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Shows how different levels of worker participation during a union organizing campaign influence the perceptions and actions of those same workers after the campaign ends, and, thereby, the long-term effectiveness and success of the organizing effort. Drawing on historical and current examples, the author analyzes the political and economic contexts within which today's unions are organizing, including a detailed examination of the impact of the Wagner Act.
Book Synopsis Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing by : Linda Markowitz
Download or read book Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing written by Linda Markowitz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how different levels of worker participation during a union organizing campaign influence the perceptions and actions of those same workers after the campaign ends, and, thereby, the long-term effectiveness and success of the organizing effort. Drawing on historical and current examples, the author analyzes the political and economic contexts within which today's unions are organizing, including a detailed examination of the impact of the Wagner Act.
This book studies a «best-practices» example of what is known as the organizing local approach to union renewal. Several unions in the US, the UK, and other countries have embraced this model of unionism as a formula for labor revitalization. Organizing locals aim to strengthen unions by redeploying resources and mobilizing workers around the goal of member recruitment. The union local under study stands out as an exceptional case within the US context. Against the backdrop of a languishing labor movement, this local has succeeded at recruiting workers and keeping its members engaged. The book seeks to unpack this success and examine closely what works, what does not, and how things work. The research design relies on participant observation and in-depth interviews to examine how formal systems of representation and macro-organizing strategies and platforms get translated into micro-level processes, experiences, and relationships. By adopting a micro-social approach, the author reveals what drives union activism in an organizing local, beyond the rhetoric of union officials. Further, the findings identify the conditions for successful union reform, and show formal and informal mechanisms for accommodating opposite orientations in union work, attending to members' expectations of union «help», and changing the status quo through organizing.
Book Synopsis Organizing the Organized by : Laura Ariovich
Download or read book Organizing the Organized written by Laura Ariovich and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies a «best-practices» example of what is known as the organizing local approach to union renewal. Several unions in the US, the UK, and other countries have embraced this model of unionism as a formula for labor revitalization. Organizing locals aim to strengthen unions by redeploying resources and mobilizing workers around the goal of member recruitment. The union local under study stands out as an exceptional case within the US context. Against the backdrop of a languishing labor movement, this local has succeeded at recruiting workers and keeping its members engaged. The book seeks to unpack this success and examine closely what works, what does not, and how things work. The research design relies on participant observation and in-depth interviews to examine how formal systems of representation and macro-organizing strategies and platforms get translated into micro-level processes, experiences, and relationships. By adopting a micro-social approach, the author reveals what drives union activism in an organizing local, beyond the rhetoric of union officials. Further, the findings identify the conditions for successful union reform, and show formal and informal mechanisms for accommodating opposite orientations in union work, attending to members' expectations of union «help», and changing the status quo through organizing.
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.
Book Synopsis Who Rules America Now? by : G. William Domhoff
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.
Providing a full account of the role of women in union activism in Asia, covering all the major economies of the region, this book successfully challenges the prevailing conception of women workers in Asia as passive and uninterested in industrial issues.
Book Synopsis Women and Labour Organizing in Asia by : Kaye Broadbent
Download or read book Women and Labour Organizing in Asia written by Kaye Broadbent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-12-21 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a full account of the role of women in union activism in Asia, covering all the major economies of the region, this book successfully challenges the prevailing conception of women workers in Asia as passive and uninterested in industrial issues.
