Managing Heterogeneity

Abstract

This chapter examines how the national-level organizations manage internal heterogeneity across individual members, as well as specific geographically defined subunits. By observing internal opposition to the dominant national leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF), the chapter compares specific locals within each union. Consequently, it shows the robustness of the larger organizational governance institutions to perturbation once in equilibrium and that, at the local level, workers did not sort in to unions for political or social reasons; rather, they joined where the economic opportunities first appeared. The ILWU and WWF, whose leaders ask member contributions to political projects, pursued active persuasion combined with tolerance. The IBT, on the other hand, invested less in persuasion and employed screening and repression.