Marching to Different Tunes: Commitment and Culture as Mobilizing Mechanisms of Trade Unions and Community Organizations

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2012.00893.x
Date01 December 2013
AuthorMaite Tapia
Published date01 December 2013
Marching to Different Tunes:
Commitment and Culture as Mobilizing
Mechanisms of Trade Unions and
Community Organizationsbjir_893666..688
Maite Tapia
Abstract
This study examines mobilizing mechanisms using a British community orga-
nization and a British trade union as exemplars. Although there has been
substantial work on union revitalization on the one hand, and the emergence of
alternative, community organizations on the other, no study has compared the
challenges these organizations face in encouraging member mobilization. The
findings illustrate how the trade union engages in a service-driven culture,
cultivating instrumental commitment between the members and the union. The
community organization, in contrast, engages in a relational culture and exem-
plifies a form of social commitment between the members and the group. As a
result, different types of commitment and organizational cultures help explain
why sustained member mobilization within a trade union is harder to achieve
than within a community organization.
Mobilization is a process of increasing the readiness to act collectively.
(Gamson 1975: 15)
1. Introduction
This article compares the mobilizing mechanisms of trade unions and com-
munity organizations. My starting point is the following paradox: trade
unions have numerous members and resources but often find it difficult to
mobilize their members (e.g. Bronfenbrenner and Juravich 1998; Heery et al.
2000). Community organizations, on the other hand, have much smaller
memberships, don’t have as many resources but display a tremendous
Maite Tapia is at ILR School, Cornell University.
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British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2012.00893.x
51:4 December 2013 0007–1080 pp. 666–688
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2012. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
capacity for mobilizing their bases (e.g. Osterman 2002; Wills 2004). What
explains the different levels of member mobilization in trade unions and
community organizations?
Over the last three decades, the system of worker representation based on
trade unionism and collective bargaining has been eroding. In the UK, the
majority of employees are no longer covered by collective bargaining (LFS
2010), and a unilateral decision taken by the employer is now the most
frequent method of setting the terms of employment (Cully et al. 1999).1
Although the primary source of power for unions in the UK has been at an
institutional level through negotiations and collective bargaining (Hyman
2001; Simms and Charlwood 2010), this power resource has significantly
diminished, converting the union into more of a consultative and informative
and less of a negotiating force (Brown 2010).
With globalization and the loss of unionized manufacturing jobs, trade
unions are facing a special challenge trying to represent workers. Their
difficulties can be ascribed to factors such as the change in the economic
structure; the transition from goods-producing to service-producing indus-
tries, resulting in outsourcing and subcontracting; the increase of ‘born’
non-union jobs; and employer hostility towards trade unions. These external
factors, however, are not the only reason for the decline in union power.
Unions face internal challenges as well.
Unions’ actions are constrained by their organizational culture, that is, a
system of symbols, rituals, ideologies and beliefs that shape behaviour and
channel action (Martin 1992; Pettigrew 1979; Schein 1985). Since this orga-
nizational culture tends to be based on economic exchanges, many members
consider the union an institution to provide protection, their contribution a
mere payment for a service; individualism is pushed to the forefront, under-
mining collectivism (Hyman 2004, 2007). As unions lost their legitimacy
representing the working class, they started to ‘sell’ union membership on an
individual basis. The promotion of this culture, based on providing services
to individuals, constrains unions’ means for collective action (Swidler 1986).
Furthermore, the organizational culture is critical in developing levels of
dedication among employees (O’Reilly and Chatman 1996). This brings me
to the second challenge: member commitment.
Unions suffer from low levels of member commitment (Lévesque et al.
2005), that is, the willingness to devote energy and loyalty to the organization
(Kanter 1968). The union participation literature as well as organizational
behaviour studies have shown that membership disaffection will lead to low
levels of member participation (Lawler et al. 2009; Sinclair and Tetrick 1995;
Tetrick et al. 2007). In addition, union member commitment tends to be
instrumental, based on a trade-off of benefits and costs, rather than affective
or normative, leading again to low levels of participation (Sverke and Kuru-
villa 1995). Fostering instrumental member commitment will reinforce the
union culture based on service provision, or in other words, member
commitment and organizational culture are interconnected; they shape and
reshape each other.
Marching to Different Tunes 667
© John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics 2012.

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