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 State of the Union written by Nelson Lichtenstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-26 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a fresh and timely reinterpretation, Nelson Lichtenstein examines how trade unionism has waxed and waned in the nation's political and moral imagination, among both devoted partisans and intransigent foes. From the steel foundry to the burger-grill, from Woodrow Wilson to John Sweeney, from Homestead to Pittston, Lichtenstein weaves together a compelling matrix of ideas, stories, strikes, laws, and people in a streamlined narrative of work and labor in the twentieth century. The "labor question" became a burning issue during the Progressive Era because its solution seemed essential to the survival of American democracy itself. Beginning there, Lichtenstein takes us all the way to the organizing fever of contemporary Los Angeles, where the labor movement stands at the center of the effort to transform millions of new immigrants into alert citizen unionists. He offers an expansive survey of labor's upsurge during the 1930s, when the New Deal put a white, male version of industrial democracy at the heart of U.S. political culture. He debunks the myth of a postwar "management-labor accord" by showing that there was (at most) a limited, unstable truce. Lichtenstein argues that the ideas that had once sustained solidarity and citizenship in the world of work underwent a radical transformation when the rights-centered social movements of the 1960s and 1970s captured the nation's moral imagination. The labor movement was therefore tragically unprepared for the years of Reagan and Clinton: although technological change and a new era of global economics battered the unions, their real failure was one of ideas and political will. Throughout, Lichtenstein argues that labor's most important function, in theory if not always in practice, has been the vitalization of a democratic ethos, at work and in the larger society. To the extent that the unions fuse their purpose with that impulse, they can once again become central to the fate of the republic. State of the Union is an incisive history that tells the story of one of America's defining aspirations.

Download or read book American Labor and the Cold War written by Robert W. Cherny and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American labor movement seemed poised on the threshold of unparalleled success at the beginning of the post-World War II era. Fourteen million strong in 1946, unions represented thirty five percent of non-agricultural workers. Why then did the gains made between the 1930s and the end of the war produce so few results by the 1960s? This collection addresses the history of labor in the postwar years by exploring the impact of the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union on American workers and labor unions. The essays focus on the actual behavior of Americans in their diverse workplaces and communities during the Cold War. Where previous scholarship on labor and the Cold War has overemphasized the importance of the Communist Party, the automobile industry, and Hollywood, this book focuses on politically moderate, conservative workers and union leaders, the medium-sized cities that housed the majority of the population, and the Roman Catholic Church. These are all original essays that draw upon extensive archival research and some upon oral history sources.

Download or read book A New American Labor Movement written by William E. Scheuerman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American labor movement isn't dead. It's just moving from the bargaining table to the streets. In A New American Labor Movement, William Scheuerman analyzes how the decline of unions and the emergence of these new direct-action movements are reshaping the American labor movement. Tens of thousands of exploited workers—from farm laborers and gig drivers to freelance artists and restaurant workers—have taken to the streets in a collective attempt to attain a living wage and decent working conditions, with or without the help of unions. This new worker militancy, expressed through mass demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins, political action, and similar activities, has already achieved much success and offers models for workers to exercise their power in the twenty-first century. Finally, Scheuerman notes, many of the strategies of the new direct-action groups share features with the sectoral bargaining model that dominates the European labor movement, suggesting that sectoral bargaining may become the foundation of a new American labor movement.

Download or read book Labor Politics in Latin America written by Paul W. Posner and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, Latin American countries have sought to modernize their labor market institutions to remain competitive in the face of increasing globalization. This book evaluates the impact of such neoliberal reforms on labor movements and workers’ rights in the region through comparative analyses of labor politics in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Using these five key cases, the authors assess the capacity of workers and working-class organizations to advance their demands and bring about a more just distribution of economic gains in an era in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. In particular, their findings challenge the purported benefits of labor market flexibility—the freedom of employers to adjust their workforces as needed—which has been touted as a way to reduce income inequality and unemployment. In-depth case studies show how flexibilization as well as privatization, trade liberalization, and economic deregulation have undermined organized labor in all of these countries, leading to the current internal fragmentation of unions and their inability to promote counterreforms or increase collective bargaining. This assessment concludes that even with substantial variation among countries in how reforms have been implemented, most workers in the region have experienced increasing precarity, informal employment, and weaker labor movements. This book provides vital insights into whether these movements have the potential to regain influence and represent working people’s interests effectively in the future.

Download or read book Schools of Democracy written by Clayton Sinyai and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 310 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 Labor Unions Partisan Coalitions and Market Reforms in Latin America written by Maria Victoria Murillo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-05-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why labor unions resisted and submitted during the economic crises of the 1990s.

