A Power Resource Approach for the 21st Century

This article conceptualizes an adapted form of the power resources approach that's is based on recent literature on strike effectiveness, and social movement unionism (see McAlevey, 2016; Nowak, 2018; Kallas, 2023; Kallas, 2024; and Schmalz et al., 2018; Gallas, 2018). It argues that while the Power Resource Approach theory was originally intended to be a relational approach, recent empirical work demonstrates a need to recenter the relationship between firm and union power within it (Kallas, 2024). Empirical analysis of strikes and social movements justifies an adapted Power Resource Approach that focuses more heavily on the role of union leadership, transformational movement demands, broad socio-economic influence, and whether labor’s strategy reflects both union and employer power resources, when it comes to analyzing the efficacy of labor movements. This article discusses the shape of an adapted power resource approach with socio-economic conditions as the separate but necessary building blocks of firm and union power (Isaac et al., 2022; Kimeldorf, 2013; Nowak, 2018). Union and firm power is related to this foundation and largely exercised through leadership or decision making structures within a firm or union (McAlevey, 2016; Johnston, 2004). The outcomes of labor struggle are then a product of union leadership's and workers' accurate assessment and utilization of their power, in relation to the employer's power. By focusing more heavily on the agency of actors involved and their relationships, an adapted power resource approach can be more inclusive and sober about the true capabilities of labor's ability to fight for broader segments of the working class. New conceptual forms of labor struggle are crucial to build broader solidarity and ensure labor has the power to confront climate change, ever declining public goods, increasing prejudice and xenophobia, and the many challenges of the 21st century.