Teitelbaum
Partners in Production or Crime?
6
through routine forms of protest and institutional channels. Institutional grievance resolution
involves bargaining, and consequently employers can gain something in return for meeting a
union demand, such as a productivity-linked wage agreement. These unions are partners in
production.
On the other hand, smaller unions without connections to a major party can more freely
benefit from the use of violence. Because they are more interested in attracting union members
and extracting bribe payments from the management, these unions encourage violence and are
more likely to be partners in crime.
3. A game-theoretic model of industrial protest
This section presents a game-theoretic model of industrial protest and provides a micro-
level explanation of firm-union leaders’ choice of protest tactics. The major predictions of the
game-theoretic model are that incorporated firm-unions protest using short, non-violent strikes,
whereas unincorporated firm-unions are more prone to protest using violence and to strike for
longer periods. The insights from the game-theoretic model form the basis of a set of hypotheses
regarding the macro-level relationships between union political affiliation, parent union control,
and behavior.
The game has two players, an employer and a firm-union. The firm-union can be
incorporated or unincorporated. There are two versions of the game. The preferences of the
employer are constant, whereas the preferences of the firm-union change across the two versions
based on whether it is incorporated. As stated previously, an incorporated firm-union is one
affiliated to a major political party. An unincorporated firm-union can either be an in-house
union, affiliated to a politically independent parent union, or affiliated to the parent union of a
minor political party.
Convention