Re-conceptualizing member participation: informal activist careers in unions

Abstract

Extant theories of member participation in unions have sought mainly to explain spot decisions to participate in collective action and therefore are limited in explaining how members can have an impact on union governance. This article conceptualizes life-long activism as informal careers that begin with politicizing life experiences, are nurtured through the fulfilment of organizational roles and develop by gaining status and skills both within the union and in the members’ community. Data are reported from the Los Angeles Justice for Janitors campaign two decades after initial mobilization occurred there. Existing literature has depicted activism as a response to calculus and stimulus rather than as a search for meaningful work. An alternative perspective is advanced where the force of a calling acts as the main driver of activism in which the union is seen as a vehicle for the pursuit of social justice.

Keywords

activism careers member participation unions

Introduction

Member participation in trade unions has typically been conceptualized as organizational commitment (Gall and Fiorito, 2012) or willingness to work (Buttigieg et al., 2008; Fiorito et al., 2010). While extant theories do well in accounting for day-to-day member participation, they are less suited to explaining member activism that is enduring, results in gains in expertise and status and requires large sacrifices in personal life. Continued member activism is vital to sustaining social movements, which formal organizations such as unions endeavour to hold on to. This article shows how sustained forms of member engagement can be conceptualized as informal careers and demonstrates that members who built informal activist careers impacted organizational governance in a union where members’ voice was noticeably absent. Data are reported from a study of members in the Los Angeles local union of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) two decades after an iconic organizing campaign there re-organized janitorial workers.

Extant theories of member participation in unions have sought mainly to explain spot decisions to participate in collective action and therefore are limited in explaining life-long activism. Mobilization theory has bridged part of this gap by explaining that the experience of injustice can galvanize group identity and lead to sustained collective action (Kelly, 1998). But the kind of activism that builds democratic governance is currently not well understood.

This article conceptualizes life-long activism as informal careers that begin with politicizing life experiences, are nurtured through the fulfilment of organizational roles and develop by gaining status and skills both within the union and in the members’ community. These activist careers differ structurally as well as ideologically from conventional organizational careers. They can be characterized as careers of achievement rather than careers of advancement (Zabusky and Barley, 1996), careers that heed to a calling rather than careers geared towards economic rewards (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). In the rest of the article, a review of relevant literature is provided; an inductive theory is advanced on the progression of activist members’ careers; and how these careers contributed to sustaining member engagement and movement goals in the Los Angeles union is demonstrated. A contribution to the member participation literature is argued based on the fact that existing literature has depicted activism as a response to calculus and stimulus rather than as a search for meaningful work. An alternative perspective is advanced where the force of a calling acts as the main driver of activism in which the union is seen as a vehicle for the pursuit of social justice.

Member participation

Although member participation has been considered important for trade unions and other member-based social movement organizations to survive, grow and effect social change (Gallagher and Strauss, 1991; Kelly, 1998; Simms and Holgate, 2010), sustainable participation has proved to be both a theoretical challenge and an empirical rarity. Theories of formal organizations have even predicted the eventual demise of member engagement, suggesting that organizations eventually develop structural rigidity and routinized practices that distance them from members (Crozier, 1964; Leach, 2005; Michels, 1959 [1911]; Selznick, 1948; Voss and Sherman, 2000). Empirical studies of both the US and the UK labour movements have generally confirmed the existence of oligarchy in trade unions (Cornfield, 1993; Healy and Kirton, 2000). The difficulty that women and minority members have had in penetrating the layers of oligarchic governance in trade unions is also well documented (Cornfield, 1993; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Kelly and Heery, 1994).

One of the assumptions behind the rigidity-member disengagement nexus is that formal careers sponsored by the bureaucracy are the main means by which organizational members can gain ascendancy (Gouldner, 1954; Kraatz, 2009; Legge, 1999; Michels, 1959 [1911]). Constructed around functional tasks in the organization, these careers are integrated into the hierarchy of the bureaucracy. Mobility in bureaucratic careers is defined by vertical progression within the organization, represented by a series of jobs that are placed incrementally higher in the hierarchy (Gunz and Jalland, 1996). Alternatives to moving up in the hierarchy have been conceptualized typically in terms of member participation defined as willingness to devote time and energy to union activities (Buttigieg et al., 2008; Fiorito et al., 2010). Extant theories of member participation have been concerned with factors influencing spot decisions for direct action, such as member-organization fit (Chacko, 1985; Klandermans, 1986), rather than with enduring forms of engagement. Recently, research on organizing drives has called into question the effectiveness of members’ direct action in winning union recognition (De Turberville, 2004; Hickey et al., 2010). The problem, however, may not lie in the diminished relevance of activism. Part of the problem is that focusing narrowly on activism as protest action during the organizing phase prevents us from addressing the important question of how members can stall the iron law of oligarchy. Gahan’s (2012) recent study on the contextual factors that prompted union members to voice their complaints to their union is an important step in this direction. However, the results were cross-sectional and measured individual responses to a hypothetical situation.

