Organization in a Changing Environment: Unionization of Welfare Employees

This study deals with the interfaces between bureaucratized social service agencies, social workers, and clients. Russell K. Schutt covers significant topics of the history and organization of labor unions. He illuminates important questions concerning the degree to which initially democratic organizations are overcome by economic forces and how organizational and environmental features play a role in allowing this to happen. The object of the study is large union of public welfare employees. Spawned in the turbulent 1960s, the young union-once pledged to reform the welfare system-had, by the 1980s, become a bureaucratic structure focused on traditional economic goals. Dr. Schutt has drawn on theory and research in the areas of organizations, social movements, and public welfare, and makes a unique contribution to each area. A combination of intensive interviews, questionnaire surveys, archival records, and observational notes provide the data for his analyses.