Download or read book Segmented Labor Fractured Politics written by William Form and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-07-27 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My curiosity and concern about the working class in America stems from childhood memories of my father, a cabinetmaker, and of my oldest brother, an autoworker, who were passionately involved in the labor movement. Perhaps because they so wanted the working class to achieve greater social and economic justice and because they insisted it was not happening, I became curious to know the reasons why. Without even being aware of it, I began to explore a possible explanation—the internal diver sity of the working class. In my studies of autoworkers (the prototype proletarians) in the United States, Italy, Argentina, and India, I discovered that they seemed to be more divided economically, socially, and politically in the more eco nomically advanced countries—an idea that ran contrary to the evolution ary predictions of my Marxist friends. When I reported this in Blue-Collar Stratification (1976), I was surprised that some of them who were commit ted to an ideology of working-class solidarity attacked the hypothesis because it ran against their convictions.

Download or read book Segmented Labor Fractured Politics written by William Form and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Revival of Labor Liberalism written by Andrew Battista and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-12-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Revival of Labor Liberalism is a careful analysis of the twentieth-century decline of the labor-liberal coalition and the important efforts to revive their political fortunes. Andrew Battista chronicles the efforts of several new political organizations that arose in the 1970s and 1980s with the goal of reuniting unions and liberals. Drawing from extensive documentary research and in-depth interviews with union leaders and political activists, Battista shows that the new organizations such as the Progressive Alliance, Citizen Labor Energy Coalition, and National Labor Committee made limited but real progress in reconstructing and strengthening the labor-liberal coalition. Although the labor-liberal alliance remained far weaker than the rival business-conservative alliance, Battista illuminates that it held a crucial role in labor and political history after 1968. Focuses on a fraught but evolving partnership, Battista provides a broad analysis of factional divisions among both unions and liberals and considers the future of unionism and the labor-liberal coalition in America.

Download or read book Work and Academic Politics written by William Form and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of a long and distinguished academic career William Form has gained renown as a major scholar in the areas of American labor politics, institutional analysis, and educational issues surrounding the experience of ethnicity and assimilation. Much of his scholarly work derived from his own experience as the son of Italian immigrants in the early twentieth century seeking integration into the mainstream of American society. As with other American ethnic groups the entrance into elementary, secondary and higher education involved sacrifice and gain. Moreover, the period of Form's academic career saw momentous changes in study of the social sciences. In Work and Academic Politics: A Journeyman's Story, Form reflects on his own experience to provide an exemplary intellectual autobiography against the background of modernity and change in America. Form likens his career to phases of the medieval guild system. His pre-apprenticeship began with his early ethnic experiences in Rochester, New York, where he grew up and in its school system which ignored ethnic backgrounds and turned second generation children into Americans who spoke only English. After his apprenticeship at a newly established graduate program at the University of Maryland, he wandered as a journeyman at Hood College, American University, Stevens College and Kent State, ultimately attaining master's status at three land-grant universities in the midwest. Over a span of 60 years, Form traces his changing research interests. His remembrances, shaped by the interaction of family, work place, and politics, offer fresh insights into the state of academia from the Depression to the present. In the pre-World War II years, departments which were linked to social work changed drastically in the post-war period, especially in research universities, to build a scientific discipline. The turmoil of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement in the 1970s further changed the intellectual and political life of the discipline. In an eloquent manner, Form reiterates the transformations he has witnessed throughout his journey in society, the discipline, the university, and the American Sociological Association. The volume will be of particular interest to sociologists, social scientists, social historians, and specialists in ethnic studies.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Organized Labor written by James C. Docherty and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-06-14 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organized labor is about the collective efforts of employees to improve their economic, social, and political position. It can be studied from many different points of view—historical, economic, sociological, or legal—but it is fundamentally about the struggle for human rights and social justice. As a rule, organized labor has tried to make the world a fairer place. Even though it has only ever covered a minority of employees in most countries, its effects on their political, economic, and social systems have been generally positive. History shows that when organized labor is repressed, the whole society suffers and is made less just. The Historical Dictionary of Organized Labor looks at the history of organized labor to see where it came from and where it has been. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a glossary of terms, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on most countries, international as well as national labor organizations, major labor unions, leaders, and other aspects of organized labor such as changes in the composition of its membership. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about organized labor.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Organized Labor written by J. C. Docherty and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughly updated, this essential reference source introduces scholars to the study of organized labor on the international as well as national level. Contains 400 entries describing the labor movements in countries around the world, and the important people, organizations, ideas, and political parties involved in organized labor. Includes a summary list of past and present international labor leaders, lists of global union federations and the affiliated organizations of major national labor federations, and analytical lists of the membership of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

Download or read book American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena written by Herbert B. Asher and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines American labor unions as a major political force which candidates, legislatures, executives, and elected judges at all levels of government have to take into account in a variety of ways. Asher and Randall B. Ripley of Ohio State U.), Eric S. Heberlig (U. of North Carolina), and Karen Snyder (president of a public opinion firm) also discuss union strategies to achieve political importance in the context of changing leadership, membership, and external conditions in society. c. Book News Inc.

