner indicates run-away elections, which leaves leaders in situations of relatively automatic reelections, and thereby gives them a low sense of accountability. In contrast, when leaders are continuously faced by powerful opponents, they are forced to keep in touch with workers' needs and desires in order to prevent the opposition from winning additional support. Thus the proportion of the vote to the winner is a revealing measure of the degree of accountability ensured by elections.

A close election is also one in which the loser wins nearly as many votes as the winner. An alternative measure is therefore the number of votes to the first runner up per every 100 for the winner (Edelstein & Warner 1976). This measure captures the extent to which elections are real contests, and opposition candidates are realistically capable of winning office. This measure is also strongly correlated (.53) with the number of candidates in elections.

The Data




I collected these data through a comprehensive review of Local 600's official newspaper, Ford Facts, 1948-1959, "which regularly reported unit election results, and archival files from the Wayne State University Archives. The sample of 1,006 elections are constituted by the elections from each of the 21 units for the offices of president, vice president, recording secretary, financial secretary, sergeant-at- arms, guide and trustee yearly from 1948-53, then every other year until 1959. (Except for some random missing cases, the sample constitutes the population for these years.) Information on the independent variables came from the Wayne State University Archives and from oral history interviews with approximately two dozen former UAW Local 600 and UAW leaders. The years examined represent the peak of factional activity. Communist influence was weakened with the HUAC visit to Detroit in 1952 and with Reuther's subsequent administratorship over the local. Still, in the judgment of some members of the Reuther group, the narrow loss of a Communist candidate in 1961 indicated their strong presence even then (Buffa 1984:147).'

The Effects of Political Leadership and Outside Organizations

How does the content of the leadership's political ideology affect the level of contention in union elections? How different are the levels of contention in elections for the Rouge subunits predominantly dominated by the Communist-influenced Progressive Caucus, as compared to those dominated by the local's Right Wing Caucus? If we follow the reasoning that left, but not Communist influence boosts democracy, we would expect the Progressive units to be the least democratic. My hypothesis is the opposite, that Progressive units are more contentious.

We find that the elections in units dominated by the Progressive Caucus are in fact the most contentious on all three measures of electoral contention. Progressive units had elections with a slightly higher average number of candidates (2.6 vs. 2.3 and 2.0 for the Center and Right units respectively); where the winner received a somewhat lower proportion of the total vote (55% compared to 60% and 68% for the Center and Right units); and where the first runner up received an average of 68 votes for every 100 received by the winner (compared to 62 for Center and 51 for Right units). The Center units had elections that were also slightly more contentious than those in the Right Wing units,32 but they were not as contentious as those in the Left units (see Table 2.1). These findings indicate that in the context of an anti-Communist international union, units with left-wing leaders, including those influenced by the Communist Party, provided support for union democracy.

If outside organizations organize opposition within the unit, we should expect more candidates and closer elections in units that have them. In addition, we may argue that the particular nature and purpose of the outside organization will impact its elections. Those that tend towards business unionism (like the ACTU) should



496 I Social Forces 76:2, December 1997

have less of an impact than those that attempted to tie union issues with larger social issues (like the Communist Party).

When we assess how outside organizations impacted unit elections at the Rouge, we find that the presence of both clubs is associated with the most contentious elections: in units with both clubs: the first runner up received an average of 70 votes for every 100 received by the winner (compared to 61 for Communist Party only, 58 for ACTU only and 57 for neither), and the winner won an average of 57% of the total vote (compared to 58% for Communist Party only, 64% for ACTU only, and 63% for neither). The presence of a Communist Party club alone is also associated with highly contentious elections, and with the highest average number of candidates per election. The presence of only an ACTU club did not make for more contentious elections, compared to units with neither club. These findings indicate that outside organizations have the potential to enhance the closeness of elections, but their relative impact depends on their character and aims (see Table 2.2).

