Download or read book The Rise of the Working Class Shareholder written by David Webber and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd’s boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway’s to shine a light on labor’s most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor’s capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic’s surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor’s access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength.
Download or read book The Rise of the Working class Shareholder written by David H. Webber and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David H. Webber shines a light on labor's most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and in the courts, state houses, and Washington, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism is a rare good-news story for America's working class.--
Download or read book Labor s Love Lost written by Andrew J. Cherlin and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two generations ago, young men and women with only a high-school degree would have entered the plentiful industrial occupations which then sustained the middle-class ideal of a male-breadwinner family. Such jobs have all but vanished over the past forty years, and in their absence ever-growing numbers of young adults now hold precarious, low-paid jobs with few fringe benefits. Facing such insecure economic prospects, less-educated young adults are increasingly forgoing marriage and are having children within unstable cohabiting relationships. This has created a large marriage gap between them and their more affluent, college-educated peers. In Labor’s Love Lost, noted sociologist Andrew Cherlin offers a new historical assessment of the rise and fall of working-class families in America, demonstrating how momentous social and economic transformations have contributed to the collapse of this once-stable social class and what this seismic cultural shift means for the nation’s future. Drawing from more than a hundred years of census data, Cherlin documents how today’s marriage gap mirrors that of the Gilded Age of the late-nineteenth century, a time of high inequality much like our own. Cherlin demonstrates that the widespread prosperity of working-class families in the mid-twentieth century, when both income inequality and the marriage gap were low, is the true outlier in the history of the American family. In fact, changes in the economy, culture, and family formation in recent decades have been so great that Cherlin suggests that the working-class family pattern has largely disappeared. Labor's Love Lost shows that the primary problem of the fall of the working-class family from its mid-twentieth century peak is not that the male-breadwinner family has declined, but that nothing stable has replaced it. The breakdown of a stable family structure has serious consequences for low-income families, particularly for children, many of whom underperform in school, thereby reducing their future employment prospects and perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of economic disadvantage. To address this disparity, Cherlin recommends policies to foster educational opportunities for children and adolescents from disadvantaged families. He also stresses the need for labor market interventions, such as subsidizing low wages through tax credits and raising the minimum wage. Labor's Love Lost provides a compelling analysis of the historical dynamics and ramifications of the growing number of young adults disconnected from steady, decent-paying jobs and from marriage. Cherlin’s investigation of today’s “would-be working class” shines a much-needed spotlight on the struggling middle of our society in today’s new Gilded Age.
Download or read book The Making of the English Working Class written by Edward Palmer Thompson and published by IICA. This book was released on 1964 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of artisan and working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, adds an important dimension to our understanding of the nineteenth century. E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation and who yet created a culture and political consciousness of great vitality.
Download or read book Can the Working Class Change the World written by Michael D. Yates and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the horrors of the capitalist system is that slave labor, which was central to the formation and growth of capitalism itself, is still fully able to coexist alongside wage labor. But, as Karl Marx points out, it is the fact of being paid for one's work that validates capitalism as a viable socio-economic structure. Beneath this veil of “free commerce” – where workers are paid only for a portion of their workday, and buyers and sellers in the marketplace face each other as “equals” – lies a foundation of immense inequality. Yet workers have always rebelled. They've organized unions, struck, picketed, boycotted, formed political organizations and parties – sometimes they have actually won and improved their lives. But, Marx argued, because capitalism is the apotheosis of class society, it must be the last class society: it must, therefore, be destroyed. And only the working class, said Marx, is capable of creating that change. In his timely and innovative book, Michael D. Yates asks if the working class can, indeed, change the world. Deftly factoring in such contemporary elements as sharp changes in the rise of identity politics and the nature of work, itself, Yates asks if there can, in fact, be a thing called the working class? If so, how might it overcome inherent divisions of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, location – to become a cohesive and radical force for change? Forcefully and without illusions, Yates supports his arguments with relevant, clearly explained data, historical examples, and his own personal experiences. This book is a sophisticated and prescient understanding of the working class, and what all of us might do to change the world.