Participants in this symposium honoring the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act offered insightful tributes to the historic achievements of labor unions and collective bargaining under the Wagner Act and devastating critiques of the law's evolution under Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin. The critiques run to the very core of the statute - including its limited coverage, anachronistic adversarial premise, the stark choice it offers workers between a union as exclusive representative and no voice in the workplace at all, a deeply flawed election model which when combined with toothless remedies and procedural delays allows employers to mount aggressive anti-union campaigns that destroy union momentum, the limited nature of the duty to bargain, and the hobbling of labor's strike and boycott weapons which makes first contracts exceedingly difficult for those unions that do triumph over the employer's antiunion campaign. Although these problems suggest obvious possibilities for legislative reform, Congressional gridlock and the sharply polarized nature of labor politics prevents them from gaining traction. The Board's efforts to take the lead through rulemaking and more aggressive enforcement of the Act have also met with powerful resistance in Congress. The more fundamental question is whether the NLRA is worth saving at all. This essay seeks to spark debate about that question. On the one hand, repeal of the labor laws would undermine the primary support in the law for collective action by workers, and because of its linkage with other social justice movements, could also threaten the individual rights regime that these movements have secured. On the other hand, repeal of the labor laws could re-energize labor unionism. It seems far from coincidental that the most vibrant and successful organizing and worker activism efforts are occurring outside the NLRA framework, including neutrality and card-check campaigns, the political movement behind public sector organizing and bargaining rights, successes in immigrant organizing and home care work, collective and class action litigation pursued by plaintiffs' attorneys under state and federal wage and hour law and antidiscrimination legislation, local activism by labor-community alliances that has produced living wage laws and community benefits agreements, and the persistent efforts by the Committee on Freedom of Association to enforce the ILO conventions on global labor rights. In considering these issues, this essay proposes ways that labor might reinvent itself to become the sort of movement that will inspire and motivate rather than alienate and anger. First, unions should ally themselves with other social movements that are telling the most powerful stories of exploitation - race and sex discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, human trafficking, abuses of low wage workers and immigrants. Second, labor should emphasize the voice function of unionism more. What self-respecting individual wouldn't want to be at the table when decisions about her economic future and day-to-day work life are being made? Finally, unions must reconceive themselves as communal organizations that are part of the glue that binds society together. In the end, the weaknesses of labor unionism and labor law are also its strength: union organizing is a direct challenge to corporate power, an opportunity to tell the truth in workers' voices about the economic realities of our time, and a strategy for wealth redistribution. Unless we wish to be only romantics, placing our heads in the noose and lamenting the decline and demise of the elegant system of labor law, we (intellectuals, union activists, lawyers, and workers) must do the hard work of explaining why unions and labor law are vital to economic prosperity, what the alternative could look like, and why everyone should care.
Book Synopsis An Imminent Hanging by : Marion G. Crain
Download or read book An Imminent Hanging written by Marion G. Crain and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Participants in this symposium honoring the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act offered insightful tributes to the historic achievements of labor unions and collective bargaining under the Wagner Act and devastating critiques of the law's evolution under Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin. The critiques run to the very core of the statute - including its limited coverage, anachronistic adversarial premise, the stark choice it offers workers between a union as exclusive representative and no voice in the workplace at all, a deeply flawed election model which when combined with toothless remedies and procedural delays allows employers to mount aggressive anti-union campaigns that destroy union momentum, the limited nature of the duty to bargain, and the hobbling of labor's strike and boycott weapons which makes first contracts exceedingly difficult for those unions that do triumph over the employer's antiunion campaign. Although these problems suggest obvious possibilities for legislative reform, Congressional gridlock and the sharply polarized nature of labor politics prevents them from gaining traction. The Board's efforts to take the lead through rulemaking and more aggressive enforcement of the Act have also met with powerful resistance in Congress. The more fundamental question is whether the NLRA is worth saving at all. This essay seeks to spark debate about that question. On the one hand, repeal of the labor laws would undermine the primary support in the law for collective action by workers, and because of its linkage with other social justice movements, could also threaten the individual rights regime that these movements have secured. On the other hand, repeal of the labor laws could re-energize labor unionism. It seems far from coincidental that the most vibrant and successful organizing and worker activism efforts are occurring outside the NLRA framework, including neutrality and card-check campaigns, the political movement behind public sector organizing and bargaining rights, successes in immigrant organizing and home care work, collective and class action litigation pursued by plaintiffs' attorneys under state and federal wage and hour law and antidiscrimination legislation, local activism by labor-community alliances that has produced living wage laws and community benefits agreements, and the persistent efforts by the Committee on Freedom of Association to enforce the ILO conventions on global labor rights. In considering these issues, this essay proposes ways that labor might reinvent itself to become the sort of movement that will inspire and motivate rather than alienate and anger. First, unions should ally themselves with other social movements that are telling the most powerful stories of exploitation - race and sex discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, human trafficking, abuses of low wage workers and immigrants. Second, labor should emphasize the voice function of unionism more. What self-respecting individual wouldn't want to be at the table when decisions about her economic future and day-to-day work life are being made? Finally, unions must reconceive themselves as communal organizations that are part of the glue that binds society together. In the end, the weaknesses of labor unionism and labor law are also its strength: union organizing is a direct challenge to corporate power, an opportunity to tell the truth in workers' voices about the economic realities of our time, and a strategy for wealth redistribution. Unless we wish to be only romantics, placing our heads in the noose and lamenting the decline and demise of the elegant system of labor law, we (intellectuals, union activists, lawyers, and workers) must do the hard work of explaining why unions and labor law are vital to economic prosperity, what the alternative could look like, and why everyone should care.
