Social Movements and Organizations in Relation: Local Union Involvement in Immigrants's Rights Movements in L.A.

To revitalize the union movement, some labor scholars propose a strategy they call "social movement unionism," examples of which include union involvement in immigrants' rights and union-community coalitions. My research explores how social movement unionism works in practice: 1) how do unions transform internally to make the historic shift to supporting immigrants' rights, and 2) how do unions work within immigrants' rights coalitions? My research focuses on recent local union involvement in immigrants' rights coalitions in Los Angeles and includes seventeen ethnographic interviews and participant observation of eight union-community coalition meetings. I find that the motivation for union involvement in immigrants' rights is based in organizational pressures of member representation and accountability. Specifically, my findings show that: 1) not only do unions maintain their organizational characteristics when engaging in social movement activities but their organizational structure facilitates unions' engagement in immigrants' rights; 2) as immigrant workers become members of unions, they elect leaders who represent them and their interests; 3) to represent their members, newly elected leaders then develop political action programs that include immigrants' rights issues, which are sometimes implemented from the top, down; and 4) the ways in which unions are involved in social movement unionism - the strategies and allies they choose - are informed by their organizational need to represent and be accountable to their members. In revealing the organizational characteristics of social movement unionism, I argue that unions embody organization and social movement characteristics that are relational and mutually shaping. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]