Labor Studies Journal recent issues

The Legacy of Racism: A Case Study of Continuing Racial Impediments to Union Effectiveness

Nissen, B., Henry, S. — 2008-11-13

The authors examine the past and present racial dynamics in a Florida public sector union, with special emphasis on a union local led by one of the authors. Past white racial exclusionism and struggle have created a "fortress mentality" among some of the union's African American leadership and membership that focuses on racial control rather than organizing and growth. This is more pronounced in an older generation that lived through earlier struggles against white discrimination. Using writings by Robin D. G. Kelley, Manning Marable, and Bill Fletcher, the authors draw general conclusions on what types of practice are most likely to counter racial impediments to union effectiveness.

How Good Men of the Union Justify Inequality: Dilemmas of Race and Labor in the Building Trades

Paap, K. — 2008-11-13

This article draws on ethnographic data to illuminate the problematic position of organized labor in terms of race and gender in the building trades. It argues that construction unions today are caught between the larger legal and moral mandates for equal opportunity and the reproduction of white and male privilege that benefit the majority of the union members. Unions are seen as needing to be highly responsive to matters of discrimination and harassment and thus less able to support and protect the traditional white male worker. On the other hand, union representatives are likely to be drawn from the workplace and thus previously socialized into the industry's distinct workplace cultures. These cultures, as demonstrated, simultaneously promote and make invisible patterns of racism and sexism. When these patterns are made invisible, union representatives are unlikely to intervene in much that occurs. As a result, unions satisfy neither constituency. Implications of this for the construction workplace and the larger labor movement are discussed.

Occupational and Residential Segregation: The Confluence of Two Systems of Inequality

Dickerson, N. — 2008-11-13

This study considers whether the social organization of the metropolitan area in which black and white men and women prepare for the labor market during youth affects their likelihood to work in occupations overrepresented by blacks or whites as adults. Findings based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, census data, and regression analysis suggest that residential segregation affects the likelihood that whites will be segregated from blacks into better-paying occupations that are overrepresented by other whites in the labor market. Furthermore, black women who lived in more segregated cities during their youth are more likely to be concentrated into typically lower-paying occupations overrepresented by other black women and are less likely to work in typically white male occupations that tend to be better remunerated.

Online Collaborative Learning for Labor Education

Belanger, M. — 2008-11-13

More labor organizations might adopt online collaborative learning (OCL) if it could be shown to foster solidarity, promote learning, and be linked to union activities. An online course involving thirty-three union staff members based in twenty-four countries was studied using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Findings include the following: OCL can be successfully employed for the education of union staff; the collaborative creation of a knowledge artifact that has a public life outside the course provides a crucial link to union activities; OCL can build a strong sense of community among participants; and a credential is a significant motivator.

Finding Their Voice: The Struggle of the Illinois Court Reporters to Win Union Recognition

Lund, J., DeClercq, N., Childers, M. — 2008-11-13

After a brief review of organizing models and the current legal environment for public employee organizing, the recent successful campaign of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to organizing Illinois state court reporters is chronicled here into five distinct but interrelated stages. Throughout this five-year campaign, which culminated in a successful representation election in Cook County and the union's first collective bargaining agreement, the union relied differentially on traditional organizing campaign tactics, as well as comprehensive and legislative-political campaigns. Although Illinois had a comprehensive public sector law, this case demonstrates public employee organizing campaigns will continue to be hard fought.

Audio-Visual Review: Rustbelt Phoenix: Saving the American Steel Industry. Produced by Henry Bass. Harriman, NY: Merrimack Films, 2006. 34 min. $225 DVD

Ancel, J. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: American Working-Class Literature: An Anthology. Edited by Nicholas Coles and Janet Zandy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 923 pp. $54.95 paper

Barry, B. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: Our Daily Bread: Wages, Workers, and the Political Economy of the American West. By Geoff Mann. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 264 pp. $19.95 paper. Workers and the Wild: Conservation, Consumerism, and Labor in Oregon, 1910--30. By Lawrence M. Lipin. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007. 248 pp. $25.00 paper

Dearinger, R. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics. By Kenneth C. Burt. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2007. 438 pp. $24.99 paper. Making Democracy Matter: Identity and Activism in Los Angeles. By Karen Brodkin. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. 219 pp. $23.95 paper

Johnston, P. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: I Just Got Elected--Now What? A New Union Officer's Handbook. By Bill Barry. Annapolis, MD: Self-published, 2007. 53 pp. $10.00 paper

Pattison, M. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: Labour Left Out: Canada's Failure to Protect and Promote Collective Bargaining as a Human Right. By Roy J. Adams. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2006. 152 pp. $14.95 paper

Walchuk, B. — 2008-11-13

The Contributions of Reorganizing the Rust Belt to Social Movement Scholarship

Armstrong, E. A. — 2008-08-21

What Explains Unorganized Workers' Growing Demand for Unions?

