The literature on trade union revitalization: An example of an alliance between researchers and labour movement

An abundant literature on “trade union revitalisation” has developed over the recent period in the United States. This literature intends to  analyze  and often prescribe ways of trade union renewal or revitalization. It is the product of relations of collaboration between a new generation of trade union leaders and academics, as well as of struggles of competition inside  the academic field in the context of the decline of the study field of industrial relations. The cooperative relations which academics entertain with supposedly revitalizing trade unions have an impact on the research agenda. Indeed, the literature on union revitalization tends to rely on the construction of two supposedly homogenous types of trade unionism. On the one hand, business unionism, supposed to act as an institutionalized pressure group that is isolated from social movements whereas, on the other hand, the renewed trade unions are supposed to be led by new elites and to be engaged in learning processes from social movements. In our contribution, we discuss this evolutionist conception of trade union development with its division between “old” and “new” trade unionism. We also examine the importance that part of the union revitalization literature attributes to resources imported into trade unions by new leaders. Finally, we discuss the question of the uses made of the revitalization literature in the struggles of competition between US trade unions, and in the legitimation/delegitimation of certain kind of resources.