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Race, Gender, Class Consciousness and Union Support: An Analysis of Southern Textile Workers
Abstract
This paper examines race and gender differences in class consciousness and union support among a random sample of textile workers in a small North Carolina city. Class consciousness is treated as an ordinal variable consisting of class verbalization, class action orientation, and endorsement of egalitarian change. Union support denotes a recognition of the union's instrumental role in improving work and working conditions. The analysis reveals that blacks are significantly more class conscious and prounion than whites. On the other hand, males and females tend to share similar levels of class consciousness and union support. Comparisons by race, within gender and by gender, within race, are provided for finer distinctions and extended discussion. A multiple classification analysis reveals that racial differences persist and that gender differences remain unimportant when the covariates of age, job dissatisfaction, education, income, and skill are considered.
... While several religious denominations are represented in the United States, a main contrast is this between Protestants 5 as the dominant group, next to Catholics as the bigger marginalized group (Smith 2002). For the largest group, Protestants, their religious group identity is less important; implying that other identities such as class identity might be more prominent, leading to more class concordance (Hout 2008 to focus more on that religious part of their social identity since they see their religious group as being disadvantaged (Harrison, Harrison & Moore 2002;Schulman, Zingraff & Reif 1985;Durant & Sparrow 1997;Lamont & Molnár 2002). Since they perceive their situation as being marginalized while often living mixed in between other religious groups who they compare themselves with through social comparison, I expect them to be more likely of displaying discordance (Massey, Rothwell & Domina 2009). ...
... Furthermore, next to religious denomination and political identity, I focus on ethnic background as another potentially cross-cutting identity. Here, I again expect those part of a more marginalized group, notably non-whites, to have a more prominent ethnic identity since the importance of an ethnic identity is higher for those part of a minority group than for members of the majority groups (Harrison, et al. 2002;Schulman et al. 1985;Roediger 1999;Nickell 1997). People from ethnic minorities, even when part of a higher material class, tend to feel some kind of bond with their ethnic peers, across class boundaries (Massey & Denton 1993;Pattillo 2013 Somewhat on the cross-roads between status inconsistency and cross-cutting identities, I finally have expectations regarding the role of union membership. ...
... In addition to status inconsistency, my findings demonstrate cross-cutting social identities to play a role in the chances of class discordance as well. I anticipated religious and ethnic minorities in the middle and high class to have a higher chance of discordance because of their marginalized identity motivating them to identify with their religious or ethnic peers across class boundaries (Harrison et al. 2002;Schulman et al. 1985;Roediger 1999;Nickell 1997) and find this to be confirmed mainly for ethnic minorities. Whereas Catholics are slightly more likely to deflate when they are part of the material higher class, I mainly see that Black Americans in the material middle and even more so in the material high class are far more likely to deflate compared with their White counterparts. ...
... Kelly and Kelly 1994;Klandermans 1986). One prominent feature of this literature is its analytical focus upon the individuallevel predictors of union participation, such as orientations toward work (e.g., job dissatisfaction, organizational commitment, etc.), sociodemographics (e.g., income, ethnicity, occupation level), attitudes toward unions (e.g., perceived instrumentality, ideological congruence, etc.), and working-class consciousness (Bamberger, Kluger, and Suchard 1999;Klandermans 1986;Martinez and Fiorito 2009;Schulman, Zingraff, and Reif 1985). Most recently, scholarship has begun to explore the effect of workers' personality traits, such as social dominance orientation, on union participation (Green and Auer 2013). ...
When exploring the political response of citizens to economic inequality, scholarship primarily focuses on support for left parties and demand for redistribution. This article expands upon this literature by exploring whether inequality generates public support for a known inequality-attenuating force in society—labor unions. In contrast to prior work, which largely focuses on national levels of inequality, we focus on the effect of citizens’ firsthand exposure to inequality in their local context. We theorize that residing in a context with visible income inequality should generate support for expanding the power of unions and should do so by augmenting the perceived exigency of unions in advocating for the working class. Using observational analysis of national survey data, reinforced with matching, placebo tests, and a survey experiment, we find strong support for our theoretical expectations.
... The family nature of labor, where multiple members of the family were employed by the mill, ensured survival for workers' families and reinforced dependency (Blauner 1964 ; Hall et al . 1987 ; Penn and Leiter 1991 ; Schulman et al. 1985 ) . The visibility of the owner reinforced the image and reality of patron-client relationships . ...