Download or read book The Rise of the Working Class written by Jürgen Kuczynski and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English translation of a German language comparison of group dynamics and behaviour of worker classes in various countries in historical industrialization processes of the industrial revolution - covers sociological aspects, social status, social change, technological change, etc., and refers in particular to working conditions and living conditions of industrial workers, rural workers, miners, domestic workers and apprentices. References.
Download or read book White Working Class written by Joan C. Williams and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I recommend a book by Professor Williams, it is really worth a read, it's called White Working Class." -- Vice President Joe Biden on Pod Save America An Amazon Best Business and Leadership book of 2017 Around the world, populist movements are gaining traction among the white working class. Meanwhile, members of the professional elite—journalists, managers, and establishment politicians--are on the outside looking in, left to argue over the reasons. In White Working Class, Joan C. Williams, described as having "something approaching rock star status" by the New York Times, explains why so much of the elite's analysis of the white working class is misguided, rooted in class cluelessness. Williams explains that many people have conflated "working class" with "poor"--but the working class is, in fact, the elusive, purportedly disappearing middle class. They often resent the poor and the professionals alike. But they don't resent the truly rich, nor are they particularly bothered by income inequality. Their dream is not to join the upper middle class, with its different culture, but to stay true to their own values in their own communities--just with more money. While white working-class motivations are often dismissed as racist or xenophobic, Williams shows that they have their own class consciousness. White Working Class is a blunt, bracing narrative that sketches a nuanced portrait of millions of people who have proven to be a potent political force. For anyone stunned by the rise of populist, nationalist movements, wondering why so many would seemingly vote against their own economic interests, or simply feeling like a stranger in their own country, White Working Class will be a convincing primer on how to connect with a crucial set of workers--and voters.
Download or read book The new working class written by Ainsley, Claire and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent events such as the Brexit vote and the 2017 general election result highlight the erosion of traditional class identities and the decoupling of class from political identity. The majority of people in the UK still identify as working class, yet no political party today can confidently articulate their interests. So who is now working class and how do political parties gain their support? Based on the opinions and voices of lower and middle income voters, this insightful book proposes what needs to be done to address the issues of the 'new working class'. Outlining the composition, values, and attitudes of the new working class, it provides practical recommendations for political parties to reconnect with the electorate and regain trust.
Download or read book The Rise of the Right written by Winlow, Simon and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2017-01-18 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the biggest political stories of the past few decades in the United Kingdom and elsewhere has been the growing divide between the working class and the mainstream liberal left, which historically has spoken for them. This book offers a close analysis of that phenomenon by showing how the political scene looks to underemployed white men who have seen their standards of living fall in recent years even as their communities have fractured around them. Rather than cast aspersions or mount arguments about the larger success of society as a whole, The Rise of the Right takes these men and their concerns seriously, showing where their opinions are factually wrong but arguing powerfully that liberal politics must find a way of acknowledging and addressing their legitimate fears and frustrations.
Download or read book The People written by Selina Todd and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'There was nothing extraordinary about my childhood or background. And yet I looked in vain for any aspect of my family's story when I went to university to read history, and continued to search fruitlessly for it throughout the next decade. Eventually I realised I would have to write this history myself.' What was it really like to live through the twentieth century? In 1910 three-quarters of the population were working class, but their story has been ignored until now. Based on the first-person accounts of servants, factory workers, miners and housewives, award-winning historian Selina Todd reveals an unexpected Britain where cinema audiences shook their fists at footage of Winston Churchill, communities supported strikers, and where pools winners (like Viv Nicholson) refused to become respectable. Charting the rise of the working class, through two world wars to their fall in Thatcher's Britain and today, Todd tells their story for the first time, in their own words. Uncovering a huge hidden swathe of Britain's past, The People is the vivid history of a revolutionary century and the people who really made Britain great.
