In 1930, almost 13,000 African Americans worked in the coal mines around Birmingham, Alabama. They made up 53 percent of the mining workforce and some 60 percent of their union's local membership. At the close of the twentieth century, only about 15 percent of Birmingham's miners were black, and the entire mining workforce had been sharply reduced. Robert H. Woodrum offers a challenging interpretation of why this dramatic decline occurred and why it happened during an era of strong union presence in the Alabama coalfields. Drawing on union, company, and government records as well as interviews with coal miners, Woodrum examines the complex connections between racial ideology and technological and economic change. Extending the chronological scope of previous studies of race, work, and unionization in the Birmingham coalfields, Woodrum covers the New Deal, World War II, the postwar era, the 1970s expansion of coalfield employment, and contemporary trends toward globalization. The United Mine Workers of America's efforts to bridge the color line in places like Birmingham should not be underestimated, says Woodrum. Facing pressure from the wider world of segregationist Alabama, however, union leadership ultimately backed off the UMWA's historic commitment to the rights of its black members. Woodrum discusses the role of state UMWA president William Mitch in this process and describes Birmingham's unique economic circumstances as an essentially Rust Belt city within the burgeoning Sun Belt South. This is a nuanced exploration of how, despite their central role in bringing the UMWA back to Alabama in the early 1930s, black miners remained vulnerable to the economic and technological changes that transformed the coal industry after World War II.

Women now comprise the majority of the working class. Yet this fundamental transformation has gone largely unnoticed. This book is about how the sex of workers matters in understanding the jobs they do, the problems they face at work, and the new labor movements they are creating in the United States and globally. In The Sex of Class, twenty prominent scholars, labor leaders, and policy analysts look at the implication of this "sexual revolution" for labor policy and practice. In clear, crisp prose, The Sex of Class introduces readers to some of the most vibrant and forward-thinking social movements of our era: the clerical worker protests of the 1970s; the emergence of gay rights on the auto shop floor; the upsurge of union organizing in service jobs; worker centers and community unions of immigrant women; successful campaigns for paid family leave and work redesign; and innovative labor NGOs, cross-border alliances, and global labor federations. The Sex of Class reveals the animating ideas and the innovative strategies put into practice by the female leaders of the twenty-first-century social justice movement. The contributors to this book offer new ideas for how government can help reduce class and sex inequalities; they assess the status of women and sexual minorities within the traditional labor movement; and they provide inspiring case studies of how women workers and their allies are inventing new forms of worker representation and power.

Some of the most beloved characters in film and television inhabit two-dimensional worlds that spring from the fertile imaginations of talented animators. The movements, characterizations, and settings in the best animated films are as vivid as any live action film, and sometimes seem more alive than life itself. In this case, Hollywood's marketing slogans are fitting; animated stories are frequently magical, leaving memories of happy endings in young and old alike. However, the fantasy lands animators create bear little resemblance to the conditions under which these artists work. Anonymous animators routinely toiled in dark, cramped working environments for long hours and low pay, especially at the emergence of the art form early in the twentieth century. In Drawing the Line, veteran animator Tom Sito chronicles the efforts of generations of working men and women artists who have struggled to create a stable standard of living that is as secure as the worlds their characters inhabit. The former president of America's largest animation union, Sito offers a unique insider's account of animators' struggles with legendary studio kingpins such as Jack Warner and Walt Disney, and their more recent battles with Michael Eisner and other Hollywood players. Based on numerous archival documents, personal interviews, and his own experiences, Sito's history of animation unions is both carefully analytical and deeply personal. Drawing the Line stands as a vital corrective to this field of Hollywood history and is an important look at the animation industry's past, present, and future. Like most elements of the modern commercial media system, animation is rapidly being changed by the forces of globalization and technological innovation. Yet even as pixels replace pencils and bytes replace paints, the working relationship between employer and employee essentially remains the same. In Drawing the Line, Sito challenges the next wave of animators to heed the lessons of their predecessors by organizing and acting collectively to fight against the enormous pressures of the marketplace for their class interests -- and for the betterment of their art form.

