For decades, public sector unions in Canada have been plagued by austerity, privatization, taxpayer backlash and restrictions on union rights. In recent years, the intensity of state-led attacks against public sector workers has reached a fevered pitch, raising the question of the role of public sector unions in protecting their members and the broader public interest. Public Sector Unions in the Age of Austerity examines the unique characteristics of public sector unionism in a Canadian context. Contributors to this multi-disciplinary collection explore both the strategic possibilities and challenges facing public sector unions that are intent on resisting austerity, enhancing their power and connecting their interests as workers with those of citizens who desire a more just and equitable public sphere.

'Early in my research, a friend with excellent knowledge of the United Auto Workers internal operations told me, "Don't give up. They are hiding something"...' It's 1990, and US labour is being outsourced to Mexico. Rumours of a violent confrontation at the Mexican Ford Assembly plant on January 8 reach the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in the US: nine employees had been shot by a group of drunken thugs and gangsters, in an act of political repression which changed the course of Mexican and US workers' rights forever. Rob McKenzie was working at the Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant in Minnesota when he heard of the attack. He didn't believe the official story, and began a years-long investigation to uncover the truth. His findings took him further than he expected - all the way to the doors of the CIA. Virtually unknown outside of Mexico, the full story of 'El Golpe', or 'The Coup', is a dark tale of political intrigue that still resonates today.

A story that involves as its main players "workers" and "Walmart" does not usually have a happy ending for labor, so the counternarrative offered by Building Power from Below is must reading for activists and union personnel as well as scholars. In 2008 Walmart acquired a controlling share in a large supermarket chain in Santiago, Chile. As part of the deal Walmart had to accept the unions that were already in place. Since then, Chilean retail and warehouse workers have done something that has seemed impossible for labor in the United States: they have organized even more successful unions and negotiated unprecedented contracts with Walmart. In Building Power from Below, Carolina Bank Munoz attributes Chilean workers' success in challenging the world's largest corporation to their organizations' commitment to union democracy and building strategic capacity. Chilean workers have spent years building grassroots organizations committed to principles of union democracy. Retail workers' unions have less structural power, but have significant associational and symbolic power. Their most notable successes have been in fighting for respect and dignity on the job. Warehouse workers by contrast have substantial structural power and have achieved significant economic gains. While the model in Chile cannot necessarily be reproduced in different countries, we can gain insights from the Chilean workers' approaches, tactics, and strategies.

In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City, while Chavez lived in the Central Valley farm town of Delano, where the grape strike was unfolding. This book is Matthiessen's panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent working and traveling with Chavez, including to Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where Chavez began his organizing. Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence.
Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. In its pages a whole era comes alive: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez's fasts; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, tens of thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was and how important his life had been.
A new foreword by Marc Grossman considers the significance of Chavez's legacy for our time. As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez's life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.

'Jane Holgate is a brilliant thinker' - Jane McAlevey In Arise, Jane Holgate argues that unions must revisit their understanding of power in order to regain influence and confront capital. Drawing on two decades of research and organising experience, Holgate examines the structural inertia of today's unions from a range of perspectives: from strategic choice, leadership and union democracy to politics, tactics and the agency afforded to rank-and-file members. In the midst of a neoliberal era of economic crisis and political upheaval, the labour movement stands at a crossroads. Union membership is on the rise, but the 'turn to organising' has largely failed to translate into meaningful gains for workers. There is considerable discussion about the lack of collectivism among workers due to casualisation, gig work and precarity, yet these conditions were standard in the UK when workers built the foundations of the 19th-century trade union movement. Drawing on history and case studies of unions developing and using power effectively, this book offers strategies for moving beyond the pessimism that prevails in much of today's union movement. By placing power analysis back at the heart of workers' struggle, Holgate shows us that transformational change is not only possible, but within reach.