Kelly’s synthesis of the theories of mobilization advanced by Tilly (1978), Gamson (1995) and McAdam (1988) provides a clue to the kind of enduring activism that can lead to organizational change. Citing McAdam’s (1988) model of collective action, Kelly (1998) theorized that individual perceptions of injustice trigger social identification with others who share similar experiences. Kelly’s notion of collective action relies on the construction of a community of like-minded people through social interaction with peers, and on leaders who add justification to their discontent. While Kelly’s theory of mobilization provides a bridge between individual perceptions of injustice and collective action, we lack an understanding of life-long activism that develops the capacity to impact on organizational structures.

Theorizing member participation as activist careers

Careers depict the enactment of social roles that link individual action to structure over time (Barley, 1989; Bechky, 2011). Thus they have the potential to impact on organizational and institutional change (Barley, 1989; Bechky, 2011). Several literatures support theorizing activism as a career, including McAdam’s seminal studies on the biographical consequences of activism, the Chicago School approach to careers theory, as well as scholarship on the meaning of work. Studies of social movements have established that deep involvement with activism can fundamentally transform one’s outlook in life and render ‘biographical consequences’. In a study that compared life trajectories of participants in Freedom Summer to those of non-participants, McAdam (1989) found that participants were far more likely to select jobs that allowed them to affect social change, experience longer bouts of unemployment, vote partisan, marry late and marry like-minded individuals. For individuals who are transformed by participation in a movement, activism can be likened to a calling that makes one’s work personally fulfilling as well as socially meaningful. While those who see their work as a means to advancement or an economic necessity tend to focus on objective rewards of their work, those for whom work is a calling are inclined to define career success subjectively in terms of realizing their vision (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Recent studies of workers who pursue a calling have argued that workers committed to a larger cause are more likely to exercise principled dissent rather than silence or exit when organizations violate their ideals (Bunderson and Thompson, 2009; Thompson and Bunderson, 2003).

Career theory in the tradition of the Chicago School of sociology provides a theoretical basis for understanding alternative careers to the formal organizational career. This tradition has maintained that careers can originate in and be nurtured by social structures such as communities of practice, occupations and affinity groups, instead of hierarchical organizations (Barley, 1989; Bechky, 2011; Becker and Strauss, 1956). Empirical studies on alternative career progressions to the vertical one, such as studies of blue-collar workers by Thomas (1989) and of technicians by Zabusky and Barley (1996), have shown that career progress can be defined not by larger roles in an organization’s hierarchy, but through the accrual of knowledge, respect and social skills on the job. Van Maanen and Schein (1977) also showed that careers can progress radially, by moving from the periphery to the core of an organization’s culture. Compared to careers focused on advancement, then, careers in which workers define success in terms of horizontal and radial progressions are careers of achievement (Zabusky and Barley, 1996). Progress in careers of achievement is marked by status passages where shifts in roles engender both gains in status and reputation as well as changes in how the individual views him or herself (Barley, 1989: 50). While the community of relevance for most studies of horizontal and radial careers has been the occupational or craft community (Van Maanen and Barley, 1984), it can readily be extended to a community of union members.

Empirical support for conceptualizing member participation as careers can be found in the industrial relations literature. Of particular note are studies that have distinguished between self advancement as a motivator for union careers on the one hand and moral meaning and personal fulfilment on the other (Kirton, 2006; Kirton and Greene, 2002). Studies that have depicted women’s careers in unions have noted that phases of informal activism are mixed with phases marked by formal union positions as well as breaks in activism. The women in these studies described their engagement with the union as a continuous engagement with activism that needed to be balanced with regular employment and family responsibilities (Franzway, 2000; Kirton, 2006; Ledwith et al., 1990). While the aforementioned studies have shown union careers that combine formal and informal practices of activism, this article focuses on an ‘extreme’ form of activist careers that does not depend at all on vertical progression: the informal activist careers of low-wage immigrant members.

