Download or read book Politics of US Labor written by David Milton and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 191 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.

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 Political Economy of Labor Repression in the United States written by Andrew Kolin and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a detailed explanation of the essential elements that characterize capital labor relations and the resulting social conflict that leads to repression of labor. It links repression to the class struggle between capital and labor. The starting point involves an historical approach used to explore labor repression after the American Revolution. What follows is an examination of the role of government along with the growth of American capitalism to analyze capital-labor conflict. Subsequent chapters trace US history during the 19th century to discuss the question of the role assumed by the inclusion/exclusion of capital and labor in political-economic structures, which in turn lead to repression. Wholesale exclusion of labor from a fundamental role in framing policy in these institutions was crucial in understanding the unfolding of labor repression. Repression emerges amid a social struggle to acquire and maintain control over policy-making bodies, which pits the few against the many. In response, labor attempts to push back against institutional exclusion in part by the formation of labor unions. Capital reacts to such actions using repression to prevent labor from having a greater role in social institutions. For instance, this is played out inside the workplace as capital and labor engage in a political struggle over the function of the workplace. Given capital’s monopoly of ownership, capital employs various means to repress labor at work, including the introduction of technology, mass firings, crushing strikes, and the use of force to break up unions. The role of the state is not to be overlooked in its support of elite control over production, as well as aiding through legal means the growth of a capitalist economy in opposition to labor’s conception of greater economic democracy. This book explains how and why labor continues to confront repression in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Download or read book Pure and Simple Politics written by Julie Greene and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-28 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship on American labor politics has been dominated by the view that the American Federation of Labor, the dominant labor organization, rejected political action in favor of economic strategies. Based upon extensive research into labor and political party records, this study demonstrates that, despite the common belief, the AFL devoted great attention to political activity. The organization's main strategy, however, which Julie Greene terms 'pure and simple politics', dictated that trade unionists alone should shape American labor politics. Exploring the period from 1881 to 1917, Pure and Simple Politics focuses on the quandaries this approach generated for American trade unionists. Politics for AFL members became a highly contested terrain, as leaders attempted to implement a strategy which many rank-and-file workers rejected. Furthermore, its drive to achieve political efficacy increasingly exposed the AFL to forces beyond its control, as party politicians and other individuals began seeking to influence labor's political strategy and tactics.

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 Continuity Despite Change written by Matthew E. Carnes and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the dust settles on nearly three decades of economic reform in Latin America, one of the most fundamental economic policy areas has changed far less than expected: labor regulation. To date, Latin America's labor laws remain both rigidly protective and remarkably diverse. Continuity Despite Change develops a new theoretical framework for understanding labor laws and their change through time, beginning by conceptualizing labor laws as comprehensive systems or "regimes." In this context, Matthew Carnes demonstrates that the reform measures introduced in the 1980s and 1990s have only marginally modified the labor laws from decades earlier. To explain this continuity, he argues that labor law development is constrained by long-term economic conditions and labor market institutions. He points specifically to two key factors—the distribution of worker skill levels and the organizational capacity of workers. Carnes presents cross-national statistical evidence from the eighteen major Latin American economies to show that the theory holds for the decades from the 1980s to the 2000s, a period in which many countries grappled with proposed changes to their labor laws. He then offers theoretically grounded narratives to explain the different labor law configurations and reform paths of Chile, Peru, and Argentina. His findings push for a rethinking of the impact of globalization on labor regulation, as economic and political institutions governing labor have proven to be more resilient than earlier studies have suggested.

Download or read book Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement written by William E. Forbath and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1991-05-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did American workers, unlike their European counterparts, fail to forge a class-based movement to pursue broad social reform? Was it simply that they lacked class consciousness and were more interested in personal mobility? In a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, William Forbath challenges this notion of American “individualism.” In fact, he argues, the nineteenth-century American labor movement was much like Europe’s labor movements in its social and political outlook, but in the decades around the turn of the century, the prevailing attitude of American trade unionists changed. Forbath shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial to reshaping labor’s outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.

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 Labor Politics in Latin America written by Paul W. Posner and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Labor Politics in Latin America assesses the capacity of working class organizations to represent and advance working people's demands in an era in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. The book's premise is that the longer-term sustainability of development strategies for the region is largely connected to the capacity of working class organizations to secure a fairer distribution of the gains from growth.

Download or read book Labor in American Politics written by J. David Greenstone and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study of the political activities of trade unions in the USA, with particular reference to the impact thereof in election campaigns of the democratic political party - examines the political behaviour of union members in urban areas and covers social change, historical, economic implications and sociological aspects and trends in the orientation of the American trade union movement in the age of consumer-producer class politics. Bibliography pp. Xxxi to xli and references.

Download or read book The Right and Labor in America written by Nelson Lichtenstein and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays by leading American historians explains how and why the fight against unionism has long been central to the meaning of contemporary conservatism.

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 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 The New Politics of Transnational Labor written by Marissa Brookes and published by ILR Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the years many transnational labor alliances have succeeded in improving conditions for workers, but many more have not. In The New Politics of Transnational Labor, Marissa Brookes explains why this dichotomy has occurred. Using the coordination and context-appropriate (CCAP) theory, she assesses this divergence, arguing that the success of transnational alliances hinges not only on effective coordination across borders and within workers' local organizations but also on their ability to exploit vulnerabilities in global value chains, invoke national and international institutions, and mobilize networks of stakeholders in ways that threaten employers' core, material interests. Brookes uses six comparative case studies spanning four industries, five countries, and fifteen years. From dockside labor disputes in Britain and Australia to service sector campaigns in the supermarket and private security industries to campaigns aimed at luxury hotels in Southeast Asia, Brookes creates her new theoretical framework and speaks to debates in international and comparative political economy on the politics of economic globalization, the viability of private governance, and the impact of organized labor on economic inequality. From this assessment, Brookes provides a vital update to the international relations literature on non-state actors and transnational activism and shows how we can understand the unique capacities labor has as a transnational actor.

Download or read book Workingmen s Democracy written by Leon Fink and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-10-17 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the operation and influence of the Knights of Labor—the leading labor organization of the nineteenth century—Workingmen's Democracy explores the dreams, achievements, and failures of a movement that sought to renew the democratic potential of American institutions. Runner-up in both the John H. Dunning Prize and Albert J. Beveridge Award competitions

Download or read book Rethinking U S Labor History written by Donna T. Haverty-Stacke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking U.S. Labor History provides a reassessment of the recent growth and new directions in U.S. labor history. Labor History has recently undergone something of a renaissance that has yet to be documented. The book chronicles this rejuvenation with contributions from new scholars as well as established names. Rethinking U.S. Labor History focuses particularly on those issues of pressing interest for today's labor historians: the relationship of class and culture; the link between worker's experience and the changing political economy; the role that gender and race have played in America's labor history; and finally, the transnational turn.

Download or read book The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States written by Michael Goldfield and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-05-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goldfield provides a statistical and historical examination of the erosion of unionization in the private sector. Based on National Labor Relations Board data, which serve as an accurate measure of union growth in the private sector, he argues that standard explanations for union decline--structural, industrial, occupational, demographic, and geographic changes--are insupportable or erroneous. He makes a compelling case that the decline is due to changing class relationships, determined corporate anti-unionism, lack of realism on the part of the unions, and a public view of unions as too powerful and untrustworthy. Goldfield maintains that by understanding the decline of U.S. labor unions it is possible to understand the conditions necessary for their rebirth and resurgence. ISBN 0-226-30102-8: $27.50.