Ramparts of Resistance examines the experience of British and US workers during the last three decades to offer a broad analysis of the need for a new independent politics of trade unionism. Recent years have seen great changes in the trade union movement, from waves of strikes in the 1970s to a battery of employer and state onslaughts, culminating in the anti-union legislation of the 1980s and 1990s. Looking at grassroots labour struggles, Cohen explores issues of reformism, trade union democracy and the political meaning of ordinary workplace resistance, and puts forward ideas for change. Ramparts of Resistance examines the failure of the union movement to rise to the neo-liberal challenge and calls for a new politics of independent unionism and an explicitly class-based renewal of 'workers' power'. Coming at a time when union activity and membership involvement continues despite the odds, this book is an inspiring guide to the direction that unionism should take.

In countries where collective bargaining is conducted mainly at the industry or regional level, there is often a type of workers' representation at the company or establishment level other than a labor union. Where this double form of worker representation - that is, labor unions and employee representatives - exists, the relationship between the two can present a delicate problem in industrial relations. "Decentralizing Industrial Relations" is an in-depth country-by-country analysis, for nine major industrial nations, of three essential topics in this area: the relationship between labor unions and employee representatives, the shift in collective bargaining from industry or branch towards the company or establishment level, and the role of labor unions or employee representatives in the flexibilization of labor protective regulations. What emerges in the course of the analysis sheds important light on such crucial factors as the following: the political power of labor unions; the extent to which employee representatives can and do protect workers' interests; 'single-channel' (labor unions only) versus 'double-channel' systems; invasion of the 'turf' of labor unions by employee representation systems; and, inclusion of disadvantageous working conditions in collective agreements or workplace agreements. In the aggregate, the study finds that, although employers are nowhere completely free to modify working conditions unilaterally, in all countries they can, abetted by the decline of labor unions and an emphasis on 'flexibilization,' make working conditions increasingly dependent on the individual employment contract. In this global context, the supremacy of labor unions is being questioned. This issue is undoubtedly one that deeply concerns all professionals interested in labor, employment, and industrial relations. This volume in Kluwer's "Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations" series reprints papers submitted to the 8th Comparative Labor Law Seminar (JILPT Tokyo Seminar) held on 21 February, 2006.

Praise for the first edition:

"This very valuable book reports the results of a large-scale and complex survey aimed at understanding the preferences of employees regarding workplace governance and their attitudes toward the three key institutions in the labor market: unions, government, and firms. . . . The findings are . . . sophisticated and convincing. . . . This is a terrifically useful book that contains a wealth of information." Labor History

"What Workers Want is one of the most ambitious efforts ever undertaken to determine the attitudes of employees about the American workplace. . . . An extremely important contribution to the long and often heated debates that swirl around these issues." Ralph Nader

"What Workers Want is a sharply focused study of how American workers think about workplace participation. This book is a message about workplace democracy that union leaders would do well to build into their organizing strategies." Dissent

"This is easily one of the most readable books on industrial relations matters written by academics in recent times. The authors are able simultaneously to engage the reader in an almost folksy manner, while also being quite rigorous in their presentation of data. There should be more such books." Journal of Industrial Relations

How would a typical American workplace be structured if the employees could design it? According to Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers, it would be an organization run jointly by employees and their supervisors, one where disputes between labor and management would be resolved through independent arbitration. Their groundbreaking book provides a comprehensive account of employees' attitudes about participation, representation, and regulation on the job.

For the updated edition, the authors have added an introduction showing how recent data have confirmed and strengthened their basic argument. A new concluding chapter lays out the model of "open source unionism" that they propose for rebuilding unionism in the United States, making this updated edition essential for anyone thinking about what labor should be doing to move forward."

