Economic theory proceeds in part from assumptions about the behavior of economic units. Thus, a very large body of theory is predicated on the widely accepted supposition that firms will react to changes in their economic environments in ways consistent with the attainment of the greatest possible expected profit. Such an assumption may be viewed as describing the firm’s preference ordering over alternative situations: situationA(described in terms of price, cost, and quantity sold) will be preferred by the firm to situationB(similarly described) if it yields the greater expected profit.

As economic units, labor unions seek to...

In Chapters III through VII, we shall develop in a fairly rigorous fashion a group of closely related theories about the determination of union goals. Simplifying assumptions adopted as we begin this task are successively abandoned as we move toward more fully elaborated theories. The pace is slow, the language labored, the continuity obscured by unavoidable discussions of basic concepts and by the inclusion of graphic and arithmetic illustrative devices. There is, then, a danger that the reader, in following these apparent bypaths, may become disoriented. If he is not to lose his sense of direction while pursuing the details...

We shall now set about the construction ol an eclectic theory of union behavior which incorporates elements found in the works of Ross, Cartter, and others. To come at the matter as cleanly as possible, we shall employ the strategy of carrying out the construction by stages, provisionally adopting at the start a simplistic set of assumptions. Once our basic structure is formed, we shall proceed in later chapters to modify these assumptions so as to give attention to some of the complexities of union behavior which, in the present chapter, are ignored.

It will be useful at this initial...

In the recent history of attempts to frame general explanations of the behavior of unions as labor market representatives of their constituents’ interests, there has been a dichotomy of approach. The formulators of wage-employment preference models gave no formal consideration to possible divergence of preferences within the union. On the other hand, Ross emphasized differences between organizational and membership goals as well as the importance of pressure from the rank and file, but did not develop a formal model. The practice emerged of labeling these two approaches, respectively, “economic” and “political.” Relatively little attention was devoted to attempting to combine...

Following the approach developed in the preceding chapters, we shall now set forth a more formal theory of union behavior.¹ Each definition and axiom will be introduced in the text at the point where it is first required. (A complete list of the definitions and axioms used in Chapters V through VII appears as an Appendix.) The familiar wage rate and workweek, price level and employment will be replaced by anonymousx’s andk’s. This more precise formulation will not only accommodate any number of bargainable and nonbargainable variables but, far more importantly, will enable us in Chapters VI and...

We shall now introduce some elements of uncertainty into the model set forth in Chapter V. We shall continue to suppose that our union leadership knows precisely the preference orderings and affiliation sets of the groups. Uncertainty enters in that we shall now suppose neither perfect foresight about levels of the variables inKnor perfect knowledge of the strike length function,S(X), on the leadership’s part. But while it lacks certainty, the leadership is not without ideas about future levels of the nonbargainable variables, and regards some values as more likely than others. It can be thought of, then,...

We turn now to the preference ordering of the union leadership confronted by the possibility of ouster from office. One version of this situation—in which an opposition is already established—was analyzed earlier (in Chapter IV), but under the simpler conditions of certainty about the values of thek’s and ofS(X), and with a single bargainable variable. In that context, competition between organizational security and leadership security was not possible. An objective either promised union survival or it did not; it promised leadership survival or it did not; and unless one or the other of these aims was...