The Effects of Recent Changes in Industrial Conflict on the Internal Politics of Trade Unions: Britain and Germany

Roderick Martin

Chapter 4 in The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe since 1968, 1978, pp 101-126 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The classical analysis of union politics is derived from Michels’s work on Social Democratic parties and trade unions, Political Parties (1959 edition). According to Michels (ibid. 401), central executive domination over rank-and-file member of trade unions is inevitable, deriving from the simple fact of organisation: … oligarchy depends upon … THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ORGANISATION ITSELF … upon the tactical and technical necessities which result from the consolidation of every disciplined political aggregate. Reduced to its most concise expression, the fundamental sociological law of political parties … may be formulated in the following terms: ‘It is organisation which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandatories over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organisation says oligarchy.’

Keywords: Trade Union; Collective Bargaining; Union Member; Supervisory Board; Union Leader (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1978
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-03025-5_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349030255

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-03025-5_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().