Download or read book Central Labor Councils and the Revival of American Unionism written by Immanuel Ness and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-08 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central Labor Councils are the local arm of the labor movement responsible for coordinating collective activities among different unions in a region. Once quite powerful organizations with important political roles at local and regional levels, CLCs waned significantly during the 1940s and 50s. This work examines the recent re-emergence of Central Labor Councils and how they are being utilized as effective bodies to help rejuvenate the labor movement. It combines comprehensive history of the CLCs in America since the early 19th century and case studies by CLC leaders in Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Jose, and Seattle -- the regions where CLCs have re-emerged as important players in advancing the labor movement.

Download or read book What Do Unions Do written by James T. Bennett and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the best-known and most-quoted books ever written on labor unions is What Do Unions Do? by Richard Freeman and James Medoff. Published in 1984, the book proved to be a landmark because it provided the most comprehensive and statistically sophisticated empirical portrait of the economic and socio-political effects of unions, and a provocative conclusion that unions are on balance beneficial for the economy and society. The present volume represents a twentieth-anniversary retrospective and evaluation of What Do Unions Do? The objectives are threefold: to evaluate and critique the theory, evidence, and conclusions of Freeman and Medoff; to provide a comprehensive update of the theoretical and empirical literature on unions since the publication of their book; and to offer a balanced assessment and critique of the effects of unions on the economy and society. Toward this end, internationally recognized representatives of labor and management cover the gamut of subjects related to unions. Topics covered include the economic theory of unions; the history of economic thought on unions; the effect of unions on wages, benefits, capital investment, productivity, income inequality, dispute resolution, and job satisfaction; the performance of unions in an international perspective; the reasons for the decline of unions; and the future of unions. The volume concludes with a chapter by Richard Freeman in which he assesses the arguments and evidence presented in the other chapters and presents his evaluation of how What Do Unions Do? stands up in the light of twenty years of additional experience and research. This highly readable volume is a state-of-the-art survey by internationally recognized experts on the effects and future of labor unions. It will be the benchmark for years to come.

Download or read book Heartland Blues written by Marc Dixon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Midwest experienced an upheaval over labor rights beginning in the winter of 2011. For most commentators, the fallout in the Midwest and unions' weak showing in the 2016 presidential election a few years later was just more evidence of labor's emaciated state. In Heartland Blues, Marc Dixon provides a new perspective on union decline by revisiting the labor movement at its historical peak in the late 1950s. Drawing on social movement theories and archival materials, he analyzes campaigns over key labor policies as they were waged in the heavily unionized states of Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin-the very same states at the center of more recent battles over labor rights. He shows how many of the key ingredients necessary for less powerful groups to succeed, including effective organization and influential political allies, were not a given for labor at the time, but instead varied in important ways across the industrial heartland. Thus, the labor movement's social and political isolation and their limited responses to employer mobilization became a death knell in the ensuing decades, as unions sought organizational and legislative remedies to industrial decline and the rising anti-union tide. Showing how labor rights have been challenged in significant ways in the industrial Midwest in the 1950s, Heartland Blues both identifies enduring problems for labor and forces scholars to look beyond size when seeking clues to labor's failures and successes.

Download or read book Battling for American Labor written by Howard Kimeldorf and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This riveting, nuanced book takes seriously the workplace radicalism of many early twentieth century American workers. The restriction of working class militancy to the workplace, it shows, was no mere economism. Organizational rather than psychological in orientation, Battling For American Labor accounts for both the early preference of dockworkers in Philadelphia and hotel and restaurant workers in New York for the IWW rather than the AFL and for the reversal of this choice in the 1920s. In so doing, it points the way to a fresh reading of American labor history."—Ira Katznelson, Columbia University "Howard Kimeldorf's book, based on sound and solid historical research in archives, newspapers, journals, memoirs and oral histories, argues that workers in the United States, regardless of their precise union affiliation, harbored syndicalist tendencies which manifested themselves in direct action on the job. Because Kimeldorf's book reinterprets much of the history of the labor movement in the United States, it will surely generate much controversy among scholars and capture the attention of readers."—Melvyn Dubofsky, Binghamton University, SUNY "Howard Kimeldorf's new book is a very exciting accomplishment. This book will surely leave a major imprint on labor history and the sociology of labor. Kimeldorf's focus on repertoires of collective action and practice instead of ideology is a particularly important contribution; one that will force students of labor to rethink many worn-out arguments. After reading Battling For American Labor, one will no longer be able to assume the IWW's defeat was inevitable, or take seriously psychological theories of worker consciousness."—David Wellman, author of The Union Makes Us Strong