The impact of outside organizations on union democracy is also likely to be dependent on the context in which they operate. The presence of an ACTU club may mean something different in a Right Wing than a Left Wing unit. I find that for the Progressive units, the presence of either a Communist Party club or both clubs only slightly enhanced electoral contention. For Center units, the presence of clubs slightly decreased contention in elections; and for Right Wing units, the presence of an ACTU club considerably boosted the level of contention (as does the presence of both clubs, but there are only a small number of cases in the latter category).33

OTHER INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

In order to effectively model electoral union democracy, it is necessary to include several control variables which have previously been found to be related to closeness in elections. These include size of the unit, workers' skill levels, the passage of time and the type of election (presidential vs. others).34

Union size, as mentioned above, has been hypothesized to be negatively related to union democracy (Michels 1962 chapter 2; Summers 1984). Larger units are expected to be more oligarchical, and therefore, to display lower levels of contention in elections. But empirical results have been mixed. Several impressionistic analyses of union democracy (Pearlin & Richards 1960; Strauss 1960) have concluded that small size contributes to the maintenance of union democracy. Lipset et al. (1956) find a curvilinear relationship between size and union involvement.35 Strauss (1991) contends that large size may not inhibit representative democracy if the membership is sufficiently concentrated geographically for an opposition to develop. Anderson (1978), using a quantitative measure, found that larger units actually




TABLE 2.1: Number of Candidates in Elections and Closeness of Elections by Political Orientation of Local 600 Unit Leadership

Mean Number Mean Percent Mean Votes to of Candidates of the Vote Runner Up for per Election to the Winner every 100 to Winner N

Progressive Units 2.58 55.05 68.31 385 Center Units 2.34 59.79 61.77 311 Right WingUnits 2.01 67.97 51.26 310

TABLE 2.2: Number of Candidates in Elections and Closeness of Elections .by Presence of Outside Organizations in Local 600 Units

Mean Number Mean Percent Mean Votes to of Candidates of the Vote Runner Up for per Election to the Winner every 100 to Winner N

ACTU and CP Clubs 2.30 56.98 70.17 190 CommunistPartyClub 2.56 58.12 61.48 342 ACTUClub 2.11 64.04 57.89 176 Neither Club 2.21 63.38 56.56 298

have higher levels of contention; he suggests this results from their expanded pools of potential candidates. And Edelstein and Warner (1976) found size to have inconsistent effects.

The numbers of workers employed in the various units is available for only 1950 and 1952. Because unit sizes changed from year to year, attributing the exact number based on these two years is problematic. So based on data from these two years, I created a trichotomized measure of unit size: small, medium, and large.36 The variables medium and large are included in the regression model, and small constitutes the comparison category.

Workers' skill levels have been hypothesized to be related to union democracy. Skiled workers, due to their higher levels of education, a smaller status gap between members and leaders, and their potential to form occupational communities, are thought to organize unions with higher levels of union democracy. Yet since most Rouge skilled workers were not situated in one physical locale (they were spread out over the entire plant), their capacity to form occupational communities based on shared experiences around their skills was reduced. Still, they had higher status and a potential to find satisfaction and pride in their work. In any case, the effect of skill level will be underestimated for the reasons stated above. Nevertheless, I have included a crude measure of unit skill level. Only two units (the tool and die




unit and the maintenance and construction unit) were coded as skilled, while the remaining units were coded as unskilled.

It has been hypothesized that union democracy dedines over time (Herberg 1943; Lester 1958). When union organizing campaigns first succeed in winning collective bargaining rights, member enthusiasm and activity are high. As the initial excitement fades and the existence of union representation becomes more routine, there is a trend towards "increasing centralization and machine control"(Lester 1958). But due to the specific historical circumstances surrounding the Rouge local, I don't expect time to have a linear relationship to electoral outcomes. Namely, when the local was placed under administratorship in 1952, the local's internal solidarity was heightened vis-a-vis the international, resulting in a return of most incumbents to office. So I separate elections into three periods: 1948-50, representing the early period of little outside threat from the international union; 1951-53, representing the period when the local was under attack by the international union; and 1955-59, representing a return to normalcy, minus a significant part of the left's influence. I include the latter two as control variables and allow the first period to provide the comparison. If the bureaucratization hypothesis is correct, later periods should be associated with lower levels of electoral contention.

