Transient Solidarities: Commitment and Collective Action in Post‐Industrial Societies
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12084 |
| Author | Charles Heckscher,John McCarthy |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
Transient Solidarities: Commitment
and Collective Action in
Post-Industrial Societies
Charles Heckscher and John McCarthy
Abstract
Solidarity has long been considered essential to labour, but many fear that it has
declined. There has been relatively little scholarly investigation of it because of
both theoretical and empirical difficulties. This article argues that solidarity has
not declined but has changed in form, which has an impact on what kinds of
mobilization are effective. We first develop a theory of solidarity general enough
to compare different forms. We then trace the evolution of solidarity through
craft and industrial versions, to the emergence of collaborative solidarity from
the increasingly fluid ‘friending’ relations of recent decades. Finally, we
examine the question of whether these new solidarities can be mobilized into
effective collective action, and suggest mechanisms, rather different from tra-
ditional union mobilizations, that have shown some power in drawing on
friending relations: the development of member platforms, the use of purposive
campaigns and the co-ordination of ‘swarming’ actions. In the best cases, these
can create collective actions that make a virtue of diversity, openness and
participative engagement, by co-ordinating groups with different foci and skills.
1. Introduction
In the last 30 years, there is every evidence that labour solidarity has weak-
ened across the industrialized world. Strikes have widely declined, while the
most effective recent movements have been fundamentalist and restrictive —
turning back to traditional values and texts, narrowing the range of
inclusion. Political movements have undermined the liberal (USA) and
Social-Democratic (Europe) consensus, which included a robust role for
labour (Callaghan et al. 2010; Cramme and Diamond 2012). Although the
theme song of labour in America says solidarity is forever, labour leaders
Charles Heckscher and John McCarthy are at Rutgers University.
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British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12084
52:4 December 2014 0007–1080 pp. 627–657
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
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now commonly lament its decline. In effect, they echo the many social critics
who see a general weakening of social connectedness over the last half
century.
We try in this article to understand changes in solidarity. More specifically,
to anticipate our conclusions, we hope to show (a) that labour solidarity has
declined because its base in workplace relations and value commitments has
eroded; (b) that emergent trends have created the conditions for a new,
collaborative form of solidarity that builds on extended expressive relation-
ships; and (c) that effective mobilization tactics for this kind of solidarity are
different from those used by labour to date. They require the development of
organizational platforms rather than hierarchies, the crystallization of
purpose and the mastery of collective action as co-ordinated ‘swarming’
rather than massed confrontation.
Solidarity has been rather neglected as an academic topic because it is very
hard to analyse: there is little understanding of how it is created or how it has
changed. In an increasingly positivist academic climate, studies of it have
become scarcer. Research on union activity has been largely synchronous or
short term, assuming an essentially stable situation and trying to establish the
impact on it of one or another factor. This is not very useful in trying to think
about long-term trends in which the context changes fundamentally, and
therefore not very useful in understanding the current crisis, in which the
entire framework of labour relations is in question. A careful review of the
literature in 2008 concluded:
. . . [t]o fully account for variation in union formation, including the conditions
under which it occurs and how it occurs, it may ultimately be necessary to adopt a
broader perspective, one that addresses the importance of institutional environ-
ments, norms, and traditions in accounting for the behavior of the parties (Godard
2008: 395).
We aim to assess and explain the state of labour solidarity in this broader
perspective, to show how it can be modified and shaped, and to understand
emergent trends that affect the possibilities for the future. Much of our
evidence will be drawn from the USA, but our claims are broader: these trends
are characteristic of advanced industrial capitalism, not of any single country.
2. A theory of solidarity
Within the labour relations literature, there are many references to solidarity
but practically no theoretical treatments.1Much industrial relations scholar-
ship has abandoned the concept altogether, and tries to explain mobilization
and unionization on the basis either of individual propensities or of empiri-
cally visible contextual factors like labour law and political conditions. In
general sociology, a number of efforts to develop positivist theories, either on
rational choice or network structure lines (Doreian and Fararo 1998; Hechter
1983; Markovsky and Lawler 1994), have proved unsuited to capturing
628 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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