STRANGERS TO THEIR OWN CLASS

The central question addressed is whether constitutional democracy, in stitutionalized opposition, and radical leadership tend to narrow the vertical social distance between the officers and members of industria l unions. The empirical analysis utilizes data on the Congress of Indu strial Organizations unions during the late 1940s. The argument is tha t both union democracy and radicalism tend to sustain a close identifi cation between workers and their leaders, to enhance their class solid arity, and to minimize the split between them. The analysis shows that : officers' salaries and the income differential between their salarie s and the workers' wages were far smaller in the democratic unions and in those in the Communist camp than in the oligarchical unions and th ose in the anti-Communist camp.