Download or read book Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States written by Robin Archer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the United States the only advanced capitalist country with no labor party? This question is one of the great enduring puzzles of American political development, and it lies at the heart of a fundamental debate about the nature of American society. Tackling this debate head-on, Robin Archer puts forward a new explanation for why there is no American labor party--an explanation that suggests that much of the conventional wisdom about "American exceptionalism" is untenable. Conventional explanations rely on comparison with Europe. Archer challenges these explanations by comparing the United States with its most similar New World counterpart--Australia. This comparison is particularly revealing, not only because the United States and Australia share many fundamental historical, political, and social characteristics, but also because Australian unions established a labor party in the late nineteenth century, just when American unions, against a common backdrop of industrial defeat and depression, came closest to doing something similar. Archer examines each of the factors that could help explain the American outcome, and his systematic comparison yields unexpected conclusions. He argues that prosperity, democracy, liberalism, and racial hostility often promoted the very changes they are said to have obstructed. And he shows that it was not these characteristics that left the United States without a labor party, but, rather, the powerful impact of repression, religion, and political sectarianism.

Download or read book Speak for Britain written by Martin Pugh and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-03-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written at a critical juncture in the history of the Labour Party, Speak for Britain! is a thought-provoking and highly original interpretation of the party's evolution, from its trade union origins to its status as a national governing party. It charts Labour's rise to power by re-examining the impact of the First World War, the general strike of 1926, Labour's breakthrough at the 1945 general election, the influence of post-war affluence and consumerism on the fortunes and character of the party, and its revival after the defeats of the Thatcher era. Controversially, Pugh argues that Labour never entirely succeeded in becoming 'the party of the working class'; many of its influential recruits - from Oswald Mosley to Hugh Gaitskell to Tony Blair - were from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds and rather than converting the working class to socialism, Labour adapted itself to local and regional political cultures.

Download or read book The Foundations of the British Labour Party written by Matthew Worley and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Senior and up-and-coming scholars present the myriad elements that influenced the early development and political identity of the Labour Party, from the party's connections with powerful unions to the impact of socialism, religion, and other political and social movements on the new party.

Download or read book A History of America in Ten Strikes written by Erik Loomis and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recommended by The Nation, the New Republic, Current Affairs, Bustle, In These Times An “entertaining, tough-minded, and strenuously argued” (The Nation) account of ten moments when workers fought to change the balance of power in America “A brilliantly recounted American history through the prism of major labor struggles, with critically important lessons for those who seek a better future for working people and the world.” —Noam Chomsky Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment. For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past. In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers' struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up. Strikes include: Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 1830–40) Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 1861–65) The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886) The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902) The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912) The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937) The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946) Lordstown (Ohio, 1972) Air Traffic Controllers (1981) Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)

Download or read book Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada written by Barry Eidlin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are unions weaker in the US than they are in Canada, despite the countries' many similarities?

Download or read book The Labour Party and the Planned Economy 1931 1951 written by Richard Toye and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2003 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of Labour's 1931 pledge to create a planned socialist economy and the reasons for its failure to do so. In the general election of 1931, the Labour Party campaigned on the slogan "Plan or Perish". The party's pledge to create a planned socialist economy was a novelty, and marked the rejection of the gradualist, evolutionary socialism to which Labour had adhered under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald. Although heavily defeated in that election, Labour stuck to its commitment. The Attlee government came to power in 1945 determined to plan comprehensively. Yet, the aspiration to create a fully planned economy was not met. This book explores the origins and evolution of the promise, in order to explain why it was not fulfilled. RICHARD TOYE lectures in history at Homerton College, Cambridge.

Download or read book The End of the Party written by Andrew Rawnsley and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 908 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Rawnsley's bestselling book lifts the lid on the second half of New Labour's spell in office, with riveting inside accounts of all the key events from 9/11 and the Iraq War to the financial crisis and the parliamentary expenses scandal; and entertaining portraits of the main players as Rawnsley takes us through the triumphs and tribulations of New Labour as well as the astonishing feuds and reconciliations between Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. This paperback edition contains two revealing new chapters on the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election and its aftermath.

Download or read book The Politics of U S Labor written by David Milton and published by New York : Monthly Review Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The alliance of the industrial labor movement with the Democratic Party under Franklin D. Roosevelt has, perhaps more than any other factor, shaped the course of class relations in the United States over the ensuing forty years. Much has been written on the interests that were thereby served, and those that were coopted. In this detailed examination of the strategies pursued by both radical labor and the capitalist class in the struggle for industrial unionism, David Milton argues that while radical social change and independent political action were traded off by the industrial working class for economic rights, this was neither automatic nor inevitable. Rather, the outcome was the result of a fierce struggle in which capital fought labor and both fought for control over government labor policy. And, as he demonstrates, crucial to the outcome was the specific nature of the political coalitions contending for supremacy. In analyzing the politics of this struggle, Milton presents a fine description of the major strikes, beginning in 1933-1934, that led to the formation of the CIO and the great industrial unions. He looks closely at the role of the radical political groups, including the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Socialist Party, and provides an enlightening discussion of their vulnerability during the red-baiting era. He also examines the battle between the AFL and the CIO for control of the labor movement, the alliance of the AFL with business interests, and the role of the Catholic Church. Finally, he shows how the extraordinary adeptness of President Roosevelt in allying with labor while at the same time exploiting divisions within the movement was essential to the successful channeling of social revolt into economic demands."--Amazon.com viewed November 16, 2020

Download or read book Formative Acts written by Stephen Skowronek and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2008-08-20 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen essays illuminate critical junctures in American political development—from the social movements for women's suffrage, civil rights, and workers' rights, to Reconstruction, to the regulation of prescription drugs—as vantage points from which to examine how change is enacted.

