2000. Breaking the iron law of oligarchy: Union revitalization in the American labor movement

This article addresses the question of how social movement organ-izations are able to break out of bureaucratic conservatism. In-depth interviews with union organizers and other data are used to identify the sources of radical transformation in labor organizations by com-paring local unions that have substantially altered their goals and tactics with those that have changed little. This analysis highlights three factors: the occurrence of a political crisis in the local leading to new leadership, the presence of leaders with activist experience outside the labor movement who interpret the decline of labor's power as a mandate to change, and the in¯uence of the international union in favor of innovation. The article concludes by drawing out the theoretical implications of the ®nding that bureaucratic conser-vatism can sometimes be overcome in mature social movements