Abstract This paper uses a case study of a Southern textile community to show how a distinct form of social capital is embedded in local networks of power and domination. Textile firms and communities in the South have undergone restructuring: technology and labor processes have modernized, firms have merged, consolidated, or closed, and the number of workers has declined. An analysis of Cannon Mills and its associated mill community of Kannapolis identifies the sources of the paternalist form of social capital that dominated work and community social relations. Corporate mergers, downsizing, technological change, shifts in the labor market, municipal incorporation, and labor organizing contributed to the transformation and decline of paternalistic social capital. The case study reminds social scientists that social capital is a context dependent form of power that can be created, accumulated, or destroyed. While many current analyses treat social capital as an unquestioned positive force, the case study reveals the dark side of social capital.
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the effect of ethnic, religious and gender
identities of textile workers working in Istanbul on their class consciousness formation.
In the studies made on class nowadays, making a description of class just by basing it
on economy is found to be deficient and it is put forward that class has a complex
structure which is formed by such a lot of factors including its members’ ethnic,
religious and gender identities and age and educational situation. As a matter of fact, the
term class that was supposed to be shaped by people’s owning means of production by
Marx was handled in-depth and was gained a different dimension including statue and
politics by Weber. This proves that it is necessary to handle the topic class in a
multifaceted way to gain efficient information. In this sense, starting from the idea that
people are placed to an economic class related with their ethnic, religious and gender
identities class consciousness is analyzed by handling together ethnic, religious and
gender identities the other sides of class avoiding just giving theoretical or descriptive
background of class and class consciousness. Firstly, in which class position workers
see themselves was determined. Then, to what degree workers’ ethnic, religious and
gender identities affects them while determining their class positions was searched. At
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this aspect Istanbul, which is quite rich in terms of ethnic identities and comes first in
textile, presents an ideal universe.
The sample of the research consists of 508 workers with the representation of
three per mille of textile workers in Istanbul. And, multi-research technique was applied
in the study. Firstly, a questionnaire which is a quantitative research technique was
applied. As gender is one of the main point for the study subject the number of women
and men was equated and 218 women and 290 men were volunteered to take part in.
During the application of questionnaire 15 voluntary workers were interviewed. After
evaluation of the questionnaire and interviews results, five focus group studies were
done. Therefore the data obtained from the research was supported by the results of
interviews and focus group studies where questionnaires remained limited. The main
argument of thesis is that while textile workers’ class consciousness described on the
basis of Marxist relations of production is low, other identities especially religious
identities of them affect their class consciousness.
Owing to the paucity of data demonstrating workers' reactions to work restructuring, the study examines possible reactions in terms of job performance, attendance at training, and voicing of discontent. It predicts the effects of work restructuring and background characteristics with reference to the exit-voice-loyalty model and demoralization theory A telephone survey of a random sample of households collected data from 1 176 workers in Hong Kong. Supportive of the demoralization theory, work restructuring over the previous past year appeared to reduce workers' intended job performance, attendance at training, and voicing of discontent. These findings hold for workers with various characteristics and restructuring in work outcomes, work processes, and staffing. Demoralization theory offers a reasonable explanation of the findings regarding the negative effects of work restructuring. In addition, income and social class have profound influences on workers' reactions.
Explanations for the difficulty faced by unions in their attempts to organize workers in high-tech firms in the Sunbelt are examined. We located our discussion within the theoretical debate regarding the decline of unions in the United States. Our focus is on 125 workers in two high-tech firms in a large Texas city. Based on survey data, personal interviews, and field observations, we describe the work and nonwork experiences of employees as they relate to the unionization process. We argue for a multicausal explanation for the lack of unionization. An authoritarian work environment, disorganized work lives, and an antiunion political climate combine to make unionization an unlikely alternative for these workers, despite the fact that they are not inherently antiunion in their attitudes.
Sociohistorical accounts point out two fundamental features of the southern political economy that have dampened attempts at unionization: the exercise of elite power and the prevalence of racial division and animosity. Using unique county-level indicators of elite power and unionization across one southern state, we explore the extent to which the dynamics of race and class continue to shape worker mobilization. Findings suggest that historically influential considerations be accorded more weight in contemporary analyses of race and class-based insurgency. Equally important is the need to examine whether inequality and mobilization processes vary at the local level.