Download or read book History of the Labor Movement in the United States written by Philip Sheldon Foner and published by INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS CO. This book was released on 1988 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Labor and the Red Scare; Seattle and Winnipeg general strikes; Boston telephone and police strikes; Streetcar strikes in Chicago, Denver, Knoxville, Kansas City; strikes in clothing, textile, coal and steel; The open-shop drive; Strikes and Black-white relationships; the AFL and the Black worker; the IWW; Communist Party founded; Political action 1918-1920.

Download or read book Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act written by United States. National Labor Relations Board. Office of the General Counsel and published by U.S. Government Printing Office. This book was released on 1997 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Labour Party in Crisis written by Paul Whiteley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1983. This study draws upon empirical findings on party activists, members and voters. It examines the origins and nature of Labour’s crisis in the 1980s, showing how the split leading to the formation of the SDP was merely a manifestation of deeply rooted problems which went back many years. It argues that this crisis had three distinct but interrelated aspects: first, the ideological schism within the party, which had grown in intensity over time; second, the electoral crisis, which produced the worst electoral performance at the 1983 general election since 1918; and, third, the membership crisis arising from the fact that the party had been losing more than 11,000 individual members per year on average since 1945. Using elite and mass surveys the book demonstrates the link between these crises and Labour’s policy performance in office set against a background of rapid economic decline.

Download or read book Labor in the Time of Trump written by Jasmine Kerrissey and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Labor in the Time of Trump critically analyzes the right-wing attack on workers and unions and offers strategies to build a working–class movement. While President Trump's election in 2016 may have been a wakeup call for labor and the Left, the underlying processes behind this shift to the right have been building for at least forty years. The contributors show that only by analyzing the vulnerabilities in the right-wing strategy can the labor movement develop an effective response. Essays in the volume examine the conservative upsurge, explore key challenges the labor movement faces today, and draw lessons from recent activist successes. Contributors: Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest; Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Solidarity Divided; Shannon Gleeson, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Sarah Jaffe, co-host of Dissent Magazine's Belabored podcast; Cedric Johnson, University of Illinois at Chicago; Jennifer Klein, Yale University; Gordon Lafer, University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center; Jose La Luz, labor activist and public intellectual; Nancy MacLean, Duke University; MaryBe McMillan, President of the North Carolina state AFL-CIO; Jon Shelton, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay; Lara Skinner, The Worker Institute at Cornell University; Kyla Walters, Sonoma State University

Download or read book By the Ore Docks written by Richard Hudelson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located on the shore of Lake Superior near the Iron Range of Minnesota and, for much of its history, the site of vast steel, lumber, and shipping industries, Duluth has been home to people who worked tirelessly in the rail yards, grain elevators, and harbor. Here, for the first time, By the Ore Docks presents a compelling, full-length history of the people who built this port city and struggled for both the growth of the city and the rights of their fellow workers. In By the Ore Docks, Richard Hudelson and Carl Ross trace seventy years in the lives of Duluth’s multi-ethnic working class—Scandinavians, Finns, Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews, and African Americans—and chronicle, along with the events of the times, the city’s vibrant neighborhoods, religious traditions, and communities. But they also tell the dramatic story of how a populist worker’s coalition challenged the “legitimate American” business interests of the city, including the major corporation U.S. Steel. From the Knights of Labor in the 1880s to the Industrial Workers of the World, the AFL and CIO, and the Democratic Farmer-Labor party, radical organizations and their immigrant visionaries put Duluth on the national map as a center in the fight for worker’s rights—a struggle inflamed by major strikes in the copper and iron mines. By the Ore Docks is at once an important history of Duluth and a story of its working people, common laborers as well as union activists like Ernie Pearson, journalist Irene Paull, and Communist party gubernatorial candidate Sam Davis. Hudelson and Ross reveal tension between Duluth’s ethnic groups, while also highlighting the ability of the people to overcome those differences and shape the legacy of the city’s unsettled and remarkable past. Richard Hudelson is professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Superior. He is the author of, among other works, Marxism and Philosophy in the Twentieth Century and The Rise and Fall of Communism. Carl Ross (1913–2004) was a labor activist and the author of The Finn Factor in American Labor, Culture, and Society. He was director of the Twentieth-Century Radicalism in Minnesota Project of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Download or read book Super PACs written by Louise I. Gerdes and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The passage of Citizens United by the Supreme Court in 2010 sparked a renewed debate about campaign spending by large political action committees, or Super PACs. Its ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want in advertising and other methods to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. This book provides a wide range of opinions on the issue. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.

Download or read book Responsible Parties written by Frances Rosenbluth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

Download or read book Tony Blair written by John Rentoul and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2013-06-20 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last updated in 2001, John Rentoul's acclaimed Tony Blair: Prime Minister returns with an extensive new assessment of Blair's premiership after '9/11' - from the Iraq war and relations with Gordon Brown to his departure from Downing Street and political afterlife. 'Well written, thoroughly researched and informed by the balanced and subtle insights of a skilled journalist... Especially good on the influences that have shaped Mr Blair.' Economist 'Utterly scrupulous in presenting the [] information... [W]hen Rentoul occasionally presents his own judgements, they can rarely be faulted.' Peter Oborne, Sunday Express 'Written with care, thought... and a fine understanding of political nuances.' Ben Pimlott 'An extraordinary achievement, flashing with a peculiarly devastating form of sympathy.' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'With further updates, this biography will almost certainly become the definitive one.' Rachel Sylvester, Daily Telegraph