Labor Revitalization Research Articles

No Labor Revitalization without Activating the Rank and File

No Labor Revitalization without Activating the Rank and File

Breaking the Law: Strike Bans and Labor Revitalization in the Red State Revolt

A comparative analysis of the early 2018 statewide educators’ strikes in West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma illustrates the viability of a relatively neglected prescription for revitalizing organized labor: illegal strike action. Whereas the West Virginia and Arizona walkouts successfully ignored legal prohibitions on striking and won major concessions from the state, Oklahoma’s action was less successful in part because it remained on the terrain of legality. The experience of these three actions indicates that rank-and-file workers, union officials, and labor scholars should reconsider the labor movement’s prevailing strategy of working within the law.

Coupled Relationship between Rural Livelihoods and the Environment at a Village Scale: A Case Study in the Mongolian Plateau

Rural livelihoods, which are basic human activities, have long interacted with the environment. In light of the complexity of the human–environment system, more interdisciplinary analyses from geographical, environmental, and social sciences are needed. Using qualitative and quantitative methods from social, environmental, and geographical sciences, this study conducted a geographical regionalization and a comparative analysis of rural livelihoods in different zones in the Loess Plateau to explore the relationship between rural livelihoods and the environment. The results indicated that rural livelihoods are tightly coupled with the environment on a village scale, showing significant geographical regularity and spatial disparity. A combination of geographical location, resource endowment, and environmental sanitation affects rural livelihoods in terms of spatial patterns, development capacity, and quality of life in the context of the public ownership system, the utilization policy of land resources, and limited technical conditions. Coupling the relationship between rural livelihoods and a given environment on a village scale tends to lead to one of four types of relationships: “homeostatic”, “intense”, “transferred”, or “optimized”. Accordingly, governments and policymakers need to consider that countryside revitalization must be locally tailored and implemented through the four aspects of “rights revitalization”, “labor revitalization”, “industrial revitalization”, and “environmental revitalization”.

U.S. Union Revitalization and the Missing “Militant Minority”

Debates on U.S. union decline and revival usually focus on policy, technical, or political fixes. Missing are discussions of bringing workers together to act collectively at work. This has historically been the job of a “militant minority,” workplace activists (often leftists) who brought militancy and dynamism to unions, dedication and personal sacrifice in organizing, who linked workplace and community struggles, who were involved in unions’ day-to-day activities, and who connected rank and filers to leadership. This layer is largely missing today, making labor revitalization difficult. In explaining who the “militant minority” was, how it worked, and why it disappeared, we can find clues for rebuilding it.

Union Organizing after the Collapse of Neoliberalism in Argentina: The Place of Community in the Revitalization of the Labor Movement (2005–2011)

Recent Argentine history showed that since 2003 the labor movement became increasingly relevant due to protests organized by unionized formal workers. Labor revitalization in a context of persistent informality raised the following question: Were there union organizing strategies that related formal workers to the broader working class community that included informal workers? This article answered the question through the analysis of union strategies from three formal sector firms located in one city of the Northern Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 2005 and 2011. The evidence from this comparison showed that in two of the factories there were union strategies to reach the community. The existence of a grassroots democratic union in the shop floor appeared as a necessary condition for inclusive union strategies. The scale of those relations varied according to the geographical pattern of workers’ housing, which was the result of the company’s localization strategy.

Gender conscientization, social movement unionism, and labor revitalization: a perspective from Mexico

Since the 1980s, rates of unionization have been declining in Mexico, as they have in many Anglo- and Latin American countries, contributing to the marginalization of a once powerful political actor. It has been argued that labor revitalization in Mexico will require institutional reforms to the Federal Labor Law. This article suggests that important lessons for labor revitalization in Mexico can also be taken from discussions of social movement and citizenship movement unionism. Drawing on evidence from the decades long collaboration of union women with civil society organizations, I show that raising union women's gender consciousness can help to democratize union agendas and build alliances within civil society that can help broaden the struggle for institutional reforms.

Organizing Workers in the Space between Unions: Union-Centric Labor Revitalization and the Role of Community-Based Organizations

Labor scholars tend to treat unions as the movement’s constitutive organizational form. This practice excludes the movement-building efforts of community-based labor groups operating outside of the collective bargaining framework. This article examines the ‘union-centric’ character of sociological work on the contemporary US labor movement and explores the impact it has on analyses of its revitalization. Drawing on a case-study of the Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles, I show that community-based labor organizations mobilizing workers in the space between unions can play an important role in labor’s renewal. I argue that broadening the way we conceptualize the labor movement, reconsidering who its members are, and including a wider range of organizational forms will strengthen analyses of labor’s revitalization.

Why the Labor Movement is Not a Movement

vened, and a new language of labor revitalization emerged. A dominant theme in this discourse has been the idea that to regain the power it once had as the voice for the working class, organized labor must become a movement again. Many observers promoted social movement unionism as a neces sary and welcomed departure from the old model of business unionism. Commentators used the rhetoric of social movements while exploring ways that unions could adopt movement-style tactics, recruit a more diverse membership, fuse with social movements, broaden their goals, and mobilize workers. So how have we fared in our efforts to trans

Manufacturing Dissent: Labor Revitalization, Union Summer and Student Protest

During the late 1990s, college students across the United States mobilized around labor issues. Our research explores whether this explosion of student protest activity was generated, in part, by concerted efforts of the AFL-CIO through its Union Summer college student internship program. A statistical analysis of factors influencing the location of Students Against Sweatshops chapters and student labor protest confirms that the Union Summer program has successfully mobilized a generation of college students for labor activism. This research extends the labor literature by providing evidence of the revitalized labor federation's success in forming bridges to non-traditional constituencies. Our findings inform social movement scholarship and studies of inter-organizational influence by demonstrating that a professional social movement organization can strategically generate mobilization among a new constituency.