The author distinguishes three time-related worker characteristics: physical facility, skill, and firm attachment. In an analysis of wage determination for a sample of textile production workers physical facility and firm attachment, but not skill, had significant curvilinear effects, These, along with exogenous effects of gender and race and endogenous effects of assignments to machine maintenance and to a weave room, are interpreted as reflecting power relations in the contemporary context of the southern textile labor process and labor market. The analysis emphasizes the critical importance of contextual considerations in operationalization, specification, and interpretation for wage determination studies.
Using Marxist, mass society, organizational, and social movements literatures, we distinguish alternative accounts of the relationship between union membership and perceived powerlessness. Then, we illustrate the distinctions with survey data on southern US textile workers. Logistic and ordinary least squares regression analyses suggest two interpretations for this group of workers: union membership influences perceived powerlessness by providing members a responsive organization that contrasts with their lack of control in the workplace; and perceived powerlessness, when combined with endorsement of collective strategies for change, encourages union membership. In the southern textile case, we find that race is associated with specific ideological leanings regarding collective strategies. The location of our sample, its particular position in the political economy of the US, and the relative immaturity of its union allow for instructive comparisons with other sociological treatments of work attitudes and collective action.
This paper investigates trends in public support for unionism during the 1980s. Comparing data from two western Canadian cities
in 1981 and 1987, we examine the impact of the recession of the early 1980s on public perceptions of the role of unions, whether
the differences between cities documented during 1981 had increased or decreased by 1987, and if “hard times” had resulted
in more nonunion employees expressing a willingness to join a union. There is little evidence of growing support for negative
“big labor” opinions about unions in the two cities. Despite a well-publicized labor dispute involving the use of strikebreakers
in one city, there was no increase in support for legislation restricting the practice. Residents in the same city, however,
were significantly more likely to agree with “business unionism” sentiments, an opinion trend accompanied by a growing willingness
to join a union.
La tesis desarrollada a finales de los años 70 por V. Pérez Díaz (véase Clase obrera, orden social, y conciencia de clase Madrid: Fundación del Instituto Nacional de Industria, 1980) sobre el aburguesamiento de la clase obrera en su forma de vida, valores, y actitudes, es examinada en la estela de la crisis económica en España durante los años 80. La concepción teórica de la conciencia de clase y sus niveles ? diferenciación de clase, conflicto de clase y revolución de clase - y las explicaciones sobre por qué los trabajadores de los países capitalistas han congelado su conciencia de clase debajo del tercer nivel son discutidas. Los datos recientes publicados sobre los aspectos económicos, normativos, y relacionales de la estratificación social en España demuestran que la clase de trabajadores manuales es económicamente mejor que anteriormente, pero que todavía no están en el mismo nivel, en lo que se refiere a la renta, la educación, o al estado social, con respecto a la clase media de trabajadores no manuales. Se concluye que la tesis del aburguesamiento de la clase obrera es exagerada. Los distintos estudios se examinan para identificar los determinantes de niveles de conciencia de clase durante épocas de crisis económica y alto desempleo en España, pero no emerge un cuadro de forma clara. Así se recomienda una investigación adicional
This study examines the reasons for differences among metropolitan areas in collective bargaining coverage and in union membership. The author employs an economic framework in which equilibrium levels of unionization are viewed as determined by demand and supply forces. The author finds that both measures of unionization are significantly related to earnings level, occupation, and industry structure; sex and racial composition of the labor force, region, and population growth have a smaller effect; and right-to-work laws have little, if any, effect on collective bargaining coverage but may significantly decrease union membership. (Author's abstract.)
In a paper presented to the annual conference of the VDI Textile and Clothing Group held on 21 April 1988 in Reutlingen, West Germany, the author outlines problems for the West European textile industry. These include currency parities, international cost differences, production technology and environmental protection. There must be altered joint behaviour patterns between the textile and clothing sectors to meet the demand for greater flexibility.
This study investigates determinants of the male-female unionization differential. Logit analysis is used to estimate three union membership equations, using data taken from the May 1976 Current Population Survey. Standard human capital measures, plus location, race, and sex, are first included as explanatory variables, and then occupational and industry status are added sequentially. The results indicate that sex differences in occupational and industrial status account for over half of the male-female unionization differential. The authors also conclude, however, that increasing the female unionization rate to equal the male rate would only modestly diminish the sex difference in wages. (Author's abstract.)