Prolabor critics often question the effectiveness of the National Labor Relations Board. Some go so far as to call the Board labor's enemy number one. In a daring book that is sure to be controversial, Ellen Dannin argues that the blame actually lies with judicial decisions that have radically "rewritten" the National Labor Relations Act. But rather than simply bemoan this problem, Dannin offers concrete solutions for change.Dannin calls for labor to borrow from the strategy mapped out by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the early 1930s to eradicate legalized racial discrimination. This book lays out a long-term litigation strategy designed to overturn the cases that have undermined the NLRA and frustrated its policies. As with the NAACP, this strategy must take place in a context of activism to promote the NLRA policies of social and industrial democracy, solidarity, justice, and worker empowerment. Dannin contends that only by promoting these core purposes of the NLRA can unions survive and even thrive.Read what Dennis P. Walsh, former member of the National Labor Relations Board, has to say about Taking Back the Workers' Law by clicking here.To watch a lecture by Ellen Dannin about how established labor law particularly the NLRA can be used to strengthen workers' rights and revive the union movement in America, click here.Read an interview with Dannin about Taking Back the Workers' Law conducted by Michael D. Yates for the Monthly Review's web site by clicking here."

Once a fundamental civic right, strikes are now constrained and contested. In an unusual and thought-provoking history, Josiah Bartlett Lambert shows how the ability to strike was transformed from a fundamental right that made the citizenship of working people possible into a conditional and commercialized function. Arguing that the executive branch, rather than the judicial branch, was initially responsible for the shift in attitudes about the necessity for strikes and that the rise of liberalism has contributed to the erosion of strikers' rights, Lambert analyzes this transformation in relation to American political thought. His narrative begins before the Civil War and takes the reader through the permanent striker replacement issue and the alienation of workplace-based collective action from community-based collective action during the 1960s. "If the Workers Took a Notion" maps the connections among American political development, labor politics, and citizenship to support the claim that the right to strike ought to be a citizenship right and once was regarded as such. Lambert argues throughout that the right to strike must be protected. He challenges the current "law turn" in labor scholarship and takes into account the role of party alliances, administrative agencies, the military, and the rise of modern presidential powers.

Once a fundamental civic right, strikes are now constrained and contested. In an unusual and thought-provoking history, Josiah Bartlett Lambert shows how the ability to strike was transformed from a fundamental right that made the citizenship of working people possible into a conditional and commercialized function. Arguing that the executive branch, rather than the judicial branch, was initially responsible for the shift in attitudes about the necessity for strikes and that the rise of liberalism has contributed to the erosion of strikers' rights, Lambert analyzes this transformation in relation to American political thought. His narrative begins before the Civil War and takes the reader through the permanent striker replacement issue and the alienation of workplace-based collective action from community-based collective action during the 1960s. If the Workers Took a Notion maps the connections among American political development, labor politics, and citizenship to support the claim that the right to strike ought to be a citizenship right and once was regarded as such. Lambert argues throughout that the right to strike must be protected. account the role of party alliances, administrative agencies, the military, and the rise of modern presidential powers.

In the late nineteenth century, most jobs were strictly segregated by sex. And yet, despite their separation at work, male and female employees regularly banded together when they or their unions considered striking. In her groundbreaking book, Ileen A. DeVault explores how gender helped to shape the outcome of job actions--and how gender bias became central to unionism in America. Covering the period from the formation of the American Federation of Labor in 1886 to the establishment of the Women's Trade Union League in 1903, DeVault analyzes forty strikes from across the nation in the tobacco, textile, clothing, and boot and shoe industries. She draws extensively on her research in local newspapers as she traces the daily encounters among male and female coworkers in workplaces, homes, and union halls. Jobs considered appropriate for men and those for women were, she finds, sufficiently interdependent that the success of the action depended on both sexes cooperating. At the same time, with their livelihoods at stake, tensions between women and men often appeared. The AFL entered the twentieth century as the country's primary vehicle for unionized workers, and its attitude toward women formed the basis for virtually all later attempts at their organization. United Apart transforms conventional wisdom on the rise of the AFL by showing how its member unions developed their central beliefs about female workers and how those beliefs affected male workers as well.