Research context: the Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles

The Justice for Janitors (JfJ) is a campaign to organize office cleaners waged by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the second largest union in the USA. Mobilizing political support from community groups and citizens to pressure employers, the JfJ has become an icon of the revival of militant organizing and social movement unionism in the USA (Clawson, 2003; Fantasia and Voss, 2004). Initial organizing efforts in the 1980s in Los Angeles culminated in a large strike in 1990 that involved masses of union members, non-members and community sympathizers. The Los Angeles JfJ two decades after the initial mobilization makes an appropriate setting for studying enduring forms of member participation as enough time has passed for member disengagement and structural bureaucratization to have commenced (Osterman, 2006: 623). Unlike in the UK where the organizing model was introduced primarily as a tactical innovation (Simms and Holgate, 2010), the revival of organizing in the USA was premised on a new ideology of political mobilizing and allying with non-traditional partners such as community and immigrant groups. Hence, member activism is considered key to the sustainability of the organizing model in the USA (Bronfenbrenner, 1997).

The Los Angeles case constitutes a special case (Siggelkow, 2007): while the SEIU and its JfJ campaign have been criticized as a bureaucratic organization appropriating a ‘poor people’s movement’ in which immigrant workers have little decision-making power, members’ voice prevailed in the Los Angeles local. Contrary to extant depictions of a typical ‘union career’ (Ledwith et al., 1990), however, members’ voice did not rely on accession to formal careers within the union. Instead, the most influential members garnered status and skills through informal careers that developed horizontally and radially. Several factors account for the difficulty that immigrant members experienced in exercising voice within the SEIU. As in other American unions, SEIU members were eligible to be elected onto the executive board – the main representational structure – and into officer positions – the main executive structure – at all levels of the union. However, in reality, most officer positions were filled by staff. Once in positions of authority, staff also influenced the decision-making process within executive boards. The SEIU was widely known for the quality of its staff, possessing high levels of education, experience and political and research skills (Fantasia and Voss, 2004; Piore, 1994). Officers and their staff typically conducted the research that backed union strategies, thereby controlling a key function that influenced decision-making. By contrast, members in the property services division were typically first-generation immigrants from Mexico, Central America, Africa and Eastern Europe. The average member lacked the relevant qualifications and knowledge of collective bargaining in the USA to exercise influence.

Method and data

Data for this article were collected as part of a larger project examining organizational change in the SEIU. Intensive fieldwork in Los Angeles was conducted in April to June 2006. The author received approval from the local union’s President to conduct full-time research in and around union premises. Ethnographic observations in Los Angeles covered events such as meetings at the union, workplace meetings, rallies and social parties, processes such as preparation for meetings and informal conversations. A total of 37 interviews were conducted with members and 26 interviews with staff and administrators of the union. Interviews were conducted in Spanish or English at the union, at protest venues and inside members’ homes. Drawing on the critical life events approach to examining social transitions (Cochran, 1990; Gardiner et al., 2009), members were asked to recount a storied biography and probed further about the structure and content of their involvement with the union. Members who were actively involved in union work were asked to elaborate on the nature of this work, how the requisite skills were acquired and the sources of material and psychological support for union work. A typical interview lasted between one and two hours. Often, a second or third interview was conducted with the same individual. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. The author and a bilingual research assistant translated Spanish into English while transcribing the interviews. Interviews and observations were analysed using a software package for qualitative analysis.

Among the 37 members interviewed, 10 members were not involved in union work on an ongoing basis and were excluded from the analysis for this study. The article thus focuses on 27 members who were active in the union. Drawing on Chicago School work on careers (Barley, 1989), the existence of status passages and development in skills and status were considered evidence of an informal career. Using this distinction, 19 out of the 27 members were discerned to be building informal careers in the union. In the sections that follow, Becoming an activist describes how the 27 members became involved in union activities. Eight of these activists, while active, had not begun the progressions characteristics of an informal career. Making an impact through activist careers reports on the informal career progressions of the remaining 19 members. In order to gauge whether the stages of career development influenced members’ actions, members’ actions in the union and changes in the union’s organizational practices were coded separately. The actions were then re-coded for each member according to stages in career progression. From this process an association emerged between members’ career stages and their scope of influence in the union.

