This article uses time-series data from 1900 to 2005 to explore the effects of rivalry between labor unions as a special case of inter-organizational competition. Holding constant economic and political factors that typically account for changes in union density, we investigate how competition from rival labor federations and from independent unions affect both union density and a measure for the density of the dominant federation (AFL/AFL-CIO), adjusted for membership changes from mergers and splits. We measure competition by the number of unions and the size of rivals. While much existing literature measures state regulation with categorical coding for specific periods, we measure the effect of state enforcement directly with counts of pro-labor and pro-management unfair labor practice cases adjudicated by the National Labor Relations Board. We assess the effect of left-wing political culture using the popular vote for socialist and communist candidates in presidential elections. Both the number of members in rival unions and the total number of rival unions positively impact the rate of change in overall union density and in AFL density. The size of independent unions has a negative impact on AFL/AFL-CIO density but no effect on overall union density. Unfair labor practices cases adjudicated for employers negatively affect union density but positively affect AFL/AFL-CIO density, while cases adjudicated for unions negatively affect AFL/AFL-CIO density.
AbbottAndrew. 1988. The System of Professions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AlchianArmen. 1950. “Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory.” The Journal of Political Economy58:211–21.
3.
AltinayGalip. 2003. “Estimating Growth Rate in the Presence of Serially Correlated Errors.” Applied Economics Letters10:967–70.
4.
The American Labor Year Book. c1916–c1932. Prepared by the Department of Labor Research of the Rand School of Social Science. New York: Rand School of Social Science.
5.
AshenfelterOrleyPencavelJohn. 1969. “American Trade Union Growth, 1900–1960.” Quarterly Journal of Economics83:434–48.
6.
BairdCharles W.2000. “Unions and Antitrust.” Journal of Labor Research21:585–600.
7.
BarronDavidWestElizabethHannanMichael. 1994. “A Time to Grow and a Time to Die: Growth and Mortality of Credit Unions in New York City, 1914–1990.” American Journal of Sociology100:381–421.
8.
BaumJoelSinghJitendra. 1996. “Dynamics of Organizational Responses to Competition.” Social Forces74:1261–97.
9.
BonacichEdnaWilsonJake B.2008. Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution. Ithaca, NY, and London, UK: Cornell University Press.
10.
BothnerMatthew. 2003. “Competition and Social Influence: The Diffusion of the Sixth-Generation Processor in the Global Computer Industry.” American Journal of Sociology108:1175–1210.
11.
BrissendenPaul. 1920. The I.W.W.: A Study of American Syndicalism. New York: Columbia University.
12.
CanfieldGeorge. 1912. “Competition: The Safeguard and Promoter of General Welfare.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science42:89–97.
13.
CarrollGlenHarrisonRichard. 1994. “On the Historical Efficiency of Competition between Organizational Populations.” American Journal of Sociology100:720–49.
ChavesMarkGorskiPhilip. 2001. “Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation.” Annual Review of Sociology27:261–81.
16.
ClawsonDan. 2003. The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press of Cornell University Press.
17.
Columbia Law Review. 1959. “State Court Holds Employer Must Show Bona Fide Collective Agreement in order to Obtain Temporary Injunction against Picketing by Rival Union.” 59:810–13.
18.
CornfieldDaniel. 2007. “Seeking Solidarity. . . Why, and with Whom?” Pp. 235–51 in Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy, edited by TurnerL.CornfieldD.Ithaca, NY and London, UK: ILR Press of Cornell University Press.
19.
DahlRobert. 1972. Democracy in the United States: Promise and Performance. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally and Co.
20.
DanninEllen. 2006. Taking Back the Workers’ Law: How to Fight the Assault on Labor Rights. Ithaca, NY, and London, UK: Cornell University Press.
21.
DiMaggioPaulPowellWalter. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review48:147–60.
22.
DubofskyMelvyn. 1969. We Shall Be All: A History of the IWW. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Company.
23.
FantasiaRickVossKim. 2004. Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
FinkeRogerStarkRodney. 1998. “Religious Choice and Competition.” American Sociological Review63:761–66.
27.
FonerPhilip. 1964. History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. III: The Policies and Practices of the American Federation of Labor, 1900–1909. New York: International Publishers.
28.
FonerPhilip. 1965. The Industrial Workers of the World 1905–1917. New York: International Publishers.
29.
FosterWilliam Z.1947. American Trade Unionism. New York: International Publishers.
30.
GalensonWalter. 1966. Rival Unionism in the United States. New York: Russell & Russell.
31.
GamsonWilliamMeyerDavid. 1996. “Framing Political Opportunity.” Pp. 275–90 in Comparative Perspectives in Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings, edited by McAdamD.McCarthyJ.ZaldM.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
32.
GanzMarshall. 2000. “Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959–1966.” American Journal of Sociology105:1003–62.
33.
GiffordCourtney. 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Directory of U.S. Labor Organizations. Washington, DC: The Bureau of National Affairs.
34.
GoldfieldMichael. 1987. The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
35.
GreeneWilliam H.2000. Econometric Analysis. Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
36.
GriffinLarryWallaceMichaelRubinBeth. 1986. “Capitalist Resistance to the Organization of Labor before the New Deal: Why? How? Success?” American Sociological Review51:147–67.
37.
HannanMichaelFreemanJohn. 1987. “The Ecology of Organizational Founding: American Labor Unions, 1836–1985.” American Journal of Sociology92:910–43.
38.
HannanMichaelFreemanJohn. 1988a. “The Ecology of Organizational Mortality: American Labor Unions, 1836–1985.” American Journal of Sociology94:25–52.
39.
HannanMichaelFreemanJohn. 1988b. Organizational Ecology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
40.