In the late nineteenth century, most jobs were strictly segregated by sex. And yet, despite their separation at work, male and female employees regularly banded together when they or their unions considered striking. In her groundbreaking book, Ileen A. DeVault explores how gender helped to shape the outcome of job actions--and how gender bias became central to unionism in America. Covering the period from the formation of the American Federation of Labor in 1886 to the establishment of the Women's Trade Union League in 1903, DeVault analyzes forty strikes from across the nation in the tobacco, textile, clothing, and boot and shoe industries. She draws extensively on her research in local newspapers as she traces the daily encounters among male and female coworkers in workplaces, homes, and union halls. Jobs considered appropriate for men and those for women were, she finds, sufficiently interdependent that the success of the action depended on both sexes cooperating. At the same time, with their livelihoods at stake, tensions between women and men often appeared. The AFL entered the twentieth century as the country's primary vehicle for unionized workers, and its attitude toward women formed the basis for virtually all later attempts at their organization. United Apart transforms conventional wisdom on the rise of the AFL by showing how its member unions developed their central beliefs about female workers and how those beliefs affected male workers as well.

Why have Americans, who by a clear majority approve of unions, been joining them in smaller numbers than ever before? This book answers that question by comparing the American experience with that of Canada, where approval for unions is significantly lower than in the United States, but where since the mid-1960s workers have joined organized labor to a much greater extent. Given that the two countries are outwardly so similar, what explains this paradox? This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of both countries using, among other things, a detailed survey conducted in the United States and Canada by the Ipsos-Reid polling group.The authors explain that the relative reluctance of employees in the United States to join unions, compared with those in Canada, is rooted less in their attitudes toward unions than in the former country's deep-seated tradition of individualism and laissez-faire economic values. Canada has a more statist, social democratic tradition, which is in turn attributable to its Tory and European conservative lineage. Canadian values are therefore more supportive of unionism, making unions more powerful and thus, paradoxically, lowering public approval of unions. Public approval is higher in the United States, where unions exert less of an influence over politics and the economy.

Early in the twentieth century, the Wobblies, or Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), fought for the rights of workers - common laborers, migrants, immigrants, black workers - unprotected by the craft unions. In the face of beatings, kidnappings, and lynchings by vigilantes, company detectives, and hired guns, the Wobblies organized in mining and lumber camps, the wheat fields, on docksides and in textile factories. From its inception in 1906, the IWW rose to prominence with free speech fights, peaked with a membership of over 100,000 workers in 1917, and was devastated in 1918 by the imprisonment of its leadership for violations of wartime legislation. A Wobbly Life helps to set the record straight on the Wobblies during this period of labor history. A key IWW organizer, union head, writer, and defense committee officer, E. F. Doree experienced all of this first-hand. Seventy-six years after his death, his daughter tells his story through the private letters he wrote from 1918 to 1922, as one of over a hundred Wobblies imprisoned in Leavenworth Penitentiary. They depict prison life, the comradeship and schisms within the ranks of political prisoners, and the role of civil libertarians - especially the Quakers - in seeking their release. Newspaper clippings, excerpts from the trial transcript, Doree's depositions about governmental sabotage of the defense effort, and rare photographs supplement the letters. A personal and dramatic story of front-page significance, A Wobbly Life is also an approachable case study for use in college courses dealing with American history, labor history, radicalism, the influence of special interests, and the misuse of government power. Ordinary yet heroic, E. F. Doree's life and writings provide a view of American labor history that has been glazed over, blotched, and ignored. This book is a tangible and touching story about a man whose life deserves reflection and remembrance.