Higher education is the site of an ongoing conflict. At the heart of this struggle are the precariously employed faculty 'contingents' who work without basic job security, living wages or benefits. Yet they have the incentive and, if organized, the power to shape the future of higher education. Power Despite Precarity is part history, part handbook and a wholly indispensable resource in this fight. Joe Berry and Helena Worthen outline the four historical periods that led to major transitions in the worklives of faculty of this sector. They then take a deep dive into the 30-year-long struggle by California State University lecturers to negotiate what is recognized as the best contract for contingents in the US. The authors ask: what is the role of universities in society? Whose interests should they serve? What are the necessary conditions for the exercise of academic freedom? Providing strategic insight for activists at every organizing level, they also tackle 'troublesome questions' around legality, union politics, academic freedom and how to recognize friends (and foes) in the struggle.

It is a bedrock American belief: the 1950s were a golden age of prosperity for autoworkers. Flush with high wages and enjoying the benefits of generous union contracts, these workers became the backbone of a thriving blue-collar middle class. It is also a myth. Daniel J. Clark began by interviewing dozens of former autoworkers in the Detroit area and found a different story--one of economic insecurity caused by frequent layoffs, unrealized contract provisions, and indispensable second jobs. Disruption in Detroit is a vivid portrait of workers and an industry that experienced anything but stable prosperity. As Clark reveals, the myths--whether of rising incomes or hard-nosed union bargaining success--came later. In the 1950s, ordinary autoworkers, union leaders, and auto company executives recognized that although jobs in their industry paid high wages, they were far from steady and often impossible to find.

'A breath of fresh air' - Norman Finklestein Workers in the Global South are doomed through economic imperialism to carry the burden of the entire world. While these workers appear isolated from the Global North, they are in fact deeply integrated into global commodity chains and essential to the maintenance of global capitalism. Looking at contemporary case studies in India, the Philippines and South Africa, this book affirms the significance of political and economic representation to the struggles of workers against deepening levels of poverty and inequality that oppress the majority of people on the planet. Immanuel Ness shows that workers are eager to mobilise to improve their conditions, and can achieve lasting gains if they have sustenance and support from political organisations. From the Dickensian industrial zones of Delhi to the agrarian oligarchy on the island of Mindanao, a common element remains - when workers organise they move closer to the realisation of socialism, solidarity and equality.

On the 50th anniversary of In Place of Strife, this scholarly study makes extensive use of previously unpublished archival and other primary sources to explain why Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle embarked on legislation to regulate the trade unions and curb strikes, and why this aroused such strong opposition, not just from the unions, but within the Cabinet and among backbench Labour MPs. This opposition transcended the orthodox ideological divisions, making temporary allies of traditional adversaries in the Party. Even Wilson's threats either to resign, or call a general election, if his MPs and Ministers failed to support him and Castle, were treated with derision. His colleagues called Wilson's bluff, and forced him to abandon the legislation, in return for a 'solemn and binding' pledge by the trade unions to 'put their own house in order' in tackling strikes. -- .

Tim Davenport and David Walters have extracted the essential core of Debs's life work, illustrating his intellectual journey from conservative editor of the magazine of a racially segregated railway brotherhood to his role as the public face and outstanding voice of social revolution in early twentieth-century America. Well over 1,000 Debs documents will be republished as part of this monumental project, the vast majority seeing print again for the first time since the date of their original publication. Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) was a trade unionist, magazine editor, and public orator widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of American socialism.

Rumours of the death of the global labour movement have been greatly exaggerated. Rising from the ashes of the old trade union movement, workers' struggle is being reborn from below. By engaging in what Karl Marx called a workers' inquiry, workers and militant co-researchers are studying their working conditions, the technical composition of capital, and how to recompose their own power in order to devise new tactics, strategies, organisational forms and objectives. These workers' inquiries, from call centre workers to teachers, and adjunct professors, are re-energising unions, bypassing unions altogether or innovating new forms of workers' organisations. In one of the first major studies to critically assess this new cycle of global working class struggle, Robert Ovetz collects together case studies from over a dozen contributors, looking at workers' movements in China, Mexico, the US, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Italy, India and the UK. The book reveals how these new forms of struggle are no longer limited to single sectors of the economy or contained by state borders, but are circulating internationally and disrupting the global capitalist system as they do.