Becoming an activist

The process of becoming an activist was marked by the development of an injustice frame with which members interpreted past experiences, leading to the attribution of new meaning to organizational roles. The trajectory that Liliana (a member referred to here by a pseudonym) undertook illustrates that the effects of politicizing events can touch all aspects of a member’s life. Realizing the unjust nature of an immigration system that recruits undocumented workers yet leaves them unprotected prompted Liliana’s involvement in the union’s political activities. She felt that politics offered her and her family the safety and dignity that was lacking in their work lives and she began to draw satisfaction from doing this work:

I worked with [company name] and they started asking for papers. I felt my face going like it was paralysed because all my family was working with [company name]. Little by little I realized that electing politicians that are going to be on the side of workers, one can bring about change. I started as a door knocker [campaign volunteer to knock on voters’ doors] and then became lead for a small group. Then last year they gave me the opportunity to be a coordinator of a campaign. So I’ve climbed step by step. Not only for my family, but we can make change for many families. And that’s why I’ve liked it and I’d like to learn more to see what more we can do.

Liliana’s changed perceptions about immigrant rights motivated her involvement in bilingual parents’ rights.

I realized that it’s important to be involved in the union but also in your personal life to be involved in your children’s schools and know the process. I started when my son was in 3rd grade and now he’s in 8th grade. I started to be part of the school board. Now I am president of the bilingual programme. I thought that the administration was doing things right at first, but little by little as I got involved I realized that they weren’t doing things right.

A changed self-awareness and newfound sense of empowerment eventually pervaded Liliana’s personal life and she ended up divorcing her husband, who did not approve of her new activities.

Development of an injustice frame

Members who became activists recounted events or episodes in their lives that became framed as encounters with injustice, whether it was wage cuts at work or the constant threat of deportation. Subjective evaluations of the encounter were formative and became part of the individual’s identity. Drawing on Gamson et al. (1982), the development of an injustice frame is defined as a process of social attribution in which the reasons for one’s grievances are found in a systemic source. Existing studies of the Los Angeles JfJ focused on the union’s strategies to reverse the tide of de-unionization (Erickson et al., 2002; Waldinger et al., 1998). Although these studies did not focus exclusively on member activism, they suggested that members who led the 1990 strike and protests thereafter were sensitized to radical street actions from witnessing political struggle in their countries of origin, particularly Central America. Many of these earlier activists had retired by the time of the present study. Most members interviewed for this study migrated to the USA when political turmoil had subsided in their home countries; hence, most politicizing experiences occurred in the USA.

Often, the assignment of collective meaning to personal injuries transformed people’s outlook. Some were asked or persuaded by others. For example, one member had noticed that the employer began speeding up the work, but it was only after her co-workers asked that she joined a group protest against the changes, eventually becoming the union steward:

So I started to work there and when I got there the people had the problem that the company wanted to make us wash dishes, clean refrigerators and microwaves, and all of that. And all of that they [used to] pay separately. It does not go within the cleaning contract and they wanted us to do it as part of our hours. We started to fight that. People asked me if I will support them because they were fighting that situation. And I said, yes, of course.

Developing an injustice frame was a social process whereby individuals came to regard themselves as members of a collectivity and to define their achievements in terms of benefiting the group.

Acquisition of organizational roles

Individuals who developed injustice frames through politicizing experiences became likely candidates to fill organizational roles. The infusion of organizational work with subjective value often transformed the meaning of the work. Activists described their work at the union as their personal ‘wealth’ that they considered a ‘prize’, a chance to help not only their own family but also many others. A mother of three who had been separated from her children in El Salvador for 11 years expressed this most succinctly:

I like the work here because I am helping my own co-workers and trying to help them and take on the [grievance] cases, see how they are in terms of salaries, warnings, firing … And like that, all of us fight here. It is a chain here. But yes, it gives me pleasure to serve my co-workers, my own co-workers.

She went on to say that helping others at the union helped keep her ‘alive’ because, in her words, ‘I too can go out and collaborate and put down my little grain of sand in this movement’. Because roles activists played at the union provided opportunities to realize personal visions, activists sought out more, and more significant, roles.