"In order to recruit new members on a scale that would be required to significantly rebuild union power, unions must fundamentally alter their internal organizational practices. This means creating more organizer positions on the staff; developing programs to teach current members how to handle the tasks involved in resolving shop-floor grievances; and building programs that train members to participate fully in the work of external organizing. Such a reorientation entails redefining the very meaning of union membership from a relatively passive stance toward one of continuous active engagement." from the Introduction In Rebuilding Labor Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss bring together established researchers and a new generation of labor scholars to assess the current state of labor organizing and its relationship to union revitalization. Throughout this collection, the focus is on the formidable challenges unions face today and on how they may be overcome. Rebuilding Labor begins with a comprehensive overview of recent union organizing in the United States; goes on to present a series of richly detailed case studies of such topics as union leadership, organizer recruitment and retention, union democracy, and the dynamics of anti-unionism among rank-and-file workers; and concludes with a quantitative chapter on the relationship between union victories and establishment survival. This interdisciplinary collection of original scholarship on New Labor offers a window into an otherwise invisible emergent social movement."

In 1975, after vigorous campaigning by the United Farm Workers union, the state of California passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), a pioneering self-help strategy granting farm workers the right to organize into unions. A quarter century later, only a tiny percentage of farm workers in the state belong to unions, and wages remain less than half of those of nonfarm employees. Why did the ALRA fail? One of the nation's foremost authorities on farm workers here explores the reasons behind its unfulfilled promise.Philip L. Martin examines the key features of the farm labor market in California, including the shifting ethnicity of the worker pool and the evolution of the major unions, beginning with the Wobblies. Finally, he reviews the impact of immigration on agriculture in the state.Today, many states look to the California experience to assess whether the ALRA can serve as a model for their own farm labor relations laws. In Martin's view, California's efforts to grant rights to farm workers so that they can help themselves have failed because of continued unauthorized migration and the changing structure of farm employment. Martin argues that alternative policies would make farming profitable, raise farm worker wages, and still keep groceries affordable.

In 1975, after vigorous campaigning by the United Farm Workers union, the state of California passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), a pioneering self-help strategy granting farm workers the right to organize into unions. A quarter century later, only a tiny percentage of farm workers in the state belong to unions, and wages remain less than half of those of nonfarm employees. Why did the ALRA fail? One of the nation's foremost authorities on farm workers here explores the reasons behind its unfulfilled promise.Philip L. Martin examines the key features of the farm labor market in California, including the shifting ethnicity of the worker pool and the evolution of the major unions, beginning with the Wobblies. Finally, he reviews the impact of immigration on agriculture in the state.Today, many states look to the California experience to assess whether the ALRA can serve as a model for their own farm labor relations laws. In Martin's view, California's efforts to grant rights to farm workers so that they can help themselves have failed because of continued unauthorized migration and the changing structure of farm employment. Martin argues that alternative policies would make farming profitable, raise farm worker wages, and still keep groceries affordable.

Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These workers confronted a system of racial capitalism that consigned African Americans to the basest jobs in the industry, perpetuated low wages for all southerners, and shored up white supremacy.

Galvanized by the emergence of the CIO, African Americans took the lead in a campaign that saw a strong labor movement and the reenfranchisement of the southern poor as keys to reforming the South--and a reformed South as central to the survival and expansion of the New Deal. In the window of opportunity opened by World War II, they blurred the boundaries between home and work as they linked civil rights and labor rights in a bid for justice at work and in the public sphere.

But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. Its defeat undermined later efforts by civil rights activists to raise issues of economic equality to the moral high ground occupied by the fight against legalized segregation and, Korstad contends, constrains the prospects for justice and democracy today.

The material for this book has been selected from the papers that John left to the author, plus from many hours of taped interviews with John. Other material is from the Plumbers' Union and the National Archives.
John Bruce entered the plumbing and pipe-fitting industry in its Genesis. First came running water, then came plagues of cholera and typhoid fever and then proper drainage systems and sanitation.
It is not possible in one book to record the ninety-three years of John Bruce's life in any detail. This book endeavours to show the development of the man, his philosophy, creed and some of his accomplishments. It also attempts to show who he was, his faith, the development of his talents and the use to which they were put.
This book begins with his birth and ends when he put down the tools of his trade to become the General Organizer for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe-Fitting industry. An elected position that he held for more than a half-century.
John Bruce kept his family life separate and apart from John the unionist, socialist and activist.