Past studies reveal weakness in their analyses of class and race consciousness. They fail, for example, to separate out the effects of race and class on components of race and class consciousness. This study discusses the roles of class and race in developing class and race consciousness and interest in politics. It emphasizes the need to clarify the roles of race and class as well as those of age and size of birthplace in each type of consciousness. The main findings show that race and class are sometimes differently related to these dimensions, and suggest that the colony model of American society for which race is decisive is more complete than the class model of race relations, although both are similar.
In an exploratory study of matched samples in England and the United States, we construct a path model that explains 26% and 39%, respectively, of the variance in social judgments about the fairness or unfairness of equality. The underdog principle, from which we predict that egalitarians compared to inegalitarians are more likely to be nonwhite, to have low prestige occupations, to have low family incomes, and to identify with the lower and working classes, is accepted. The principle of enlightenment, from which we predict a positive relationship between education and favorable attitudes toward equality, is accepted for England but not for the United States. The principle of an egalitarian Zeitgeist, from which we predict younger people are more egalitarian than older people, is accepted for the United States but not for England. Two additional important causal variables are found. First, a sense of personal equity, that is, a belief that a person has the standard of living that he/she deserves, reduces egalitarian attitudes in England more than in the United States and may reflect a cultural belief that British society is extraordinarily just because social arrangements result from fair rules of the game. While it is of no importance in England, the cultural belief in monetary success reduces egalitarian attitudes in the United States and functions as the belief in the just society does in England.
A distinguishing feature of the black position in advanced capitalism lies in relatively high unemployment and underemployment, a phenomenon that emerged in the 1930s and became firmly entrenched in the mid-1950s. To explain this we examined the black/white split labor market between World War I and the New Deal, showing how blacks were used to undermine white workers and their unions. The conflict was resolved with New Deal Labor legislation, protecting the unions and outlawing undercutting. This permitted a coalition to emerge between black and white workers. But in the long run the rising cost of labor drove capital to seek cheaper labor overseas, to make use of internal pockets of unprotected labor or to automate. All three processes hurt black industrial workers disproportionately, leaving a group of hardcore unemployed in the ghettos.
This study, intended largely as a replication of the research reported by John C. Leggett in his Class, Race, and Labor, is a methodological contribution to the measurement of class consciousness among American workers, and an analysis of the independent variables that explain variation in the class consciousness measure. The data for this research were collected during 1974 in a statewide Wisconsin sample. A conceptual analysis of class consciousness suggests four major levels of that consciousness: class identification, class action, militant egalitarianism, and capitalist change orientation. Attitudinal measures of these levels or stages of class consciousness are discussed and then combined into a Likert scale for purposes of empirical analysis. We then examine the gross and net effects of a variety of variables assumed to be causally related to working class consciousness: union membership, generation, skill level, family income, and size of place of residence. Methodological caveats regarding the applicability of cross-sectional investigations of the dynamic, dialectical process of the formation of working class consciousness are offered. Finally, the implications of these results for the literature on working class consciousness are discussed.
This paper presents the first systematic investigation of the American class structure based on data gathered from an explicitly Marxian, relational perspective. Classes in this research are not defined in terms of categories of occupations, but in terms of social relations of control over investments, decision making, other people's work, and one's own work. Data on these dimensions of social relations of production were gathered in a national survey of the U.S. working population. Four general results from the study are particularly important: (1) The working class is by far the largest class in the American class structure. (2) Close to half of all locations within the class structure have a "contradictory character," that is, their class content is determined by more than one basic class. The American class structure cannot therefore be represented by any simple scheme of class polarization. (3) Lower status white-collar occupations are virtually as proletarianized as manual occupations. It therefore makes little sense to consider such occupations as part of the "middle class." (4) Women and blacks are considerably more proletarianized than white males. The result is that a sizable majority of the U.S. working class is composed of women and minorities.
This national study investigates whether self-employed manual workers form an economic class and status group that is recognizably
distinct from manual employees and whether the distinctions have political consequences. The findings show that manual proprietors
are a higher status group and earn demonstrably more than employees. Though political cleavages between proprietors and employees
are small, along with other factors they may be large enough to destabilize working-class political loyalties.
This paper analyzes the effects of race, education, and income on perceptions of the extent of affluence in the United States. The analysis uses survey data from a probability sample of Hamilton County, Ohio, adults. Race, education, and income are each found to have significant additive effects on affluence perceptions. Blacks, less educated people, and people with less income tend to perceive greater affluence. The analysis suggests the importance of considering perceptions of the total distribution of rewards when considering the effects of deprivations.
