An organisational view on class politics: British and American trade unions in the early twentieth century struggle for social insurance

Adereth, Maya (2024) An organisational view on class politics: British and American trade unions in the early twentieth century struggle for social insurance. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

Why, despite a shared tradition of voluntary benefit provision, did the British and American labour movements diverge on the question of state insurance at the turn of the twentieth century? This thesis builds on existing work that highlights historical, social, and institutional context in examining the strategies of organised labour. It does so with frameworks borrowed from organisational sociology. Beyond industrial conditions and the demands of their members, trade union strategies are formulated in a wider organisational environment. As a result, their strategic choices reflect the organisational field in which they operate, legitimating norms and practices that increase their chances of survival, and inherited organisational forms that structure their coalitional landscape. The three sections of my dissertation are devoted to examining each of these elements. In the first section, I situate British and American trade unions within a wider field of working-class organisations—that of mutual benefit societies. I demonstrate how the trajectory of mutual benefit societies informed trade union organising in both countries at the turn of the century. In the second section, I focus on the role of legitimation in guiding trade union benefit provision. I argue that transformations in the norms and laws surrounding voluntary associations posed barriers and opportunities for trade union survival. In drawing and re-drawing the boundaries of legitimate working-class association, these norms and laws encouraged the perpetuation of some organisational practices over others. Finally, in the last section of the dissertation I consider how inherited organisational forms constrain the opportunities for welfare coalitions. In particular, I look at how debates over the categorisation of trade unions—as voluntary associations or corporations—informed alliances for state insurance in the early twentieth century. The organisational lens transforms the question on trade union orientation towards public benefits into a question about their own organisational models: why did American trade unions cling to their expansive system of voluntary insurance schemes while British trade unions relinquished the sphere of benefit provision to the state? Neither class structure, nor class experience, nor the relationship between them adequately illuminate these developments. The world of organisations, I argue, is therefore critical to the study of formal class politics.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Maya Adereth
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JK Political institutions (United States) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Sets:	Departments > Sociology
Supervisor:	Archer, Robin and Pinzur, David and McGovern, Patrick
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4809

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