Download or read book The Unions and the Democrats written by Taylor E. Dark and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although labor unions have faced a decline in membership in recent decades, they have not necessarily lost their political clout. The Unions and the Democrats illuminates the inner dynamics of labor's relationship to the American political system over the past generation. It examines organized labor from the Johnson administration through the 2000 elections, showing that labor's alliance with the Democratic Party has endured despite changes in the economy and the revival of conservatism.Drawing on extensive interviews with union leaders and lobbyists, Taylor E. Dark provides a historical perspective often lacking in studies of union political involvement. He compares the relationship of presidents Johnson, Carter, and Clinton with labor and analyzes cases of union involvement in legislative lobbying, executive decision-making, and both congressional and presidential elections.The book explores such topics as the effects of political reform on union power, the development of union legislative goals, and the impact of unions on economic policymaking, and also evaluates the controversy over union campaign spending in the 1996 elections. It demonstrates that labor's evolving alliance with the Democrats continues to shape America.

Download or read book The American Midwest written by Andrew R. L. Cayton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-08 with total page 1918 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first-ever encyclopedia of the Midwest seeks to embrace this large and diverse area, to give it voice, and help define its distinctive character. Organized by topic, it encourages readers to reflect upon the region as a whole. Each section moves from the general to the specific, covering broad themes in longer introductory essays, filling in the details in the shorter entries that follow. There are portraits of each of the region's twelve states, followed by entries on society and culture, community and social life, economy and technology, and public life. The book offers a wealth of information about the region's surprising ethnic diversity -- a vast array of foods, languages, styles, religions, and customs -- plus well-informed essays on the region's history, culture and values, and conflicts. A site of ideas and innovations, reforms and revivals, and social and physical extremes, the Midwest emerges as a place of great complexity, signal importance, and continual fascination.

Download or read book The Shadow Welfare State written by Marie Gottschalk and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why, in the recent campaigns for universal health care, did organized labor maintain its support of employer-mandated insurance? Did labor's weakened condition prevent it from endorsing national health insurance? Marie Gottschalk demonstrates here that the unions' surprising stance was a consequence of the peculiarly private nature of social policy in the United States. Her book combines a much-needed account of labor's important role in determining health care policy with a bold and incisive analysis of the American welfare state. Gottschalk stresses that, in the United States, the social welfare system is anchored in the private sector but backed by government policy. As a result, the private sector is a key political battlefield where business, labor, the state, and employees hotly contest matters such as health care. She maintains that the shadow welfare state of job-based benefits shaped the manner in which labor defined its policy interests and strategies. As evidence, Gottschalk examines the influence of the Taft-Hartley health and welfare funds, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (E.R.I.S.A.), and experience-rated health insurance, showing how they constrained labor from supporting universal health care. Labor, Gottschalk asserts, missed an important opportunity to develop a broader progressive agenda. She challenges the movement to establish a position on health care that addresses the growing ranks of Americans without insurance, the restructuring of the U.S. economy, and the political travails of the unions themselves.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections written by Larry Sabato and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a complete reference guide to American political parties and elections, including an A-Z listing of presidential elections with terms, people and events involved in the process.

Download or read book Schools of Democracy written by Clayton Sinyai and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new political history of the labor movement, Clayton Sinyai examines the relationship between labor activism and the American democratic tradition. Sinyai shows how America's working people and union leaders debated the first questions of democratic theory—and in the process educated themselves about the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. In tracing the course of the American labor movement from the founding of the Knights of Labor in the 1870s to the 1968 presidential election and its aftermath, Sinyai explores the political dimensions of collective bargaining, the structures of unions and businesses, and labor's relationships with political parties and other social movements. Schools of Democracy analyzes how labor activists wrestled with fundamental aspects of political philosophy and the development of American democracy, including majority rule versus individual liberty, the rule of law, and the qualifications required of citizens of a democracy. Offering a balanced assessment of mainstream leaders of American labor, from Samuel Gompers to George Meany, and their radical critics, including the Socialists and the Industrial Workers of the World, Sinyai provides an unusual and refreshing perspective on American labor history.

Download or read book Social Cleavages and Political Change written by Jeff Manza and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What social groups support which political party, and how that support has changed over time, are central questions in the sociology of political behaviour. This study provides the first systematic book-length reassessment and restatement of the sociological approach to American politics in more than 20 years. It challenges widespread arguments that the importance of social cleavages have declined precipitously in recent years in the face of post-industrial social and economic changes. The book reconceptualizes the concept of social cleavages and focus on four major cleavages in American society: class, religion, gender, and race, arguing a that a number of important changes in the alignments of the groups making up these four cleavages have occurred. The book examines the implications of these changes for the Democratic and Republican Parties. The findings of the book are examined in light of the central dilemmas facing the two major parties in the contemporary political environment.