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Which Side Are They On?

Some Suggestions for the Labour Bureaucracy Debate*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Mark Leier
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The debate over the labour bureaucracy has changed considerably since Robert Michels first argued that oligarchy was inevitable whenever humans organized. Recent work has tended to play down the notion of the labour bureaucracy as a body distinct from, and often in opposition to, the rank and file. Indeed, in the pages of this journal, Jonathan Zeitlin has maintained that “no clear line can be drawn between trade union officials and the ‘rank and file’”. Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion Zeitlin has urged that the “‘rank and filist’ paradigm is fundamentally unsatisfactory and should be abandoned rather than further refined”. Though others would not push the revisionist argument this far, the general tendency has been to agree that the earlier generalizations were over-blown and that it is difficult to distinguish between bureaucrats and members. Many of Zeitlin's earlier opponents now appear to be nearly indistinguishable from him, and few argue that the interests of the labour leadership differ in any important degree from those of the rank and file. I believe, however, that the reports of the demise of the labour bureaucrat have been somewhat exaggerated. This paper will argue that though the argument needs to be re-formulated, the paradigm of the labour bureaucracy remains a useful one. Such a reformulation must shift the focus from differences of ideology separating the leaders from the members and instead must turn to an analysis of the power relationship between the two. This paper will trace the recent twists and turns in the debate and will suggest ways in which it is possible to view the labour bureaucracy as a distinct layer of the union movement.

Type
Suggestions and Debates
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , December 1991 , pp. 412 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1991

References

1 Zeitlin, Jonathan, “‘Rank and Filism’ in British Labour History: A Critique”, International Review of Social History, Volume XXXIV (1989), p. 60.Google Scholar See also in this volume the responses of Richard Price and James Cronin, as well as Zeitlin's rejoinder.

2 Mills, C. Wright, The New Men of Power: America's Labor Leaders (New York, 1948), pp. 7–9, 224–229, 239–265.Google Scholar

3 See Hall, Burton (ed.), Autocracy and Insurgency in Organized Labor (New Brunswick, 1972)Google Scholar, for a collection of essays on this theme.

4 Weir, Stan, “The Conflict in American Unions and the Resistance to Alternative Ideas from the Rank and File”, in Green, James (ed.), Workers' Struggles, Past and Present: A “Radical America” Reader (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 251–268.Google ScholarRadical America has advanced a number of variations of this theme in its pages. Lynd, Staughton has made similar arguments, most recently in “Trade Unionism in the USA”, New Left Review, 184 (1990), (11/12), pp. 76–87.Google Scholar

5 Novick, Peter, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988), p. 439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kolko, Gabriel, The Triumph of Con-servatism (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Weinstein, James, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State (Boston, 1968).Google Scholar For a Canadian analysis along similar lines, see Finkel, Alvin, Business and Social Reform in the Thirties (Toronto, 1979).Google Scholar

6 Zeitlin, Jonathan, “Trade Unions and Job Control: A critique of rank and filism”, Society for the Study of Labour History, 46 (1983), p. 7Google Scholar; Bodnar, John, Workers' World: Kinship, Community and Protest in an Industrial Society, 1900–1940 (Bloomington, 1985).Google Scholar Most histories of the Communist Party make similar claims about popular support for activists rather than ideologues. Palmer, Bryan D. (ed.), Jack Scott: A Communist Life (St. John's, Newfoundland: Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1988), p. 101.Google Scholar

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10 Cited in “Discussion”, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 46 (Spring 1983), p. 7.Google Scholar

11 Zeitlin, , “Trade Unions”, p. 7.Google Scholar

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13 Bakunin, Michael, God and the State (New York, 1970), pp. 35, 41–42.Google Scholar

14 Maximoff, G. P., The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism (New York, 1964), p. 328.Google Scholar

15 Dolgoff, , p. 245.Google Scholar