Rocking the boat: a change in the power balance of a modern corporation

Flight, Claude B. (1984) Rocking the boat: a change in the power balance of a modern corporation. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (29MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

This thesis studies the effect which a union campaign to organize the clerical white-collar workers of a modern corporation had upon the attitudes and behavior of those workers. The Corporation referred to provides a utility service to the majority of the province of Newfoundland. Throughout the unionization attempt, both the Union and the Company vied for the clerks support by issuing bulletins and holding meetings which expounded their respective points of view. -- In researching this process over its one-year duration the author utilized both participant observation and ethnographic interviews. Factors such as peer pressure, physical work environment, social group participation, managers’ attitudes, work benefits, perceived differences with blue-collar and higher management employees, feminization of the clerical workforce, masculination of management and style of the Union and Corporate campaigns were all investigated and found to play roles in the unionization process. -- These elements were then incorporated in an effort to formulate a theory of white-collar unionization which groups them into six important components. Each of these components are capable of producing a significant impact on a worker's attitudes towards supporting some form of collective representation.

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