Organizing Matters demonstrates the interplay between two distinct logics of labour’s collective action: on the one hand, workers coming together, usually at their place of work, entrusting the union to represent their interests and, on the other hand, social bargaining in which the trade union constructs labour’s interests from the top down. The book investigates the tensions and potential complementarities between the two logics through the combination of a strong theoretical framework and an extensive qualitative case study of trade union organizing and recruitment in four countries – Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. These countries still utilize social-wide bargaining but find it necessary to draw and develop strategies transposed from Anglo-American countries in response to continuously declining membership.
Book Synopsis Organizing Matters by : Guy Mundlak
Download or read book Organizing Matters written by Guy Mundlak and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-29 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organizing Matters demonstrates the interplay between two distinct logics of labour’s collective action: on the one hand, workers coming together, usually at their place of work, entrusting the union to represent their interests and, on the other hand, social bargaining in which the trade union constructs labour’s interests from the top down. The book investigates the tensions and potential complementarities between the two logics through the combination of a strong theoretical framework and an extensive qualitative case study of trade union organizing and recruitment in four countries – Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. These countries still utilize social-wide bargaining but find it necessary to draw and develop strategies transposed from Anglo-American countries in response to continuously declining membership.
For those who want to build a fighting labor movement, there are many questions to answer. How to relate to the union establishment which often does not want to fight? Whether to work in the rank and file of unions or staff jobs? How much to prioritize broader class demands versus shop floor struggle? How to relate to foundation-funded worker centers and alternative union efforts? And most critically, how can we revive militancy and union power in the face of corporate power and a legal system set up against us? Class struggle unionism is the belief that our union struggle exists within a larger struggle between an exploiting billionaire class and the working class which actually produces the goods and services in society. Class struggle unionism looks at the employment transaction as inherently exploitative. While workers create all wealth in society, the outcome of the wage employment transaction is to separate workers from that wealth and create the billionaire class. From that simple proposition flows a powerful and radical form of unionism. Historically, class struggle unionists placed their workplace fights squarely within this larger fight between workers and the owning class. Viewing unionism in this way produces a particular type of unionism which both fights for broader class issues but is also rooted in workplace-based militancy. Drawing on years of labor activism and study of labor tradition Joe Burns outlines the key set of ideas common to class struggle unionism and shows how these ideas can create a more militant, democtractic and fighting labor movement.
Book Synopsis Class Struggle Unionism by : Joe Burns
Download or read book Class Struggle Unionism written by Joe Burns and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those who want to build a fighting labor movement, there are many questions to answer. How to relate to the union establishment which often does not want to fight? Whether to work in the rank and file of unions or staff jobs? How much to prioritize broader class demands versus shop floor struggle? How to relate to foundation-funded worker centers and alternative union efforts? And most critically, how can we revive militancy and union power in the face of corporate power and a legal system set up against us? Class struggle unionism is the belief that our union struggle exists within a larger struggle between an exploiting billionaire class and the working class which actually produces the goods and services in society. Class struggle unionism looks at the employment transaction as inherently exploitative. While workers create all wealth in society, the outcome of the wage employment transaction is to separate workers from that wealth and create the billionaire class. From that simple proposition flows a powerful and radical form of unionism. Historically, class struggle unionists placed their workplace fights squarely within this larger fight between workers and the owning class. Viewing unionism in this way produces a particular type of unionism which both fights for broader class issues but is also rooted in workplace-based militancy. Drawing on years of labor activism and study of labor tradition Joe Burns outlines the key set of ideas common to class struggle unionism and shows how these ideas can create a more militant, democtractic and fighting labor movement.
Book Synopsis Secrets of a Successful Organizer by : Alexandra Bradbury
Download or read book Secrets of a Successful Organizer written by Alexandra Bradbury and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly welcomed people of color, in keeping with their emphasis on class solidarity and their bold motto: “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!” Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly tells the story of one of the greatest heroes of the American working class. A brilliant union organizer and a humorous orator, Benjamin Fletcher (1890–1949) was a tremendously important and well-loved African American member of the IWW during its heyday. Fletcher helped found and lead Local 8 of the IWW’s Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union, unquestionably the most powerful interracial union of its era, taking a principled stand against all forms of xenophobia and exclusion. For years, acclaimed historian Peter Cole has carefully researched the life of Ben Fletcher, painstakingly uncovering a stunning range of documents related to this extraordinary man. Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly is the most comprehensive look at Fletcher ever to be published. It includes a detailed biographical sketch of his life and history, reminiscences by fellow workers who knew him, a chronicle of the IWW’s impressive decade-long run on the Philadelphia waterfront in which Fletcher played a pivotal role, and nearly all of his known writings and speeches, thus giving Fletcher’s timeless voice another opportunity to inspire a new generation of workers, organizers, and agitators. This revised and expanded second edition includes new materials such as facsimile reprints of two extremely rare pamphlets on racism from the early twentieth century, more information on his prison years and personal life, additional recollections from friends, greater consideration of Fletcher from a global perspective, and much more.
