“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

Now that the new layout makes the byline more prominent, I felt that I should try to live up to it. So here is the current dilemma I’m facing (other than not getting work done because I have involuntarily become a daycare dad):

I’ve been arguing that progressive unionism created political unity among longshoremen all along the West Coast. This singular identity established a geographical monopoly that allowed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to successfully combat exploitation and ultimately to achieve relatively decent, secure wages in exchange for allowing mechanization on the docks (i.e., containerization). Attaining this peace between employers and employees, I want to argue, enabled (or compelled) the international shipping and stevedoring companies to turn their exploitative efforts to politically fragmented port authorities.

What I’m now discovering is that the East Coast union, the ILA, despite ultimately attaining a similar agreement guaranteeing annual income (GAI) in exchange for not opposing mechanization, has historically been more fragmented. Even during the negotiations over GAI, the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports established a separate bargaining confederation because they felt that the ILA was only negotiating for the benefit of New York. This fragmentation (exacerbated by the right-to-work states) led to a rapid deterioration and eventual elimination (?) of the GAI. (I also realize now that there is additional organizational fragmentation on the East Coast, because the warehousing workers and longshoremen are in separate unions.)

My major case study takes place on the East Coast after this deterioration. And the fragmentation resulted in union locals competing against their colleagues in other ports. So it’s not clear to me that I’m a position to make the same argument. It occurs to me that I might have to put more effort into the comparison with a similar competition between LA and Long Beach, which was more efficaciously and advantageously resolved (from the perspective of labor and the ports). I could then argue that political unity on the West Coast made the local actors stronger, while political fragmentation on the East Coast made them weaker. That is, incentive competition is more effective (from the perspective of capital) in a politically fragmented landscape (i.e., nonexistent geographical monopoly) than in a politically unified landscape (i.e., geographical monopoly).