Split to Win?: Assessing the State of the Labor Movement

More than A decade ago, John Sweeney ousted Lane Kirkland and promised to revitalize the labor movement. He put a greater emphasis on organizing and more militant action on behalf of America's working families. Sweeney and his team brought many positive changes to the AFL-CIO—a willingness to reach out to students and the broader progressive community, a new approach to the international economy free of cold war concerns, a robust political program—yet labor's decline continued. Last year, seven unions with a combined membership of six million workers left the AFL-CIO to form a new labor federation called Change To Win (CTW). The unions in CTW argue that the AFL-CIO as currently structured, a loose federation of independent unions, each responsible for organizing in its own jurisdiction, is incapable of addressing the crisis of American labor. Modeled, in part, on the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the new federation promises a single-minded focus on organizing. It plans to mount large-scale, multi-union organizing campaigns focused on jobs—such as retail, building services, hospitality, health care, food service—that cannot be outsourced. Labor's revitalization remains a prerequisite for a progressive politics. Its steady decline has led to lower living standards for millions of workers, a frightening growth in inequality, a weakening of liberalism. We have asked some close observers of the labor movement to evaluate these recent developments. Does Change to Win represent a new approach to dealing with labor's crisis? Was the split necessary? Is the labor movement weakened by the split? What will be the political impact of the split?

Book Review: Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives

Book Review: Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives

Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 11: Labor Revitalization

Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 11: Labor Revitalization

Mapping the Dimensions of Labor Revitalization: Movement Innovators Survey the California Frontier

In light of the ongoing dialogue regarding the possibility and potential for revitalizing the U.S. labor movement, this paper seeks to map systematically the emblematic activities of this re-emergence. An inventory of innovative and promising labor movement activity is compiled and analyzed through semi-structured interviews with labor scholars, community leaders, organizers, and union officials in California. Analysis of the data suggests several emerging patterns: (1) the declining role of traditional union activity in the new labor movement, (2) the importance of immigrant workers to labor's revitalization, and (3) the absence of white-collar workers from the range of labor activity viewed as promising.

Sourcebook of labor markets: evolving structures and processes

I: Introduction. 1. Evolving Labor Market Structures: Key Developments, 1975-2000 I. Berg, A.L. Kalleberg. II: Evolving Markets and Institutional Structures. 2. Risk and the Labor Market: Societal Past as Economic Prologue S.M. Jacoby. 3. The U.S. Labor Movement: Toward a Sociology of Labor Revitalization D.B. Cornfield, W. Fletcher. 4. Can the U.S. Industrial Relations System be Transformed? The Role of Ideas, Reform Efforts, and Social Crisis T.A. Kochan. 5. The Next Long Swing: Spatialization, Technocratic Control, and the Restructuring of Work at the Turn of the Century M. Wallace, D. Brady. 6. Labor Markets and Economic Transformation in Post-Communist Europe R. Jenkins. III: Evolving Employment Relations and Work Structures. 7. Employment Relations and Work Structures and the Return to Huddersfield I. Berg. 8. Evolving Employment Relations in the United States A.L. Kalleberg. 9. Assessing the Decline of Internal Labor Markets P. Cappelli. 10. The Loose Coupling of Jobs: The Subcontracting of Everyone? N. DiTomaso. 11. High-Performance Work Systems and Labor Market Structures E. Appelbaum, P. Berg. 12. Careers and Employment Relations A.B. Sorensen. 13. Age and the Labor Market: Trends in Employment Security and Employment Institutions W.P. Bridges. IV: Evolving Patterns of Stratification in the United States. 14. Trends in Income Inequality in the United States F. Nielsen, A.S. Aldersen. 15. Did Job Quality Deteriorate in the 1980s and 1990s? J. Schmitt. 16. Six Reasons for Skepticism about the Technology Story of U.S. Wage Inequality J. Bernstein, L. Mishel. 17. Changes in Education and Changing Labor Markets T. Bailey. 18. What Happened to Middle Management? M.W. Meyer. 19. Social Networks, Job Changes, and Recruitment P.V. Marsden, E.H. Gorman. 20. Regional Labor Markets J.J. Beggs, W.J. Villemez. V: Evolving Public Policies: Structure of Opportunity and Economic Outcomes. 21. Evolving Patterns of Sex Segregation J.A. Jacobs. 22. The Sex Gap in Pay and Comparable Worth: An Update P. England, J. Thompson, C. Aman. 23. Employment Discrimination and its Remedies B.F. Reskin. 24. Hiring in Urban Labor Markets: Shifting Labor Demands, Persistent Racial Differences P. Moss, C. Tilly. 25. Race and Labor Market Segmentation R.L. Kaufman. 26. Immigration and Labor Markets in the United States F.D. Bean, S. Gonzalez-Baker, R. Capps. VI: Afterword. 27. Evolving Labor Markets: Conclusions and Implications I. Berg, A. Kalleberg. Index.

International Labor Revitalization: Enlarging the Playing Field

This survey of international union strategies distinguishes between approaches that add microeconomic value, adjust institutional frameworks, and enlarge the “playing field” on which unions organize and represent worker interests. It considers unions' efforts across advanced capitalist economies to use the latter approach to solve public goods problems while organizing new members. This strategy is limited by difficulties of coordinating multiple social interests but holds revitalizing potential by adding social value in times of socioeconomic instability.