3
Introduction
With the expansion of democracy that occurred in in the 17
th
and 18
th
Century, the
nation state became an increasingly important target of collective action (Tilly 1993,
1995). As social movements began to seek change through the state, they adopted a
“logic of numbers” (DeNardo 1985) when engaging in protest activity. By employing
tactics such as the mass demonstration, movements display their numerical strength in
order to enhance their position of power in the electoral sphere (Etzioni 1970). However,
in contrast to most “state-centric” social movements, which include the working class
organizations of many European countries (Bartolini 2000), organized labor in American
has concentrated on the economic sphere to win new benefits for its membership,
including increased wages, reduced hours, and improved working conditions (Rubin
1986). While not ignoring the political sphere (Greene 1998; Marks 1989), the American
labor movement adopted a particular form of industrial syndicalism, preferring to force
gains at the point of production through collective bargaining rather than targeting the
state (Kimeldorf 1999).
1
While there are numerous explanations for this “American
Exceptionalism” (Lipset and Marks 2000), the fact remains that organized labor has
mobilized its members in their role as workers, not voters, to attain its goals.
The differences between the state, the target of most movements, and the business
enterprise, the target of labor unions, organized labor faces challenges unique to this
movement. Perhaps the most important is that, unlike the state, businesses are not formal
democracies. The authority of management over employers in the workplace is
1
Today, through organizations like the Committee on Political Education (the PAC arm of the AFL-CIO),
contributions to political campaigns, and efforts to mobilize its membership during elections, the labor
movement does target the political sphere. However, given the weakness of the labor movement in politics,
most manifestations of class conflict occur in the economic sphere, and not the political realm as in many
European nations that are characterized by strong worker parties (Korpi and Shalev 1980).
Convention