Preserving the Pattern: Membership Mobilization and Union Revitalization at PACE Local 4-227

This paper examines the relationship between membership mobilization, collective bargaining strategies, and union revitalization. The Paper, Allied-Chemical, and Energy (PACE) Workers International Union waged a successful, five-year comprehensive campaign against Crown Central Petroleum. Critical to the success of the union's comprehensive campaign was the role of locked-out union members, the use of strategic corporate research and an unwavering commitment to fight at all levels of the national union. The case reveals that the nature of bargaining power entails more than the ability to sustain a protracted dispute. Bargaining power was built on a much broader network of actors and included a diverse, interconnected set of pressure tactics. Finally, the potential for comprehensive campaigns to spur union revitalization is limited by the isolation of such strategies from the core of traditional union practices.