How did the Chicago Teamsters Local 705, once notorious for corruption and despotism, become an organization that the Wall Street Journal hailed as "a model of reform"? In this compelling narrative, Bruno tells of the often violent, always contentious struggle to reform one of the nation's most powerful and independent union locals. During the worst years, Chicago Teamsters operated under thinly veiled threats and settled differences by fistfights. Workers who questioned the powerful leadership faced physical intimidation, verbal abuse, and trumped-up charges that threatened their jobs. With the expulsion of key leaders in the early 1990s, however, a decade-long struggle for control of the union began as Local 705 cast off the old days of coercion and payoffs. Reformers encouraged rank-and-file Teamsters to choose their own leaders, and after two successive open elections, an unprecedented number of Teamsters turned out to vote in a dramatic 2000 election featuring five political slates and a diverse range of issues. Clear and captivating, Reforming the Chicago Teamsters raises important national issues about the balance of power between large corporations and working-class Americans, the role of workplace democracy in civil society, and the ways unions can both hinder and promote worker interests.

Although no one disputes that employment relations worldwide have been greatly affected by globalisation, no clear consensus has emerged on the nature and significance of this impact. The seven contributions to this symposium pursue a comparative approach, suggesting that direct analysis of employment relations in distinct industries in two comparably-sized economies since the advent of globalisation leads to a more precise understanding of the interaction of globalisation and employment relations, and sets a pattern for other studies to follow. The economies studied in the symposium are Australia and Korea, and the industries are automobile (and auto parts) manufacturing and retail banking. In both countries, labour unions play a key role in the way in which employers and governments react to political and economic pressures.

Legitimacy is vital to unions. Without it, they lose political and ideological support, members, and access to funds. Gary Chaison and Barbara Bigelow use the concept of legitimacy as a lens through which to understand the steady decline in union size and influence and to suggest new strategies for union revitalization.Chaison and Bigelow relate legitimacy to five case studies: the UPS strike, the organization of clerical workers at Harvard, the AFL-CIO associate membership campaign, the fight against NAFTA, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association Campaign for Safe Care. The cases show the need for unions to move beyond pragmatic concerns and link their activities to the broader interests of their constituencies, demonstrating not only that they offer something tangible in return for support (pragmatic legitimacy) but also that they are doing the right thing (moral legitimacy).Chaison and Bigelow's work has practical implications for the management of unions' core activities organizing, collective bargaining, and political action."

Cesar Chavez's relentless campaign for social justice for farm workers and laborers in the United States marked a milestone in U.S. history. Through his powerful rhetoric and impassioned calls to action, Chavez transformed as well as persuaded and inspired his audiences.
In this first published anthology, Richard J. Jensen and John C. Hammerback present Chavez in his own terms. Through this collection and through his own words and analysis of his major speeches and writings, Jensen and Hammerback reveal the rhetorical qualities and underlying rhetorical dynamics of a master communicator and also offer a rich source of the history of the farm workers' movement Chavez led from the early 1960s to his death in 1993.
Each chapter features a clear introductory section that helps the reader focus on the highlights that won Chavez a reputation as an effective communicator. The editors explain the sources of Chavez's motivation to campaign for farm workers, his selection of characteristic and signature rhetorical elements, and the success of specific campaigns and his overall career.
"The Words of Cesar ""Chavez" offers an important new resource for scholars of public discourse, Chicano studies, and Cesar Chavez himself. It complements the editors' earlier study, "The Rhetorical Career of Cesar ""Chavez"," " by providing the primary materials for that rhetorical profile of Chavez. Through his own words, Jensen and Hammerback present Chavez doing what he did best: teaching and influencing audiences who would enact his agenda to create a new and better world.