**Winner of the UALE Book Award 2021** Amazon is the most powerful corporation on the planet and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, has become the richest person in history, and one of the few people to profit from a global pandemic. Its dominance has reshaped the global economy itself: we live in the age of 'Amazon Capitalism'. 'One-click' instant consumerism and its immense variety of products has made Amazon a worldwide household name, with over 60% of US households subscribing to Amazon Prime. In turn, these subscribers are surveilled by the corporation. Amazon is also one of the world's largest logistics companies, resulting in weakened unions and lowered labor standards. The company has also become the largest provider of cloud-computing services and home surveillance systems, not to mention the ubiquitous Alexa. With cutting-edge analyses, this book looks at the many dark facets of the corporation, including automation, surveillance, tech work, workers' struggles, algorithmic challenges, the disruption of local democracy and much more. The Cost of Free Shipping shows how Amazon represents a fundamental shift in global capitalism that we should name, interrogate and be primed to resist.

Higher education has long been contested terrain. From student movements to staff unions, the fight for accessible, critical and quality public education has turned university campuses globally into sites of struggle. Whether calling for the decommodification or the decolonisation of education, many of these struggles have attempted to draw on (and in turn, resonate with) longer histories of popular resistance, broader social movements and radical visions of a fairer world. In this critical collection, Aziz Choudry, Salim Vally and a host of international contributors bring grounded, analytical accounts of diverse struggles relating to higher education into conversation with each other. Featuring contributions written by students and staff members on the frontline of struggles from 12 different countries, including Canada, Chile, France, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Occupied Palestine, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the USA, the book asks what can be learned from these movements' strategies, demands and visions.

In the field of 'climate change', no terrain goes uncontested. The terminological tug of war between activists and corporations, scientists and governments, has seen radical notions of 'sustainability' emptied of urgency and subordinated to the interests of capital. 'Just Transition' is the latest such battleground, and the conceptual keystone of the post-COP21 climate policy world. But what does it really mean? Just Transition emerged as a framework developed within the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' and frontline communities' jobs and livelihoods as economies shift to sustainable production. Just Transitions draws on a range of perspectives from the global North and South to interrogate the overlaps, synergies and tensions between various understandings of the Just Transition approach. As the concept is entering the mainstream, has it lost its radical edge, and if so, can it be recovered? Written by academics and activists from around the globe, this unique edited collection is the first book entirely devoted to Just Transition.

Working for Justice, which includes eleven case studies of recent low-wage worker organizing campaigns in Los Angeles, makes the case for a distinctive "L.A. Model" of union and worker center organizing. Networks linking advocates in worker centers and labor unions facilitate mutual learning and synergy and have generated a shared repertoire of economic justice strategies. The organized labor movement in Los Angeles has weathered the effects of deindustrialization and deregulation better than unions in other parts of the United States, and this has helped to anchor the city's wider low-wage worker movement. Los Angeles is also home to the nation's highest concentration of undocumented immigrants, making it especially fertile territory for low-wage worker organizing.

The case studies in Working for Justice are all based on original field research on organizing campaigns among L.A. day laborers, garment workers, car wash workers, security officers, janitors, taxi drivers, hotel workers as well as the efforts of ethnically focused worker centers and immigrant rights organizations. The authors interviewed key organizers, gained access to primary documents, and conducted participant observation. Working for Justice is a valuable resource for sociologists and other scholars in the interdisciplinary field of labor studies, as well as for advocates and policymakers.

This is a brief story of the long agitation for textile unions in the South. To evaluate the contributions of textile unions and to determine whether they are socially desirable, it is necessary to know the history of the union movement and the effect unions have had in educating workers. Mitchell gives a clear, succinct account of the movement in the South. Originally published in 1931. A UNC Press Enduring Edition - UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This book examines a basic assumption behind most of the critical, progressive thinking of our times: that trade unions are necessarily tools for solidarity and are integral to a more equal and just society. Shaul A. Duke assesses the trade union's potential to promote equality in ethnically and racially diverse societies by offering an in-depth look into how unions operate; how power flows between union levels; where inequality originates; and the role of union members in union dynamics. By analyzing the trade union's effects on working-class inequality in Palestine during 1920-1948, this book shifts the conventional emphasis on worker-employer relations to that of worker-worker relations. It offers a conceptualization of how strong union members directed union policy from below in order to eliminate competition, often by excluding marginalized groups. The comparison of the union experiences of Palestinian-Arabs, Jewish-Yemeni immigrants, and Jewish women offers a fresh look into the labor history of Palestine and its social stratification.

