Betting on New Forms of Worker Organization

Abstract

I have always admired labor organizers, in part because their long hours and incredible ability to listen, engage, and sympathize with people from every political persuasion make it possible for the labor movement to survive. I do not envy them, however, particularly at this moment in history. They often find themselves in untenable situations, faced with impossible moral and political dilemmas. As one Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Worker organizer from the Tufts University campaign—where the union recently lost an election—explained to me in January 2010, “You can't win an election without employer neutrality. Yet you can't get neutrality without making concessions you don't want to make.”