I indude the type of election (presidential vs. others) because those elected to presidential offices were transformed into fill-time union leaders, whereas the other elected officers remained on the job while attending to their union duties. This implies higher stakes and potentially more distance between the leaders and the led for unit presidents, and therefore potentially less contentious elections.

THE RESULTS OF ORDINARY LEAST SQUARES REGRESSION

The presence of controls in our models doesn't substantially change the substantive results reported for the effects of left-wing political leadership. In terms of the number of candidates that ran for office, the Progressive units had significantly more candidates than the other units (Table 3, model 1). When we consider doseness of elections, again, Progressive unit elections have a lower percent of the vote to the winner (Table 3, model 3), and more votes to the first runner up compared to the other units (Table 3, model 5). Additional regression models (not shown here, but available upon request) consider the distinction between Center and Right-Wing units. Results show Progressive and Center units are significantly more contentious than Right-Wing units, but that there is little difference between the elections of Progressive and Center units.

The relative influence of outside organizations depends on the particular organization involved. Units with only ACTU clubs had less contentious elections with significantly fewer candidates for office (Table 3 Model 2), a significantly higher




percent of the vote to the winner (Table 3 Model 4), and a significantly lower number of votes to the first runner up, compared to units with neither club (the comparison category)(Table 3 Model 6). Units with only CP clubs and those with both clubs do not significantly differ from those with neither club on any of these measures. Yet alternative models that drop the ACTU distinction and compare units with CP clubs with those without them find (marginally) significant effects for the presence of CP clubs.37 These findings suggest that the relative impact of input by particular outside organizations varies: CP input tended to marginally enhance electoral contention, ACTU input decreased it.38

Together, these findings suggest that, contrary to Lipset et al., there is no evidence, at least in this local union, that Communists, once in power, "attempt to destroy the opposition;" or if they did, they were extremely inefficient at doing so.

The control variables also contribute to our models. The skill variable reaches statistical significance in only two of the six models. There, the two skilled units had significantly less contentious elections with significantly fewer candidates participating in each election.

The period variable shows that the later periods had elections with significantly less contention, but rather than a progressive diminution of contention, the middle period exhibits the lowest levels of electoral contention. This partially reflects the extremely low level of contention in the 1952 election, which took place directly after the UAW administratorship was removed. Rouge workers sent a strong message to the UAW international with that election by overwhelmingly reelecting many incumbents. Without a longer time span, it is difficult to determine how much of the decline is attributable to the administratorship, how much reflects a process of bureaucratization, and how much resulted from the repression of left-wing political factions within the local.

Unit size revealed a positive linear relationship with regard to the number of candidates and a positive relationship in terms of election contention. The large and medium units had significantly more candidates than small units (with the large units having the biggest differential), reflecting the size of the pools from which they drew candidates (as suggested by Anderson). Electoral contention was significantly higher in both medium-sized and large units. Findings of one dependent variable reproduce Lipset et al.'s finding of a curvilinear relationship between size and union democracy: medium-sized units had a stronger relationship with votes to the runner up than did large units (but this may be due to the larger number of candidates in the large units).

Presidential elections are associated with significantly more candidates per election and are just about as contentious as nonpresidential elections: they don't significantly differ in votes to the first runner up and they have a significantly lower percent vote to the winner (again, potentially due to the larger number of candidates). Because oligarchical tendencies are expected to be greatest in




TABLE 3: Standardized OLS Regression Coefficients of Local 600 Unit Elec- tion Contention on Measures of The Political Orientation of Unit Leaders, the Number (and Type) of Clubs, and Other Control Variables

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Natural Log Natural Log

of the of the Percent Vote Percent Vote Votes to the Votes to the Number Run Number Run to Winner to Winner Runner up Runner up