Download or read book Working Class Formation written by Ira Katznelson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applying an original theoretical framework, an international group of historians and social scientists here explores how class, rather than other social bonds, became central to the ideologies, dispositions, and actions of working people, and how this process was translated into diverse institutional legacies and political outcomes. Focusing principally on France. Germany, and the United States, the contributors examine the historically contingent connections between class, as objectively structured and experienced, and collective perceptions and responses as they develop in work, community, and politics. Following Ira Katznelson's introduction of the analytical concepts, William H. Sewell, Jr., Michelle Perrot, and Alain Cottereau discuss France; Amy Bridges and Martin Shefter, the United States; and Jargen Kocka and Mary Nolan, Germany. The conclusion by Aristide R. Zolberg comments on working-class formation up to World War I, including developments in Great Britain, and challenges conventional wisdom about class and politics in the industrializing West.
Download or read book Working Class New York written by Joshua B. Freeman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “lucid, detailed, and imaginative analysis” (The Nation) of the model city that working-class New Yorkers created after World War II—and its tragic demise More than any other city in America, New York in the years after the Second World War carved out an idealistic and equitable path to the future. Largely through the efforts of its working class and the dynamic labor movement it built, New York City became the envied model of liberal America and the scourge of conservatives everywhere: cheap and easy-to-use mass transit, work in small businesses and factories that had good wages and benefits, affordable public housing, and healthcare for all. Working-Class New York is an “engrossing” (Dissent) account of the birth of that ideal and the way it came crashing down. In what Publishers Weekly calls “absorbing and beautifully detailed history,” historian Joshua Freeman shows how the anticommunist purges of the 1950s decimated the ranks of the labor movement and demoralized its idealists, and how the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s dealt another crushing blow to liberal ideals as the city’s wealthy elite made a frenzied grab for power. A grand work of cultural and social history, Working-Class New York is a moving chronicle of a dream that died but may yet rise again.
Download or read book Subterranean Fire written by Sharon Smith and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A concise, well-written history of U.S. working-class struggle and radicalism” from the author of Women and Socialism: Class, Race, and Capital (Solidarity). Smith explores how the connection between the U.S. labor movement and the Democratic Party, with its extensive corporate ties, has repeatedly held back working-class struggles. And she closely examines the role of the labor movement in the 2004 presidential election, tracing the shrinking electoral influence of organized labor and the failure of labor-management cooperation, “business unionism,” and reliance on the Democrats to deliver any real gains. “Sharon Smith brings that history to life once again, blasting through the myths of the working class that Trump-era narratives cling to in order to connect us once again to the possibility of building broad solidarity.” —Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won’t Love You Back “A veteran worker-intellectual brilliantly addresses the crisis of the labor movement, skewering those who believe that renewal can come from the top down, and encouraging those who are fighting to rebuild it from the bottom up.” —Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums
Download or read book Working Class Hollywood written by Steven J. Ross and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This path-breaking book reveals how Hollywood became "Hollywood" and what that meant for the politics of America and American film. Working-Class Hollywood tells the story of filmmaking in the first three decades of the twentieth century, a time when going to the movies could transform lives and when the cinema was a battleground for control of American consciousness. Steven Ross documents the rise of a working-class film movement that challenged the dominant political ideas of the day. Between 1907 and 1930, worker filmmakers repeatedly clashed with censors, movie industry leaders, and federal agencies over the kinds of images and subjects audiences would be allowed to see. The outcome of these battles was critical to our own times, for the victors got to shape the meaning of class in twentieth- century America. Surveying several hundred movies made by or about working men and women, Ross shows how filmmakers were far more concerned with class conflict during the silent era than at any subsequent time. Directors like Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and William de Mille made movies that defended working people and chastised their enemies. Worker filmmakers went a step further and produced movies from A Martyr to His Cause (1911) to The Gastonia Textile Strike (1929) that depicted a unified working class using strikes, unions, and socialism to transform a nation. J. Edgar Hoover considered these class-conscious productions so dangerous that he assigned secret agents to spy on worker filmmakers. Liberal and radical films declined in the 1920s as an emerging Hollywood studio system, pressured by censors and Wall Street investors, pushed American film in increasingly conservative directions. Appealing to people's dreams of luxury and upward mobility, studios produced lavish fantasy films that shifted popular attention away from the problems of the workplace and toward the pleasures of the new consumer society. While worker filmmakers were trying to heighten class consciousness, Hollywood producers were suggesting that class no longer mattered. Working-Class Hollywood shows how silent films helped shape the modern belief that we are a classless nation.