Impacting the union through activist careers

While all 27 activists had put their changed worldviews into action by undertaking union work, what distinguished 19 of them from the rest was a progression in the scale of their responsibilities in the union and an elevation in status. Drawing on the careers literature on status passages (Nicholson and West, 1989; Van Gennep, 1960), as well as the union careers literature (Ledwith et al., 1990), activists’ informal career progressions were demarcated as ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘mature’ phases. Development in one’s informal career was associated with larger scopes of action in an activists’ primary action space and the potential for a larger impact on union policy. Status and acceptance were gained through two sources: the union and the community of janitorial workers. Out of the 19 activists building informal careers, 10 relied on both of these sources, while five activists acquired status mainly via organizational roles and four acquired status primarily by building a reputation among fellow janitors. Thus, while in practice the two routes may be activated simultaneously to achieve career mobility, they are distinguishable analytically. Figure 1 presents a model for the formation and development of activist careers, starting with the formation of an injustice frame and progressing through stages of development. The personal and career characteristics of each of the 19 activists are presented in Table 1. A detailed account of the ways in which the community of janitors and the union facilitated career progression and helped expand the scope of activists’ influence on union policy is outlined below.

Figure 1.

Development of informal activist careers.

Table 1.

Activist careers in situ.

Pseudonym	Type of progression	Stage	Career characteristics	Achievements	Personal characteristics	Age group
Josefina	Community and organization	Mature	Workplace mobilization→ mass protest mobilization → multiple-time executive board member and symbol of the JfJ struggle.	Powerful, autonomous and widely respected. Currently plotting a ‘coup d’etat’ against union officers.	First generation Salvadoran immigrant. Seeks to overcome grief of losing a daughter through activism.	60s
Jose	Community and organization	Mature	Unlike others in the opposition camp, built career through both opposition and pro-union work.	Respected by all factions. Multiple-time executive board member. Retains objectivity in union work but is an oppositionist at core.	First generation Salvadoran immigrant. After intense engagement, is trying to wind down activism and focus on family.	40s
Liliana	Organization	Mature	Rapid rise through union work. Favoured by union officers but building her own constituency.	Has become indispensable in political campaigns. Is also actively involved in community and education issues.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Entire family is in the cleaning business.	30s
Manuel	Organization	Mature	Rapid rise through union work. Is using status gain in union to build his own constituency.	Considered equal to a staff member, but uses his work to challenge union officers.	First generation Nicaraguan immigrant.	50s
Miguel	Community	Mature	Emerged through opposition faction against union officers.	After opposition’s peak in the mid-1990s, is winding down his involvement.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Patriarch.	50s
Eva	Community	Mature	Community builder. Aim of career is not self-advancement but a realization of community values.	Orients newcomers and makes the union feel familiar and home-like. Social calendar planner.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Matriarch.	60s
Rodrigo	Community and organization	Mature	Has built career within the high paying university cleaning sector.	Is autonomous due to being the reference person for all matters regarding the university sector.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Is trying to wind down activism and focus on family.	50s
Joe	Community and organization	Mature	Has built career within high paying racetrack maintenance sector. Important connection to African-American members for union.	Autonomous due to being the reference person for all matters regarding the racetrack maintenance sector.	African-American Los Angeles native. Grandparent.	50s
Ricardo	Hiatus	Mature	A thinker rather than a mobilizer. Active in training and member development. Progressed via organizational roles; relatively little known in the janitorial community.	Respected by the union for his intelligence and expertise. Has been a member of the union’s auditing board.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Currently experiencing depression and withdrawal from activism.	30s
Juan	Community and organization	Mature	Second generation opposition faction leader.	Challenges union policy, often by causing raucousness in meetings.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Rosa’s brother. Recovered alcoholic and part-time DJ.	40s
Pablo	Organization	Middle	Loves the work but harbours no political ambition.	Workplace steward and union service desk worker.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Studying to become electrician.	30s
Rosa	Organization	Middle	Several times workplace steward. Opposition faction member.	Skilled in union’s administrative work. Less political than her brother Pablo.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Came to union work through her brother.	50s
Diego	Organization	Middle	Rose through workplace steward roles. Experienced in a variety of union work.	Skilled in union’s administrative work; no political ambition.	First generation Central American immigrant.	40s
Antonio	Community	Middle	Emerged through strike action in Los Angeles. Currently aiding union organizing in various cities.	Accumulated organizing expertise. Actively building career.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Proactive and eager to expand his experience.	40s
Linda	Community and organization	Middle	First-time executive board member. Currently active but contemplating relocation to non-union Mid-West.	Building her autonomy vis-a-vis union officers.	First generation Salvadoran immigrant. Sensitive to cost of living and consumption power.	40s
Margarita	Community and organization	Middle	Built career through doing union work.	Uses know-how in union work to challenge existing policies.	First generation Salvadoran immigrant. Left her children behind; views union work as working for children’s future.	30s
Viviana	Community and organization	Early	First-time executive board member. Cautious, ambivalent about factions.	Helped mobilize members for elections.	First generation Mexican immigrant. Shy; new to work outside home.	40s
Ana	Community and organization	Early	Workplace steward. Early stages of building a constituency.	Beginning to be known in the union for work in member services.	First generation Mexican immigrant.	40s
Diana	Community and organization	Early	Workplace steward in an influential zone in the cleaning industry. Early stages of building a constituency.	Beginning to be known in the union for work in training and education.	First generation Mexican immigrant.	40s

