Quasi Unions and Organizational Hegemony within the Library Field

Abstract

A tightening labor market has made it increasingly difficult for professional employees to rely upon their scarcity and uniqueness to guarantee favorable bargaining positions. As a result, many professionals have considered joining collective bargaining associations, and unions have had success among these traditionally hard-to-organize workers. When faced with successful union membership drives, several professional societies have turned themselves into quasi unions: associations which add an employee orientation to their original professional base. In so doing, they have consistently succeeded in thwarting unionization and preserving organizational leadership within their profession. In the library field, union-related, social, technological, economic, and legislative factors have been contributing to union membership growth. Recent limited research indicates, however, that if librarians had a choice, they would prefer to affiliate with a professional association turned quasi union rather than a traditi...