Constructing the UAW Dodge Local 3: Collective identity, collective efficacy, collective action.

Abstract

How do individuals' experiences, identities, and actions become "collectivized"? Which conjunctures of social forces lead people to see collective political action as both necessary and practicable? These questions are explored through a case study of the initial unionization of the great Dodge Main auto assembly plant in Hamtramck, Michigan during the 1930s. The theoretical framework combines the macro-structural emphasis of resource mobilization theory with social psychological elements adapted from "new social movement" and "class formation" approaches. Combining historical and ethnographic methods, including extensive archival material and oral histories of retired autoworkers, the study focuses on dynamic and collective aspects of workers' consciousness as it interacts with political and economic structures. Dodge workers' collective actions were rooted in historically- and culturally-specific forms of rationality. Even "wage" grievances were often tied to varying familial obligations or to the traditional moral economy of local autoworkers. The presence of cultural enclaves, usually regarded as an obstacle to class unity, in this case enhanced class identity and attracted resources during the initial organizational drive at Dodge. Such findings suggest that workers' consciousness is best studied in the context of the specific processes of social cognition from which it emerges. Unionization at Dodge emerged from a complex interaction of consciousness and social structure. "Objective" political structures facilitated unionism in the 1930s, largely through New Deal legislation that protected many forms of union activity. Yet workers seized these new opportunities and mobilized on a mass scale only after recognizing their group agency. Through this growing sense of "collective efficacy"--a concept that links cognitive and structural approaches to collective action--ordinary working people redefined themselves as historical actors. This decisive transformation in consciousness precipitated the mass collective action that culminated in unionization.