Skill -.12*** -.05 .07* -.00 .03 .08 (-3.48) (-1.23) (2.06) (-.01) (.84) (1.87)

1951-1953 -.16*** -.16*** .18*** .18*** -.17*** -.17*** (-4.69) (-4.48) (5.22) (5.04) (-4.95) (-4.80)

1955-1959 -.07* -.06 .11*** .11 -.14*** -.14*** (-1.97) (-1.73) (3.25) (3.03) (-4.03) (-3.86)

Medium Size .12** .24*** -.19*** -.32*** .21*** .31*** (3.10) (5.87) (-5.04) (-7.81) (5.47) (7.51)

Large Size .22*** .31*** -.23*** -.32*** .17*** .24*** (4.72) (6.84) (-4.98) (-7.10) (3.69) (5.27)

Presidential Election .13*** .13*** -.06* -.06* .03 .03 (4.27) (4.25) (-2.03) (-2.02) (.94) (.95)

Progressive Units .12*** -.12*** .10*** (3.51) (-3.47) (2.95)

ACTU Club -.15*** .18*** -.16*** (-3.78) (4.45) (-3.91)

CP Club .02 -.01 -.00 (.57) (-.27) (-.08)

ACTU and CP Clubs -.06 .04 .01 (-1.50) (1.06) (.28)

Constant .68*** .67*** 64.28*** 64.37*** 56.15*** 56.27***

Adjusted R2 .10 .10 .10 .11 .09 .10

N 1,006 1,006 1,006 1,006 1,006 1,006

Note. T-Statistics are in parentheses.

* p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 (two-tailed)

presidential elections, I ran these models for presidential elections only and found very similar results.

Condusion

This study set out to uncover additional supports of structures that are conducive for democracy. It found that UAW Local 600, in spite of its so called hostile




environment, had and continued through the 1980s to have, a vital inner political life and an impressively democratic electoral system, as evidenced by close elections between 1942 and 1984, at levels comparable to those of the ITU. Contrary to Michels and Lipset et al., this very large local union located in the highly rationalized auto industry, and with a considerable status gap between workers and leaders, managed to maintain a high level of contention in its local and subunit elections over time. Underlying the local's thriving democracy were its constitutionally established subunits based on work sites, highly integrated political and social networks, and active left and right organized factions with bases in these units throughout the plant. The internal empirical analysis of electoral outcomes within the Rouge subunits specifies the relative impact of Progressive and Communist-influenced leadership on union democracy.

Within the context of an anti-Communist international union, Progressive units had higher average numbers of candidates per election, and closer elections (as measured by both percent of the vote to the winner and number of votes to the first runner up for every 100 received by the winner). This finding challenges Lipset et al.'s (1956) insistence that "Communist ideology does not tolerate the existence of an organized opposition;' at least in the context of a hostile political environment. In the case of Local 600, it was the (centrist/social democratic) international union that attempted to destroy the Communist-left opposition in the local.

Within this context, input by outside organizations had varying effects depending on the nature of the organization involved. While units that had Communist Party clubs tended to have somewhat closer elections (although the significance of this relationship fluctuates depending on the comparison category), those with only ACTU clubs were significantly less contentious than units with no clubs.

Given two factions, it is the content of ideas, alternatives posed, and leaders' understanding of the union's role in society, and not mere reactive participation, that makes factionalism an effective boost to democracy. Workers get interested and animated over the possibilities in their union when there is something at stake. The existence of meaningful alternatives, in the context of a system that has autonomous sources of power makes for more contentious elections.

Understanding how and why this particular local developed a union structure with autonomous sources of power and what encouraged extensive sociability outside the plant are both crucial for understanding how likely it is that other unions could accomplish the same. In the case of Local 600, it was the structure imposed by Henry Ford on this all-inclusive plant that created the raw materials with which the union developed a democratic system. But it was rank-and-file Rouge activists, most of whom were working within two prominent factions, who used this manufacturing structure to create a local union government in which groups of workers had independent voices and institutionalized input. The constitutional groundwork they laid enabled the potential for active union democracy; forward-looking factionalism animated it.




