High-Tech Production Workers’ Fear of Unionizing: A Wheeler–McClendon Model Analysis of a Union Organizing Campaign at a US Medical Electronics Factory

Author: Devinatz Victor  

Publisher: Springer Publishing Company

ISSN: 0892-7545

Source: Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol.17, Iss.3, 2005-09, pp. : 143-160

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Abstract

Using the framework of the Wheeler and McClendon (1991) theory of employee support for unionization, the purpose of this article is to examine an unsuccessful unionization drive in a US medical electronics factory that the author took part in while working as a production worker during 1983 in order to gain insight into why unionization is so difficult to promote among production workers in high-tech industry. I argue that high-tech companies take advantage of the inherent fear in production employees to organize in order to defeat unionization campaigns. That is, they negatively affect employee support for unionization through the development of inhibiting conditions of the emotional path of the Wheeler–McClendon theory to prevent unionization. The use of this widespread strategy is crucial for understanding such low rates of unionization in this industry.