On Wed, 21 Jun 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Alex LoCascio wrote:
>
> >Yeah, and workers with union representation make better pay and benefits.
> >So what? That still isn't an argument for bureaucracy.
>
> Bob Fitch rejects descriptions of U.S. unions as bureaucratic
> because, he says, bureaucracies are effective, and U.S. unions aren't.
> Curious, though: what would a non-bureaucratic union look like?
I agree with Bob Fitch on this point. A non-bureaucratic union looks a lot like a lot of local unions - a bunch of folks with a certain amount of power filling positions based on political patronage, where the job description has little to do with the either the actual work of the person doing it or the skills they bring to it. A classic example was the number of union staff people who officially had the title organizer but did almost none of it.
Definitionally, patronage is the opposite of bureaucracy, yet patronage built around personalism is how many unions operate. Succesful unions are increasinagly developing research, communication and organizing staffs that function separately from the political operations of the leadership.
-- Nathan Newman