Together these findings lead us to be less pessimistic about the probability of union oligarchy. Instead of an iron law, we have an elastic law: the features that act to suppress democracy do not always overwhelm those that encourage it. Democracy can and does develop in what seem to be unlikely times and places. By identifying the positive supports, especially those of the early and mid-CIO period, we can build on our understanding of organizational possibilities.

If we are to consider the involvement of outside organizations and extensive union-organized social activities as potential supports for union democracy, and we look more closely at highly rationalized and large-scale industries for supports of autonomous subunits, we might condude that the chances for union democracy in other unions are dramatically higher than has been expected, especially for the CIO, and possibly other periods.

Collectively, this evidence indicates that there may have been a window of opportunity for widespread democratic unionism within the CIO during the 1940s, and if historical events had taken a different turn, they may have formed a solid basis for the development of long-standing highly democratic unionism. The existence of that opportunity should inform our ideas concerning the prospects for union democracy in the future. Although the ideologically based factionalism of the early CIO has been largely eliminated, other types of factions have recently emerged in AFL-CIO unions. Dissident groups, for example, have made impressive bids for power in some unions,39 thereby showing some hope for renewed union democracy. What can this more optimistic assessment of union democracy during the 1940s teach us about the continuing possibilities for union democracy? We have seen evidence that factionalism makes a difference, and that the content of that factionalism also matters. It is probable that factionalism will continue to animate and democratize unions in the future.

Notes

1. The concept of union democracy ushers in a debate not only over the contents of democracy, but also over whether or not unions should be democratic (see Zeitlin & Stepan-Norris 1992).

2. See Cornfield (I 989) for a different conception of democracy that emphasizes patterns of leadership change and the emergence of new groups into leadership positions over time.

3. Lipset argues that membership participation in non-Communist unions enhances democracy, while the same participation patterns in Communist unions indicate attempts at totalitarian control. Without strong evidence detailing the ways participation is used to accomplish different goals in the two sets of unions, this line of argument is unconvincing.

4. Edelstein and Warner (1976:96) studied only the largest unions (51 in the US and 29 in Britain) and found that the average runner up in periodic union presidential elections




between 1949 and 1966 in the U.S. received 8.5 votes for every 100 received by the winner. In Britain, the comparable figure was 14.4. In addition, three British unions were found to have sustained contention in periodic elections between 1949 and 1966 (1976:274).

5. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was founded in the early 1920s, as one of several Canadian organizations representing rural revolt and farmers' discontent, and quickly grew to become the largest grain marketing cooperative in the world (Craig & Gross 1970:23-24).

6. It should be noted that here, I compare UAW Local 600 to an international union, the ITU, and its subunits to the ITU's New York Local. In many ways, including its size, Local 600 was comparable to international unions. If Local 600 had been an independent international union, it would have been the seventh largest in the CIO in 1941. Wartime employment swelled its ranks to over 100,000, but the postwar reductions brought its size to roughly 50,000 members by 1952, Still, Local 600's size is comparable to most international unions, and especially to that of the ITU, who's international membership ranged from 76,000 in 1935 to 93,500 in 1948 (Troy 1965).

Local unions have generally been found to be more democratic than international unions. Two factors are most important in contributing to this result: close personal contact between leaders and members, and lower officer salaries (Tannenbaum, 1965:744). Yet because of its size and complex internal structure, neither of these factors operated at Local 600. Local 600 was much more like international unions, with many full time union representatives, enormous resources (which in 1952 exceeded $1,300,000 (Detroit News March 12, 195 5:1)), relatively high salaries and 17 to 20 separate building units (or plants), each with its own elected representatives.

7. The task of identifying comparable cases is daunting since there is no central location where union electoral data from this time period can be found. So each case must be researched through convention proceedings (if elections took place at the convention), union newspapers, archives or by requesting information from a select group of unions (as Edelstein and Warner did). The latter strategy is particularly problematic if the analysis is historical and the union has since collapsed.