Download or read book Working Class History written by Working Class His Working Class History and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is not made by kings, politicians, or a few rich individuals--it is made by all of us. From the temples of ancient Egypt to spacecraft orbiting Earth, workers and ordinary people everywhere have walked out, sat down, risen up, and fought back against exploitation, discrimination, colonization, and oppression. Working Class History presents a distinct selection of people's history through hundreds of "on this day in history" anniversaries that are as diverse and international as the working class itself. Women, young people, people of color, workers, migrants, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, older people, the unemployed, home workers, and every other part of the working class have organized and taken action that has shaped our world, and improvements in living and working conditions have been won only by years of violent conflict and sacrifice. These everyday acts of resistance and rebellion highlight just some of those who have struggled for a better world and provide lessons and inspiration for those of us fighting in the present. Going day by day, this book paints a picture of how and why the world came to be as it is, how some have tried to change it, and the lengths to which the rich and powerful have gone to maintain and increase their wealth and influence.
Download or read book The Riches of This Land written by Jim Tankersley and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid character-driven narrative, fused with important new economic and political reporting and research, that busts the myths about middle class decline and points the way to its revival. For over a decade, Jim Tankersley has been on a journey to understand what the hell happened to the world's greatest middle-class success story -- the post-World-War-II boom that faded into decades of stagnation and frustration for American workers. In The Riches of This Land, Tankersley fuses the story of forgotten Americans-- struggling women and men who he met on his journey into the travails of the middle class-- with important new economic and political research, providing fresh understanding how to create a more widespread prosperity. He begins by unraveling the real mystery of the American economy since the 1970s - not where did the jobs go, but why haven't new and better ones been created to replace them. His analysis begins with the revelation that women and minorities played a far more crucial role in building the post-war middle class than today's politicians typically acknowledge, and policies that have done nothing to address the structural shifts of the American economy have enabled a privileged few to capture nearly all the benefits of America's growing prosperity. Meanwhile, the "angry white men of Ohio" have been sold by Trump and his ilk a theory of the economy that is dangerously backward, one that pits them against immigrants, minorities, and women who should be their allies. At the culmination of his journey, Tankersley lays out specific policy prescriptions and social undertakings that can begin moving the needle in the effort to make new and better jobs appear. By fostering an economy that opens new pathways for all workers to reach their full potential -- men and women, immigrant or native-born, regardless of race -- America can once again restore the upward flow of talent that can power growth and prosperity.
Download or read book Labor s Mind written by Tobias Higbie and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-12-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Business leaders, conservative ideologues, and even some radicals of the early twentieth century dismissed working people's intellect as stunted, twisted, or altogether missing. They compared workers toiling in America's sprawling factories to animals, children, and robots. Working people regularly defied these expectations, cultivating the knowledge of experience and embracing a vibrant subculture of self-education and reading. Labor's Mind uses diaries and personal correspondence, labor college records, and a range of print and visual media to recover this social history of the working-class mind. As Higbie shows, networks of working-class learners and their middle-class allies formed nothing less than a shadow labor movement. Dispersed across the industrial landscape, this movement helped bridge conflicts within radical and progressive politics even as it trained workers for the transformative new unionism of the 1930s. Revelatory and sympathetic, Labor's Mind reclaims a forgotten chapter in working-class intellectual life while mapping present-day possibilities for labor, higher education, and digitally enabled self-study.