HaunschildPamelaMinerAnne. 1997. “Modes of Interorganizational Imitation: The Effects of Outcome Salience and Uncertainty.” Administrative Science Quarterly42:472–500.
41.
HavemanHeather A.1990. “Diversification, Performance and Mortality: An Ecological Analysis.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, San Francisco, CA.
42.
HirschBarry T.MacphersonDavid A.2003. “Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey: Note.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review56:349–54.
43.
HirschBarry T.MacphersonDavid A.2006. “Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey.” Retrieved Oct. 1, 2006 (http://www.unionstats.com/).
44.
Historical Statistics of the United States. 2006. Online database: Millennial Edition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved Oct. 1, 2006 (http://hsus.cambridge.org/).
45.
KahnMark. 1959. “Recent Jurisdictional Developments in Organized Labor.” Quoted from version in Philip Taft Papers, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documents & Archives; M.P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. Collection 5541 Box 7 Folder 30; also in DaveyHaroldKaltenbornHowardRuttenbornStanley, eds. New Dimensions in Collective Bargaining. New York: Harper.
46.
KatznelsonIraKesselmanMark. 1987. The Politics of Power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.
47.
LipsetSeymour MartinTrowMartinColemanJames. 1962. Union Democracy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
48.
MarchJamesOlsenJ. P.1976. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Norway: Universitetsforlaget.
49.
MarchJamesSproullLeeTamuzMichael. 1991. “Learning from Samples of One or Fewer.” Organization Science2:1–13.
50.
MarxKarl. 1894. Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. Vol. 3. New York: International Publishers.
51.
McAdamDoug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago, IL, and London, UK: The University of Chicago Press.
52.
MilkmanRuth. 2006. “Divided We Stand.” New Labor Forum15:38–46.
53.
MillisHarryMontgomeryRoyal. 1945. Organized Labor. New York: McGraw-Hill.
54.
MinerAnneBassoffPaulaMoormanChristine. 2001. “Organizational Improvisation and Learning: A Field Study.” Administrative Science Quarterly46:304–337.
55.
MinerAnneHaunschildPamela. 1995. “Population Level Learning.” Pp. 115–66 in Research in Organizational Behavior, Volume 17, edited by CummingsL. L.StawB. M.Greenwich, CT, and Middlesex, UK: JAI Press.
56.
MoodyKim. 1988. An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism. London, UK: Verso.
57.
National Bureau of Economic Research. 1932–2004. “Establishment Survey.”
58.
ReedMerl E.1977. “American Federation of Labor (AFL).” Pp. 11–15 in Labor Unions, edited by FinkG.Westport, CT, and London, UK: Greenwood Press.
59.
RobertsHarold. 1971. Robert’s Dictionary of Industrial Relations. Washington, DC: The Bureau of National Affairs.
60.
RossEdward. 1919. “Institutional Competition.” American Journal of Sociology25:171–84.
61.
SawyersTraciMeyerDavid. 1999. “Missed Opportunities: Social Movement Abeyance and Public Policy.” Social Problems46:187–206.
62.
SlichterSumner H.1935. “The Government and Collective Bargaining.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science178:107–22.
63.
SmithAdam. [1776] 1981. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
64.
SouthworthCaleb. 2002. “Aid to Sharecroppers: How Agrarian Class Structure and Tenant-Farmer Politics Influenced Federal Relief in the South, 1933–1935.” Social Science History26:37–74.
65.
SouthworthCalebStepan-NorrisJudith. 2009. “What We Don’t Know about American Labor Unions: A New Agenda for Labor Studies.” Annual Review of Sociology35:297–320.
66.
Stepan-NorrisJudithSouthworthCaleb. 2007. “Churches as Organizational Resources: A Case Study in the Geography of Religion and Political Voting in Post-War Detroit.” Social Science History31:343–80.
67.
Stepan-NorrisJudithZeitlinMaurice. 2003. Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
68.
StinchcombeArthur. 1965. “Social Structures and Organizations.” Pp. 153–93 in Handbook of Organizations, edited by MarchJ.Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.
69.
SwaminathanAnandDelacroixJacques. 1991. “Differentiation within an Organizational Population: Additional Evidence from the Wine Industry.” Academy of Management Journal34:679–92.
70.
TaftPhilip. Papers. 1937. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documents & Archives; M. P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. Collection 5541 Box 4 Folder 27.
71.
TaftPhilip. 1964. Organized Labor in American History. New York: Harper & Row.
72.
TroyLeo. 1965. Trade Union Membership, 1897–1962. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
73.
TroyLeoSheflinNeil. 1985. U.S. Union Sourcebook. West Orange, NJ: Industrial Relations Data and information Systems.
74.
U. S. Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 .Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
75.
U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Table B1, “Employees on Nonfarm Payrolls.”Retrieved March 17, 2007 (http://www.bls.gov/).
76.
U. S. Department of Labor. 1926, 1929, 1936, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1963, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979. Directory of National and International Labor Unions in the United States (titles vary slightly).
77.
U. S. National Labor Relations Board Annual Report. 1936 to 2005. Washington, DC: National Labor Relations Board.
78.
VickersJohn. 1995. “Concepts of Competition.” Oxford Economic Papers47:1–23.
79.
VossKimShermanRachel. 2000. “Breaking the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Union Revitalization in the American Labor Movement.” American Journal of Sociology106:327–33.
80.
WallaceMichaelRubinBethSmithBrian. 1988. “American Labor Law: Its Impact on Working-Class Militancy, 1901–1980.” Social Science History12:1–29.
81.
WolmanLeo. 1936. Ebb and Flow in Trade Unionism. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
82.
ZiegerRobert H.1995. The CIO 1935–1955 .Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
