Candice Dolgash
I am, currently, taking a class in labor relations, which reviews aspects of the labor movement from creation to collective bargaining to inequality in the workplace. In the readings, it’s been very interesting to see a progression from the meager beginnings of unions, what they hoped to achieve, to the “powerhouses” they’ve become today.
Unions began as a way to protect workers and fight for fair treatment in the workplace. They felt that by joining together, it would give them greater power during negotiations and more influence over the employers’ decisions.
Power is the capacity to produce effects on others (House, 1984), or the potential to influence others (Bass, 1990). Influence is the change in a target agent’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors as a result of influence tactics (Pennsylvania State University, 2014).
French and Raven (1959) tell us there are five different bases of power. I’d like to examine how each of these have been wielded by the labor movement.
Expert Power: Expert power is the power of knowledge.
Unions, by nature, are made up of “experts.” They are organized teams of individuals with a particular craft or skill. Employers seek the knowledge and expertise of these people, in order to make the product/process that will make the company successful.
Referent Power: Referent power is the potential influence one had due to the strength of the relationship between the leader and followers. When the leader is seen as a role model, he/she has referent power.
This kind of power develops between the union officials and the “rank-and-file” employees. The stewards and representatives are elected by the employees to be their representation in contract negotiations. They work together with the rank-and-file on a daily basis and are the individuals that the employees look to for guidance and assistance in resolving greivances.
Legitimate Power: Legitimate power depends on a person’s role in the organization and can be thought of as one’s formal authority.
We can see this, again, in the positions the officials hold. This gives them certain responsibilities and rights. They are the individuals “burdened” with representing 100% of the employees in negotiations pertaining to wages, benefits, and many other issues that are a priority to the employees.
Reward Power: Reward power involves the potential to influence others due to one’s control over desired resources.
This is more evident when considering the employers, in items such as hiring and firing, but many of the items we would think of as rewards – wages, bonuses, health benefits, paid vacations/holidays, pension plans – are in direct response to how the contract is negotiated by the employer and union officials. The union’s representation has the power to bring many rewards to its membership.
Coercive Power: Coercive power is the ability to control others through the fear of punishment or the loss of valued outcomes.
Unfortunately, armed with exclusive representation, union officials have a variety of ways to threaten, intimidate, and force out anyone who questions their conduct or disagrees with their actions.They control union treasuries, union offices, strike votes, contract negotiations, and all other union power and privileges without fear of workers exercising any practical restraint on the union officials’ control (nrtwc.org, 2014). Many a union official has been accused and/or convicted of corruption.
There was a definite purpose and a dire need for unions when they were created. They still have many benefits, but like anything, there is bad with the good. Their officials must be wary of allowing a need for power to outweigh the good they are trying to do for the employees.
Naive employers are often stunned to find that union negotiators will frequently sacrifice higher wages, better hours and working conditions for their members to induce employer cooperation in stripping union-dues money from their employees’ pockets (nrtwc.org, 2014).
Hopefully union members, as followers, will exercise the influence they have over their leaders and continue to fight against discrimination, and for freedom of choice. Otherwise, history may repeat itself!
House, R. J. (1984). Power in Organizations: A Social Psychological Perspective. Unpublished manuscript, University of Toronto.
Bass, B. M., (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press.
Pennsylvania State Univeristy. (2014). Lesson 7: Power and Influence. Retreived from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su14/psych485/001/content/07_lesson/01_page.html
French, J. & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies of Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.
The Problem of Compulsory Unionism. (2014). Retrieved from http://nrtwc.org/about-2/the-problem/