Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994


Book Description

Traces the rise and fall of organized labor's political power over the course of the twentieth century.




A New American Labor Movement


Book Description

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.




Race on the Line


Book Description

Race on the Line is the first book to address the convergence of race, gender, and technology in the telephone industry. Venus Green—a former Bell System employee and current labor historian—presents a hundred year history of telephone operators and their work processes, from the invention of the telephone in 1876 to the period immediately before the break-up of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1984. Green shows how, as technology changed from a manual process to a computerized one, sexual and racial stereotypes enabled management to manipulate both the workers and the workplace. More than a simple story of the impact of technology, Race on the Line combines oral history, personal experience, and archival research to weave a complicated history of how skill is constructed and how its meanings change within a rapidly expanding industry. Green discusses how women faced an environment where male union leaders displayed economic as well as gender biases and where racism served as a persistent system of division. Separated into chronological sections, the study moves from the early years when the Bell company gave both male and female workers opportunities to advance; to the era of the “white lady” image of the company, when African American women were excluded from the industry and feminist working-class consciousness among white women was consequently inhibited; to the computer era, a time when black women had waged a successful struggle to integrate the telephone operating system but faced technological displacement and unrewarding work. An important study of working-class American women during the twentieth century, this book will appeal to a wide audience, particularly students and scholars with interest in women’s history, labor history, African American history, the history of technology, and business history.




Who Rules America Now?


Book Description

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.




American Workers, American Unions


Book Description

When published in 1986, American Workers, American Unions was among the first efforts to trace the contentious relationships among workers, unions, business, and the state from World War I through the mid-1980s. In this revised edition Robert Zieger makes use of recent scholarship and bibliographical material to provide a detailed examination of the key issues of the 1980s and 1990s. "I have used Robert Zieger's American Workers, American Unions in undergraduate courses on labor history and industrial relations. This new edition brings the story up to today--and the new, updated bibliographical essay is a plus for college courses."--Darryl Holter, Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles. "A helping of sober truth about the American labor movement and its politics."--John C. Cort, New Oxford Review




Autowork


Book Description

An anthology of original essays on the history of work experience in automobile factories, from 1913 to the present.




Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement


Book Description

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.




Political Groups, Parties, and Organizations That Shaped America [3 volumes]


Book Description

This three-volume set explores the multiple roles that parties and interest groups have played in American politics from the nation's beginnings to the present. This set serves as an essential resource for analyzing the emergence and impact of parties and interest groups in the American political system and for understanding the systematic and structural bases for interest group and party behavior. Volume One opens with an introduction by the editors that provides a general overview of the eras and identifies important themes and events, laying a foundation on which the subsequent essays and primary documents for each interest group or political party builds. Narrative essays focus on how specific parties or interest groups have shaped or reflect a particular set of events or general themes in each of the eras in American political history. Topical entries reflect key themes developed throughout the volumes. Entries range from important founding groups and parties to contemporary political action committees and policy advocacy groups. The set also includes primary source documents (e.g., letters, platform documents, court decisions, flyers, etc.) that reveal important dimensions of the corresponding group's political influence.




Rethinking the American Labor Movement


Book Description

Rethinking the American Labor Movement tells the story of the various groups and incidents that make up what we think of as the "labor movement." While the efforts of the American labor force towards greater wealth parity have been rife with contention, the struggle has embraced a broad vision of a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth and a desire for workers to have greater control over their own lives. In this succinct and authoritative volume, Elizabeth Faue reconsiders the varied strains of the labor movement, situating them within the context of rapidly transforming twentieth-century American society to show how these efforts have formed a political and social movement that has shaped the trajectory of American life. Rethinking the American Labor Movement is indispensable reading for scholars and students interested in American labor in the twentieth century and in the interplay between labor, wealth, and power.




American Labor, Congress, and the Welfare State, 1935–2010


Book Description

A study of the relationship between the U.S. Congress and the American labor movement over the course of a 75-year period. Despite achieving monumental reforms in the United States such as the eight-hour workday, a federal minimum wage, and workplace health and safety laws, organized labor’s record on much of its agenda has been mixed. Tracy Roof’s sweeping examination of labor unions and the American legislative process explains how this came to be and what it means for American workers. Tracing a 75-year arc in labor movement history, Roof discusses the complex interplay between unions and Congress, showing the effects of each on the other, how the relationship has evolved, and the resulting political outcomes. She analyzes labor’s success at passing legislation and pushing political reform in the face of legislative institutional barriers such as the Senate filibuster and an entrenched and powerful committee structure, looks at the roots and impact of the interdependent relationship between the Democratic Party and the labor movement, and assesses labor's prospects for future progress in creating a comprehensive welfare state. Roof’s original investigation details the history, actions, and consequences of major policy battles over areas such as labor law reform and health care policy. In the process, she brings to light practical and existential questions for labor leaders, scholars, and policy makers. Although American labor remains a force within the political process, decades of steadily declining membership and hostile political forces pose real threats to the movement. Roof’s shrewd exploration of unions, Congress, and the political process challenges conventional explanations for organized labor’s political failings.