The Industrial Workers of the World is a union unlike any other. Founded in 1905 in Chicago, it rapidly gained members across the world thanks to its revolutionary, internationalist outlook. By using powerful organising methods including direct-action and direct-democracy, it put power in the hands of workers. This philosophy is labeled as 'revolutionary industrial unionism' and the members called, affectionately, 'Wobblies'. This book is the first to look at the history of the IWW from an international perspective. Bringing together a group of leading scholars, it includes lively accounts from a number diverse countries including Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden and Ireland, which reveal a fascinating story of global anarchism, syndicalism and socialism. Drawing on many important figures of the movements such as Tom Barker, Har Dayal, Joe Hill, James Larkin and William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, and exploring particular industries including shipping, mining, and agriculture, this book describes how the IWW and its ideals travelled around the world.

A story that involves as its main players "workers" and "Walmart" does not usually have a happy ending for labor, so the counternarrative offered by Building Power from Below is must reading for activists and union personnel as well as scholars. In 2008 Walmart acquired a controlling share in a large supermarket chain in Santiago, Chile. As part of the deal Walmart had to accept the unions that were already in place. Since then, Chilean retail and warehouse workers have done something that has seemed impossible for labor in the United States: they have organized even more successful unions and negotiated unprecedented contracts with Walmart. In Building Power from Below, Carolina Bank Munoz attributes Chilean workers' success in challenging the world's largest corporation to their organizations' commitment to union democracy and building strategic capacity. Chilean workers have spent years building grassroots organizations committed to principles of union democracy. Retail workers' unions have less structural power, but have significant associational and symbolic power. Their most notable successes have been in fighting for respect and dignity on the job. Warehouse workers by contrast have substantial structural power and have achieved significant economic gains. While the model in Chile cannot necessarily be reproduced in different countries, we can gain insights from the Chilean workers' approaches, tactics, and strategies.

If you're lucky enough to be employed today in the United States, there's about a one-in-ten chance that you're in a labor union. And even if you re part of that unionized 10 percent, chances are your union doesn't carry much economic or political clout. But this was not always the case, as historian and activist James Young shows in this vibrant story of the United Electrical Workers Union. The UE, built by hundreds of rank-and-file worker-activists in the quintessentially industrial town of Erie, Pennsylvania, was able to transform the conditions of the working class largely because it went beyond the standard call for living wages to demand quantum leaps in worker control over workplaces, community institutions, and the policies of the federal government itself. James Young's book is a richly empowering history told from below, showing that the collective efforts of the many can challenge the supremacy of the few. Erie's two UE locals confronted a daunting array of obstacles: the corporate superpower General Electric; ferocious red baiting; and later, the debilitating impact of globalization. Yet, by working through and across ethnic, gender, and racial divides, communities of people built a viable working-class base powered by real democracy. While the union's victories could not be sustained completely, the UE is still alive and fighting in Erie. This book is an exuberant and eloquent testament to this fight, and a reminder to every worker employed or unemployed; in a union or out that an injury to one is an injury to all."

Sex Worker Unionisation examines the challenges and opportunities offered by unionisation for Sex Workers. Exploring unionisation projects undertaken by Sex Workers in most major economies, this ground-breaking study shows how sex-workers have collectively sought to control and organise their work and working lives by co-determining the wage-effort with their de facto employers. It highlights the range of significant obstacles that have impeded their progress, including owner hostility, state regulation and the sway of radical feminism that is present in many unions. Outlining a more efficacious model for sex worker unionisation based upon combining occupation unionism and social movement unionism, this pioneering and controversial new book offers an important study of business organization in a unique industry.