8. These strategies should not be taken to imply that union democracy in its entirety can be assessed by analyzing union elections. Contested elections point to a valuable component of democracy: the existence of countervailing power, but can't tell us about democratic decision making that proceeds through pressure groups, bargaining and adjustment (James 1984; Strauss 1991).

9. By ̀ long-term" I mean past the one to five year initial period of excitement following the organization of the union. I show below that local-level democracy continued in Local 600 for over 40 years.

10. In the context of the CIO, left ideology was aligned with the Communist Party and centrist ideology was left-of-center, closely aligned with either socialist, or social democratic thought.

11. Edelstein and Warner investigate the period following the purge of Communists and their factions from the CIO. Had they included this period, they may have found higher levels of democracy. During the 1960s, factions developed in the UAW, the Painters' Union, the United Paper Workers, National Maritime Union, and others. Neither of the two




UAW-wide factions affected the internal (unit) Rouge elections examined in this analysis, since they both developed after the time period under study. They may, however, have contributed to contention in local level contests during the 1960s, given that the levels of contention during the 1960s tend to be somewhat more contentious. But since I have no detailed historical information on these caucuses and their candidates, I cannot properly assess their impact here.

12. See also Freeman (1982) on the role of ideology in contributing to schisms.

13. Later, these excessive charges were challenged. Prickett (1975:427), for example, states that "Communists upheld these outer forms of democracy consistently. In other words, under Communist leadership potential opponents retained the right to organize, to attack the union leadership in local newspapers, to publish a caucus newspaper critical of the union leadership, and to oppose that leadership at union conventions"

14. In the same way, Lipset (1981:183-84) dismisses Communists' attempts to increase member participation in union affairs: "It is fairly obvious that Communist labor leaders are not anxious to encourage and deepen internal democracy in their unions, but rather recognize that by multiplying the controlled activities of the members they are increasing their own chances to reach and indoctrinate them."

15. In the rubber unit, workers produced the tires; in the plastic unit, they produced the steering wheels; and in the production foundry, open hearth, and rolling mill, they produced the steel that was later stamped into automobile bodies in the pressed steel unit.

16. Although I have stressed that democratic constftutions provide the groundwork for functioning democracies, we might also ask what accounts for democratic constitutions (see Stepan-Norris & Zeitlin 1996a)? It is important to note that in this case, organized factionalism also preceded the writing of the constitution, and may have contributed to the level of democracy reflected there.

17. In 1951 there were 50 unit committeemen and 174 district committeemen in the Rouge plant.

18. The General Council was designated the "policy forming and legislative body," empowered to: (1) "approve, reject, or amend the reports of the General Officers, the General Executive Board, and the standing committees,"; (2) "approve or reject all appointments made by the General Executive Board and General Offlcers,"; and (3) "consider all other problems of the Local union that may come before it"(Ford Local 600 By-Laws Committee, 1942:7-8).

19. Rough measures of voter turnout for Rouge unit elections in 1950 averaged 65%, and in 1952, 58%.

20. The local had two sustained caucuses, but several other small, sporadic, or middle- of-the-road caucuses. We might choose to characterize this as a multi-caucus system.

21. Following a visit by the House Un-American Activities Committee in April of 1952, the UAW placed Local 600 under administratorship mainly in order to rout Communists from its local leadership.



The Making of Union Democracy / 505 22. To argue the Rouge workers formed an occupational community would be to substantially alter our definition of the concept. Ford workers were highly heterogeneous in terms of ethnic and racial identities, religious preferences, skill levels and even spoken language in the earlier years. It may be that the solidarity of Rouge workers more closely approximates class consciousness than an occupational community.

23. A table listing the units and their political classifications is available upon request.

24. The following units were identified by HUAC as having Communist Party clubs: "axle, B building, foundry, open hearth, motor, plastic, pressed steel, tool and die, spring and upset, and miscellaneous" (U.S. House of Representatives, 1952:2763). In addition, HUAC listed a Party club among the women's auxiliary at the Rouge.