Book Synopsis Ben Fletcher by : Peter Cole
Download or read book Ben Fletcher written by Peter Cole and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly welcomed people of color, in keeping with their emphasis on class solidarity and their bold motto: “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!” Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly tells the story of one of the greatest heroes of the American working class. A brilliant union organizer and a humorous orator, Benjamin Fletcher (1890–1949) was a tremendously important and well-loved African American member of the IWW during its heyday. Fletcher helped found and lead Local 8 of the IWW’s Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union, unquestionably the most powerful interracial union of its era, taking a principled stand against all forms of xenophobia and exclusion. For years, acclaimed historian Peter Cole has carefully researched the life of Ben Fletcher, painstakingly uncovering a stunning range of documents related to this extraordinary man. Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly is the most comprehensive look at Fletcher ever to be published. It includes a detailed biographical sketch of his life and history, reminiscences by fellow workers who knew him, a chronicle of the IWW’s impressive decade-long run on the Philadelphia waterfront in which Fletcher played a pivotal role, and nearly all of his known writings and speeches, thus giving Fletcher’s timeless voice another opportunity to inspire a new generation of workers, organizers, and agitators. This revised and expanded second edition includes new materials such as facsimile reprints of two extremely rare pamphlets on racism from the early twentieth century, more information on his prison years and personal life, additional recollections from friends, greater consideration of Fletcher from a global perspective, and much more.
Solidarity Unionism is critical reading for all who care about the future of labor. Drawing deeply on Staughton Lynd's experiences as a labor lawyer and activist in Youngstown, OH, and on his profound understanding of the history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Solidarity Unionism helps us begin to put not only movement but also vision back into the labor movement. While many lament the decline of traditional unions, Lynd takes succor in the blossoming of rank-and-file worker organizations throughout the world that are countering rapacious capitalists and those comfortable labor leaders that think they know more about work and struggle than their own members. If we apply a new measure of workers’ power that is deeply rooted in gatherings of workers and communities, the bleak and static perspective about the sorry state of labor today becomes bright and dynamic. To secure the gains of solidarity unions, Staughton has proposed parallel bodies of workers who share the principles of rank-and-file solidarity and can coordinate the activities of local workers’ assemblies. Detailed and inspiring examples include experiments in workers' self-organization across industries in steel-producing Youngstown, as well as horizontal networks of solidarity formed in a variety of U.S. cities and successful direct actions overseas. This is a tradition that workers understand but labor leaders reject. After so many failures, it is time to frankly recognize that the century-old system of recognition of a single union as exclusive collective bargaining agent was fatally flawed from the beginning and doesn’t work for most workers. If we are to live with dignity, we must collectively resist. This book is not a prescription but reveals the lived experience of working people continuously taking risks for the common good.
Book Synopsis Solidarity Unionism by : Staughton Lynd
Download or read book Solidarity Unionism written by Staughton Lynd and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solidarity Unionism is critical reading for all who care about the future of labor. Drawing deeply on Staughton Lynd's experiences as a labor lawyer and activist in Youngstown, OH, and on his profound understanding of the history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Solidarity Unionism helps us begin to put not only movement but also vision back into the labor movement. While many lament the decline of traditional unions, Lynd takes succor in the blossoming of rank-and-file worker organizations throughout the world that are countering rapacious capitalists and those comfortable labor leaders that think they know more about work and struggle than their own members. If we apply a new measure of workers’ power that is deeply rooted in gatherings of workers and communities, the bleak and static perspective about the sorry state of labor today becomes bright and dynamic. To secure the gains of solidarity unions, Staughton has proposed parallel bodies of workers who share the principles of rank-and-file solidarity and can coordinate the activities of local workers’ assemblies. Detailed and inspiring examples include experiments in workers' self-organization across industries in steel-producing Youngstown, as well as horizontal networks of solidarity formed in a variety of U.S. cities and successful direct actions overseas. This is a tradition that workers understand but labor leaders reject. After so many failures, it is time to frankly recognize that the century-old system of recognition of a single union as exclusive collective bargaining agent was fatally flawed from the beginning and doesn’t work for most workers. If we are to live with dignity, we must collectively resist. This book is not a prescription but reveals the lived experience of working people continuously taking risks for the common good.