Download or read book Hard Work written by Rick Fantasia and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-06-16 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book State of the Unions How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class Improve Our Economy and Regain Political Influence written by Philip Dine and published by McGraw-Hill. This book was released on 2007-08-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From steel workers, Teamsters, and coal miners to teachers, actors, and civil servants, union members once accounted for more than one third of the American workforce. At a mere 12 percent, union membership today is a shadow of what it once was. What happened to organized labor in America and what can be done to restore it to its role of the defender of middle-class values and economic well-being? Award-winning investigative reporter Philip M. Dine takes us on a riveting journey through America's cities and back roads, its factories and union halls, to answer those questions. From the health care crisis to massive job flight overseas, from rampant home foreclosures to illegal immigration, he clearly shows how virtually every major economic, political, and social trend impacting our way of life is tied to the state of America's unions. Combining a compelling narrative with expert analysis, Dine offers firsthand accounts of the union members striving to make their voices heard in a political landscape increasingly shaped by corporate interests, including how: The women of Delta Pride-a major player in the multi-billion dollar catfish industry-went up against generations of racial and economic prejudice Iowa's firefighters union flexed its collective muscle to score a major political victory in the 2004 caucus The American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO played a key role in bringing down the Iron Curtain The Teamsters enlisted community support to temporarily stop a move by Mr. Coffee to relocate to Mexico and saved nearly 400 manufacturing jobs in the Cleveland area A reporter who has covered labor for two decades, Dine not only details where labor has gone wrong, but he also offers sage advice on how it can adapt to a global economy to recover the ground it lost over the last quarter century.

Download or read book Who Rules America Now written by G. William Domhoff and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1986 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.

Download or read book Union by Law written by Michael W. McCann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting in the early 1900s, many thousands of native Filipinos were conscripted as laborers in American West Coast agricultural fields and Alaska salmon canneries. There, they found themselves confined to exploitative low-wage jobs in racially segregated workplaces as well as subjected to vigilante violence and other forms of ethnic persecution. In time, though, Filipino workers formed political organizations and affiliated with labor unions to represent their interests and to advance their struggles for class, race, and gender-based social justice. Union by Law analyzes the broader social and legal history of Filipino American workers’ rights-based struggles, culminating in the devastating landmark Supreme Court ruling, Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio (1989). Organized chronologically, the book begins with the US invasion of the Philippines and the imposition of colonial rule at the dawn of the twentieth century. The narrative then follows the migration of Filipino workers to the United States, where they mobilized for many decades within and against the injustices of American racial capitalist empire that the Wards Cove majority willfully ignored in rejecting their longstanding claims. This racial innocence in turn rationalized judicial reconstruction of official civil rights law in ways that significantly increased the obstacles for all workers seeking remedies for institutionalized racism and sexism. A reclamation of a long legacy of racial capitalist domination over Filipinos and other low-wage or unpaid migrant workers, Union by Law also tells a story of noble aspirational struggles for human rights over several generations and of the many ways that law was mobilized both to enforce and to challenge race, class, and gender hierarchy at work.

Download or read book What Unions No Longer Do written by Jake Rosenfeld and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From workers' wages to presidential elections, labor unions once exerted tremendous clout in American life. In the immediate post-World War II era, one in three workers belonged to a union. The fraction now is close to one in five, and just one in ten in the private sector. The only thing big about Big Labor today is the scope of its problems. While many studies have explained the causes of this decline, What Unions No Longer Do shows the broad repercussions of labor's collapse for the American economy and polity. Organized labor was not just a minor player during the middle decades of the twentieth century, Jake Rosenfeld asserts. For generations it was the core institution fighting for economic and political equality in the United States. Unions leveraged their bargaining power to deliver benefits to workers while shaping cultural understandings of fairness in the workplace. What Unions No Longer Do details the consequences of labor's decline, including poorer working conditions, less economic assimilation for immigrants, and wage stagnation among African-Americans. In short, unions are no longer instrumental in combating inequality in our economy and our politics, resulting in a sharp decline in the prospects of American workers and their families.

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 American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena written by Herbert B. Asher and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2001-03-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are contemporary U.S. labor unions irrelevant, or in fact a changing force to be reckoned with as they grow into a new economy in a globalized America? Is the current political power exercised by U.S. labor unions more akin to the social movements of the sixties or the interest politics of the nineties? After winning the presidency of the AFL-CIO in 1995, John Sweeney and his colleagues have taken strides to make labor more important in the United States economically and politically, despite reduced membership. Here, four authors come together to survey the status of labor unions past, present, and future, nationally as well as through the microcosm of the labor situation in Ohio, one of the largest, most representative, and most electorally significant states in the country. The authors focus on union membership, leadership, political attitudes, strategies, and grassroots mobilization to paint a picture of union revitalization in a context of economic and social change. American labor still wields clout on Election Day, but union revitalization is a work in progress. For unions to matter every day to their members and leaders, they must consolidate their economic bases and rise to the challenges carefully documented in this book.

Download or read book Labour Unions and Politics under the North Star written by Mary Hilson and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden today all enjoy a reputation for strong labour movements, which in turn are widely seen as part of a distinctive regional approach to politics, collective bargaining and welfare. But as this volume demonstrates, narratives of the so-called “Nordic model” can obscure the fact that experiences of work and the fortunes of organized labour have varied widely throughout the region and across different historical periods. Together, the essays collected here represent an ambitious intervention in labour historiography and European history, exploring themes such as work, unions, politics and migration from the early modern period to the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Government Against Itself written by Daniel DiSalvo and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Daniel DiSalvo contends that the power of public sector unions is too often inimical to the public interest"--

Download or read book Unions Matter written by Matthew Behrens and published by Between the Lines(CA). This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embrace worker rights and build a better democracy