25. The ACTU listed clubs in axle, pressed steel, transportation, maintenance, tool and die, rolling mill, spring and upset, new steel foundry, and rubber (ACTU, N.D.:5-6).

26. This was a theme that came up in many of my interviews with former Local 600 officials. In general, the campaign slates of the Progressive and Right Wing Caucuses differed in that the latter tended to stop shorter on the issues of worker involvement in both union affairs and union management relations (Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Archives, ACTU Collection, Box 24 and Andrew Ignasiak Collection).

27. This distrust dates back to the anti-Communist orientation of the AFL and many of its affiliated unions. Many of the AFL affiliated unions had constitutions that restricted Communists' rights as members and leaders. Some AFL unions even refused membership to Communists.

28. In fact, Saul Wellman, who headed the Michigan Communist Party Auto Section during the post-war period told me that he had not read Marx's Capital until he was imprisoned under the Smith Act. It was only when faced with extra time while in prison, that he and four others held a joint study group to read Marx's classic work (Wellman 1986).

29. The Spring and Upset unit is classified as Right Wing here even though the majority of the oral history evidence suggests that it was a center unit. This is due to the fact that only one year of the unit's elections are included in the sample (since the unit was closed in 1949), and in that year (1948) the unit was led by the Right Wing.

30. In order to preserve the maximum number of cases, missing data are handled in the following way: The jobbing foundry, because it was demographically very similar and physically very close to the production foundry, which had one of the largest Communist Party clubs in the Rouge, is assumed to have had a Communist Party club before it closed in 1949. The engine plant was opened in 1952, during the height of the period when Communists were under attack. It is unlikely that the Party would initiate a new club under these circumstances, and it is also unlikely that the ACTU would have initiated a new club at this late date. So the engine unit is assumed to have neither club. For the same reason, the Frame and Cold Heading (opened in 1950), the specialty foundry (opened in 1952), the central parts (opened in 1948) and Lincoln Mercury parts (opened in 1951) are all assumed to not have ACTU clubs,




31. After Local 600 Communists were penalized (and some removed from office) by the international UAW, the Progressive and Right Wing caucuses gave way to the "Green" and other "independent" caucuses.

32. Although the right-wing units had significantly lower levels of electoral contention than the left-wing units, they still exhibited very high levels of electoral contention in comparison to other unions. For example, right-wing units had an average of 2 candidates per election, the runner up received an average of 51 votes for every 100 for the winner, and only 68% of the vote went to the winning candidate.

33. Right Wing units never had only a Communist Party club, and Progressive units never only had an ACTU club. A table showing these results is available upon request.

34. In initial models, I also included characteristics of the election itself, including the presence of the incumbent in the election and the tenure of the incumbent. But since these variables are not significantly related to any of the dependent variables, and because data are missing for a large percent of the cases, I removed them from the models in order to improve the fit.

35. They found that the highest level of involvement occurs in shops employing between 100 and 200 members, and levels drop slightly for those in shops of 201-400 and again for those with 400 plus workers.

36. Small units had between 341 and 1202 members, medium units between 1220 and 3290 members, and large units between 3620 and 9879 members in 1950 and 1952.

37. Still other models that contrast units with only CP clubs and those with both clubs with a comparison category of ACTU only or neither club show significant differences: units with only CP clubs and those with both clubs have significantly higher levels of electoral contention.

38. But one might object that, as argued by Lipset et al., Communist unions somehow function differently. To test this proposition directly I examined the relationships reported in Table 3 with only Progressive units included. The results of this analysis are very similar to those reported in Table 3 with a few minor exceptions (the results are available upon request).

39. See Nyden (1985) on the developments in the United Steel Workers Union, Friedman (1982) and Baker (1990) on the Teamsters Union movement, and Mann (1987) on the New Directions movement in the United Automobile Workers Union.




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Documents

The Making of Union Democracy