This paper analyzes the empirical utility of consensual and conflictual theories in explaining the social cohesion of the liberal democracies of Britain and the United States. After clarifying conceptual problems of value consensus theory and Marxist theory, it examines the forms and extent of value-commitment in these countries. The conclusion is that both theories grossly overstate the amount of both value consensus between individuals and value consistency within individuals that actually exists. Cohesion in liberal democracy depends rather on the lack of consistent commitment to general values of any sort and on the "pragmatic acceptance" by subordinate classes of their limited roles in society. Suggestive evidence is also found for the existence of some "false consciousness" among subordinate classes.
Hypotheses linking lower-class leftist radicalism to the political primitivism caused by lack of education, lack of media exposure, infrequent participation in organizations, and personal isolation are examined on the basis of data from 382 Chilean urban slum dwellers. Consistent rejection of these hypotheses leads to an examination of their main assumptions. Leftist radicalism is viewed by them as an abnormal development constituting, basically, a simplistic reaction to personal frustrations and solitude. An alternative image of this ideology suggests that its emergence may follow normal processes of attitude formation through differential socialization. Tests involving three indicators of political socialization lend support to this alternative theory. Limitations of empirical findings and applicability of political primitivism and differential socialization explanations under varying societal conditions are discussed.
Organizational theory and research has neglected analyses of sex differences in organizational behavior. When sex differences have been noted, they have been explained in terms of differences in biology, socialization, attitudes, and role commitment. On the basis of a reexamination of the Hawthorne studies and Crozier's work on two French bureaucracies, this paper suggests that sex differences may also be due to more structural factors such as differential recruitment and sex-linked control mechanisms. On that basis, the paper suggests a reinterpretation of the findings from those studies. The sex structuring of organizations needs to be taken into account along with organizational factors to arrive at fuller explanations of organizational phenomena.
Work has been seen as the central social process that links individuals to industrial society and to each other. Although work issues are considered universal, the actual study of work has proceeded along sex-differentiated lines, so that (1) women are rarely studied as workers; (2) studies that do include women offer biased interpretations; and (3) the entire analysis of work is distorted. We argue that these problems arise from the use of sex-segregated models of analysis: the job model for men and the gender model for women. Further, we argue that these models lead researchers to ask different kinds of questions according to the sex of the workers, to treat men as uniform in relation to family and women as uniform in relation to employment and, implicitly, to use the patterns of men's relation to employment as the standard in analysis. Two case studies are examined in detail to illustrate the varying ways in which job and gender models have distorted investigation and interpretation. The paper ends with suggestions for reconceptualizing work to include forms of unpaid as well as paid work and for incorporating gender stratification into the analysis of work.
This paper makes the case for an absence of sex differences in work behavior, arguing instead that work attitudes and work behavior are a function of location in organizational structures. The structures of opportunity (e. g., mobility prospects) and power (e. g., influence upward), along with the proportional representation of a person's social type, define and shape the ways that organization members respond to their jobs and to each other. In hierarchical systems like large corporations, the relative disadvantage of many women with respect to opportunity and power results in behaviors and attitudes (such as limited aspirations, concern with co-worker friendships, or controlling leadership styles) that are also true of men in similarly disadvantaged positions. The structure of power in organizations, rather than inherent sexual attitudes, can also explain why women sometimes appear to be less preferred as leaders. It is concluded that it is not the nature of women but hierarchical arrangements that must be changed if we are to promote equity in the workplace.
An overview is provided of what is known about working class women and work (based on census data and the currently available body of research). The findings from an ongoing study of women in blue-collar and service occupations in three California cities are discussed. (Author/GC)
This study investigates determinants of the male-female unionization differential. Logit analysis is used to estimate three union membership equations, using data taken from the May 1976 Current Population Survey. Standard human capital measures, plus location, race, and sex, are first included as explanatory variables, and then occupational and industry status are added sequentially. The results indicate that sex differences in occupational and industrial status account for over half of the male-female unionization differential. The authors also conclude, however, that increasing the female unionization rate to equal the male rate would only modestly diminish the sex difference in wages. (Author's abstract.)
The textile industry: keel of Southern industrialization
- H Boyte
How the rank and file views local union administration-a survey
- George Bohlander