Power and the Bargaining Process: A Comment on Leap and Grigsby

Abstract

A RECENT article by Leap and Grigsby (L&G) in this journal' reviews some of the American literature on power, outlines a general model of power in the context of the organized collective bargaining relationship, and proposes a research agenda. Although we sympathize with many of L&G's observations (such as those concerning the cursory treatment of the concept of bargaining in the industrial relations literature), we feel that the model they propose has serious flaws. These flaws, which are exacerbated by an overconcentration on a particular form of collective bargaining in a specific national context, weaken their model and cast doubt on the wisdom of the research agenda they propose. L&G posit a range of sources of potential collective bargaining power, which, in the right conditions, can be transformed into enacted collective bargaining power, manifested by tactical actions. Those actions produce collective bargaining outcomes. The transformational fac-