Community-based mobility

For 14 activists, the reference for career progression was the community of janitors. Drawing from Van Maanen and Schein’s (1977) concept of radial progression, status acquisition within the janitorial community is defined in terms of movement from the periphery towards the core. The progression of the career inside the organization is thus conceived as part of a larger trajectory of movement within the community of workers.

The early phase of a community-based career progression was characterized by personal relationships and associated with mentoring and helping others in the community. Members maintained and built networks by helping someone get a job, protecting another worker in a dispute with the supervisor, or by performing small acts of kindness towards others on the job. One’s sphere of influence at this stage remained small and spatially constrained. In the mid-career phase, workers gained status and recognition beyond their friendship networks, from staff and administrators of the union as well as from their own constituency. The scope of actions at this stage included mobilizing other members and challenging union practices. In the mature stage activists developed a loyal constituency that followed them regardless of whether they won a seat at the executive board in a particular election or changed factions. They thus became powerful figures. Members at this stage saw themselves as commanding a moral authority within the janitorial community stemming from the fact that they were not ‘fighting for a salary’. As one activist put it, ‘My principles, morally and spiritually, don’t permit it, don’t permit fighting for a salary. Dignity, respect and justice don’t have prices.’

Activists at the height of their informal careers valued their autonomy vis-à-vis both the union hierarchy and the membership. They saw themselves as answering primarily to the calling of the social movement and not to members’ requests for more service. One member at an advanced stage of her career stated it thus:

It’s not the position that makes me; it’s I that’s making the position be what it is. I told [the union President] I don’t go waging fights in the streets so that the members will love me. I fight from my heart. [I told him,] ‘You take care, because you do live from the members. Not me.’

Activists often contrasted their high status with that of staff in the union, who they saw as powerless even if they had formed their own union vis-à-vis their employer, the SEIU. Field observations confirmed that the staff union’s ability to represent staff interests was greatly circumscribed, since the SEIU as an employer was often unrelenting. One activist explained why she eschewed staff positions in the union:

I am not looking for a job with the union. Many others are. But if I were to get a job with the union, then my co-workers would be my bosses. And secondly I would have no voice nor vote to be able to protest against [the union President]. Even if I had a union [referring to the staff union], I am an employee and they can shut my mouth.

Organization-based mobility

As described earlier, the development of an injustice frame made individuals likely to take on organizational roles that allowed them to enact their vision. Those who built informal careers around organizational roles went farther and garnered skills and status from performing organizational roles. In comparison to community-based careers, union-based careers’ progression can be characterized by horizontal development – the acquisition of knowledge, respect and social skills on the job.

In the early stages of a union-based activist career, members gained expertise around an area of union work. The expertise nevertheless was limited to a small sphere – one’s workplace, or a particular task area, such as processing member grievances. In middle stages, members gained status and respect from the union administration. They became the ‘go-to’ person in that area and influenced relevant union practices. Influencing union practices required organizing other members to bring collective voice to task areas and members drew pride and satisfaction from a sense of efficacy: ‘I can say, I can give myself the luxury of saying that I gave a lot to that committee and we the members were organized. Yes, I did it. And I’ve fought considerably and we’ve won our respect from the administration.’ To effect change at a higher level of union policy, activists needed political skills. In mature stages of their career, activists learned how to use and manoeuvre factions and how to run for and win elections. Activists became privy to shortfalls in union practices while carrying out a project and typically pressured the union administration for changes after they became more powerful. One activist discovered through his involvement in early JfJ strikes that the union inadequately protected workers from employer retaliation after an organizing drive. When he was elected a member of the executive board he focused on this issue. In the activist’s words:

The union never has a plan for after the contract is gotten. When they get the contract they work to transition people officially to membership and they establish all the contacts with the companies to negotiate dues and all. But they don’t have a plan about how to provide stability for the worker in their job. They just leave the workers there. So then the company backlashes. During the first three months of having the union, the company put [forth] the immigration article that everyone should have [immigration] documents. The union didn’t have the legal recourse, but they needed another strategy with the employer.

Compared to community-based careers, organization-based careers often drew parallel trajectories with staff careers with the marked difference of salaried status. Contrary to activists building community-based careers who scorned at being financially dependent on the union, these activists expressed ambivalence about being unremunerated. A particularly emotional debate was observed where the administration proposed paying more expensive health benefits to staff directors. This proposal immediately drew fire from activists in the executive board, who demanded that the administration pay equal tribute to ‘martyrs’ among members. An excerpt from field notes taken as part of this study demonstrates this tension:

Board Member 1:

We want to give you much better benefits but it’s a question of principle because this is a workers’ struggle. One needs to pay respect to the martyrs of the movement: those workers who have sacrificed, who have lost their eyes. They have died in battles.

Board Member 2:

I’ve done staff work for several months and we [members] should also get recognized that we work eight hours and then work for the union. I also hurt to be leaving my family. It’s not only the staff who have families; we have families too.

As this quote demonstrates, building activist careers necessitated sacrifice of personal life. One activist who held an executive board seat suspected her son was involved with gangsters and was skipping school; she blamed herself for dedicating her time to union work at her son’s expense. By the same token, informal activist careers did not always progress linearly, as members’ family needs sometimes forced them to take a break in activism or to wind down. Two activists mentioned that they were purposefully reducing their commitment to union work because their families had suffered during the peak of their involvement. Disenchantment with the union and its practices sometimes also distanced members from actively building their careers. Finally, one interviewee had temporarily withdrawn from union work due to burnout.

Outcomes: vibrant democracy and sustained movement ideals

Despite overall bureaucracy and the concentration of formal authority in administrators’ hands, the Los Angeles union exhibited a vibrant democracy. Compared to typical accounts of unions where only select members become involved in the union (Newton and Shore, 1992), Los Angeles members played a role in all aspects of union work, including organizing, representation, contract enforcement, political mobilization and training. Members were active participants in task committees that made policy recommendations to the executive board. There was an opposition faction among the members that catalysed members’ political participation. At the workplace level, there existed a system of tutelage where more experienced members taught newcomers how to defend themselves. One activist described what this system looked like on the ground:

I learned a lot from those who were stewards [worksite member representatives] in other buildings, from the executive board members. They would go on teaching me how to do things, how to be a steward, so that I could attack the company or know how to win [grievance] cases … We agitated to get bad supervisors out or managers at [the company] who made errors. We removed a lot of people there who were unfair from the part of the company.

Activists building informal careers not only made the above-mentioned initiatives possible by doing more of the work and working harder than others. They also inspired, persuaded and mentored other members to get involved. They used the governance system to promote, contest and at times block union policies. Through their roles in the union, activists worked to increase transparency and fairness. For example, in 2005 activists passed a proposal to mandate mailing copies of quarterly union financial records to all members. In June 2006, members on the executive board obtained the right to examine records on reimbursements made to members who worked on union projects. While SEIU as an organization prioritized organizing, members on the whole desired better service and representation. Activists agitated to secure staff time and other resources for better representation, resulting in a re-allocation of overall staff time.

Activists also held the union accountable to the ideals of the JfJ movement and the interests of janitors. Members often expressed the view, both publicly in meetings and privately in interviews, that janitors needed to safeguard their interest because the administration could not always be trusted to do so. The following statement made by a member who spoke in a union meeting was typical:

We have struggled to get the company off our back and sometimes we have struggled to make even the union listen to us. What we have now is the result. We want no one to take advantage of us because we are workers. For us, there are very little opportunities. An undocumented worker has little chances. No one can help you, not the union, not your government, not the companies.

Discussion

This study has proposed and provided empirical justification for re-conceptualizing enduring forms of member activism as informal careers. Doing so answers a question that extant literature on member commitment and participation has not been able to address: how are members able to impact bureaucratic social movement organizations? Conceptualizing member activism in terms of informal careers embraces the view that structures of governance in unions alone do not guarantee organizational democracy. Agency is needed to activate these structures and build grassroots power to contribute to and, at times, oppose the union administration. As Foley (2003: 266) pointed out, even where communications linkages between leaders and members exist, they need to be triggered by member action. Table 2 summarizes the scopes of action possible for each stage of the two trajectories of informal careers. Extant literatures on union revival have emphasized the importance of political factions (Lipset et al., 1956), sustained member participation (Gall and Fiorito, 2012) and the accession of members into formal union careers (Ledwith et al., 1990) as elements facilitating renewal. Informal activist careers breathe agency into each of these elements, yet they have hitherto not received scholarly attention.

Table 2.

Stages in activists’ informal career progression.

	Community-based radial progression		Organization-based horizontal progression
	Achievements	Actions	Achievements	Actions
Early	• Relationships, networks	• Mentor others	• Expertise,know-how	• Become a leader in the workplace
Early	• Relationships, networks	• Help others	• Expertise,know-how	• Perform union work
Middle	• Organizational recognition	• Mobilize other members	• Status, respect	• Influence union work: functional level
Middle	• Constituency	• Challenge practices	• Status, respect	• Influence union work: functional level
Mature	• Autonomy	• Mobilize other leaders	• Skills in union politics	• Influence union work: organizational level
		• (Re)-design factions
		• Plot outcomes for community

The current findings demonstrate that informal careers were part of an overall trajectory in activism that may include horizontal and vertical movements as well as breaks and lulls in activism. Although they sometimes exhibited parallel trajectories with formal union careers, members’ activist careers were potentially more autonomous from the union hierarchy because they also relied on extra-organizational social structures for status gain. Because they were motivated by a calling for social justice and not by personal gain, members’ informal careers usually commanded a higher moral ground than formal unionists could. When activists building informal careers took representational positions in the union, these positions thus became more influential.

Existing scholarship on member activism has treated members’ lives and aspirations outside the union as either a black box or a blank slate. Hence it has focused on how activism can be elicited, through such processes as framing strategies (Snow et al., 1986) and social interaction with leaders (Metochi, 2002; Redman and Snapel, 2004). The approach to understanding activism developed here focused on episodes in a person’s biography that dispose individuals to political action. Thus, personal meaning and subjective career success were found to fuel enduring activism. In this approach, the union was seen as a vehicle for activists’ pursuit of a calling (Cardador et al., 2011) instead of an exclusive or dominant incubator of activism. Future research should examine the organizational contexts that enable or restrain individual activists from pursuing personal projects of social change (Ganz et al., 2004), paralleling developments in career research that have examined workers’ responses to violations of principle by the organization (Thompson and Bunderson, 2003).

This article also contributes to scholarship on the meaning of work as a driver of subjective career success (Hall and Chandler, 2005). For a long time, scholars have called for a closer examination of how workers in low socio-economic ranks develop meanings of work and achieve subjective career success (Brief, 2008; Rosso et al., 2010). Studies have shown that workers engaging in undesirable and low-status occupations such as janitorial work find meaning in social relations at work, thereby transforming the meaning of ‘dirty work’ (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001). The current findings suggest that workers in undesirable occupations may seek meaning in ‘extra’-work activities such as activism. Finally, while extant literature has focused on horizontal movements within an organization to describe career development trajectories of workers in low-status jobs, these findings show that affinity groups can be an alternative source of legitimacy and status.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I thank Mark Stuart and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that improved the article. Any remaining errors are my own. I am grateful to members of the SEIU who participated in and encouraged this research.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Kyoung-Hee Yu is a lecturer in management in the Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales. Her research focuses on institutional and organizational changes affecting work and employment with particular interest in activist careers. She received her doctorate from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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