Robinson, I. — 2008-08-21

The Limits of "the Lived" and "the Local": Notes on Reorganizing the Rust Belt

Fantasia, R. — 2008-08-21

Recasting Labor Studies in the Twenty-First Century

Webster, E. — 2008-08-21

Reconsidering the Rust Belt: A Response

Lopez, S. — 2008-08-21

Union Solidarity under Stress: The Case of the National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa

Buhlungu, S., Bezuidenhout, A. — 2008-08-21

The advent of democracy in South Africa has brought a number of benefits and opened spaces for union mobilization. It has also set in motion processes that undermine union solidarity. This article takes the most influential trade union in South Africa's history, the National Union of Mineworkers, as a case study to explore this paradox. On the basis of data generated by a range of research methods, the authors explore three themes: the occupational mobility of black mineworkers, attempts at authoritarian restoration through subcontracting, and the employment of women in a predominantly male occupation.

"Union Yes" at a Public Ivy: Predictors of Faculty Voting Intentions at the University of Vermont

Holsinger, N. K. — 2008-08-21

This study investigates predictors of prounion faculty voting intentions in a collective bargaining representational election. The research draws on a dataset developed during the course of the representational election campaign at the University of Vermont. The article explores the current context of higher education organizing in relation to the American labor movement. The literature review shows prounion attitudes, union instrumentality, demographic factors, job dissatisfaction, and active participation in the union campaign to be predictors of voting intentions. A general model of voting intentions emerges. Multiple logistic regression analysis is used to test the general model against assessments of voting intentions observed at four phases of the campaign. Specific models of voting intentions for each phase of the campaign materialize. An exploration of implications for both researchers and organizers follows.

Through the Looking Glass: Does the Labor Department's New Form LM-2 Really Deliver Greater Transparency?

Lund, J., Roovers, B. J. — 2008-08-21

This article examines whether the new labor organization annual financial report (Form LM-2) has significantly improved transparency of union finances over the old form by providing useful and easily understood information to union members, government, and the public. The new form, filed by unions with $250,000 or more in annual receipts, was first published by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards in December 2002. After reviewing the changes made in the new LM-2 form, the authors then use data drawn from a stratified random sample of union filings under the new LM-2 form to determine what additional gain in transparency has actually occurred.

New Bedford Worker-to-Worker Solidarity Defies ICE

Soler, J. A. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: Sin Patron: Stories from Argentina's Worker-Run Factories. By The Lavaca Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007. 243 pp. $16.00 paper

Barry, B. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left. By Cynthia Young. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006. 307 pp. $22.95 paper

Bruno, R. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States. Edited by Michael D. Yates. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007. 205 pp. $14.95 paper

Dannin, E. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: The Archaeology of Collective Action. By Dean J. Saitta. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. 140 pp. $24.95 paper

Durrenberger, P. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: Wobblies on the Waterfront: Industrial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. By Peter Cole. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007. 256 pp. $40 hardback

Lloyd, J. P. — 2008-08-21

Book Review: For All White-Collar Workers: The Possibilities of Radicalism in New York City's Department Store Unions, 1934--1953. By Daniel J. Opler. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2007. 270 pp. $49.95 hardback, $9.95 CD

Stanger, H. R. — 2008-08-21

Reorganizing Higher Education in the United States and Canada: The Erosion of Tenure and the Unionization of Contingent Faculty

Dobbie, D., Robinson, I. — 2008-05-07

Every year in Canada and the U.S., the share of higher education faculty who teach off the tenure track grows. One might expect that faculty unionization would limit this process, but the data examined here indicate that this is not so. While Canadian universities are significantly more unionized than their U.S. counterparts, they rely at least as heavily on contingent faculty. Similarly, U.S. states with high levels of unionization do not exhibit lower levels of casualization. Union strategies that institutionalize divisions between tenure-track and non-tenure-track, and/or between part-time and full-time faculty, probably play a role in this outcome. They can and should also play a pivotal role in reversing these trends if they develop the political will to do so.

Mission Impossible?: Raising Labor Standards in the ICT Sector

Ferus-Comelo, A. — 2008-05-07

The information and communication technology (ICT) industry has been growing phenomenally in financial and geographical terms. However, ICT production has not yet drawn the same kind of public concern about labor standards as the garment or footwear industries despite many parallels. Furthermore, union density in electronics manufacturing remains startlingly low around the world. Based on primary research in Bangalore, hailed as the "Silicon Valley of India" and Silicon Valley, California, the article has three objectives: (1) to outline some of the challenges to unionization that arise from the current forms of corporate structure in this profitable, global industry; (2) to highlight recent efforts by unions and community-based organizations to increase corporate social responsibility in various industries; and (3) to apply lessons from these examples to the high-technology industry.

A New Frontier for Labor: Collective Action by Worker Owners

Wheeler, H. N. — 2008-05-07

Worker ownership is an old idea that is newly relevant. A crucial reason for ownership that is seldom noted nowadays is its potential to contribute to industrial democracy. Worker ownership is widespread in both the United States and Western Europe. For ownership to translate into influence on corporate governance, workers' capital power must be organized collectively. Trade unions can serve this function. In France, Italy, and Germany, unique organizations called worker shareholder associations have come into being with the exercise of workers' capital power as their goal.

Labor Education in the Time of Dismay

Zullo, R., Gates, A. — 2008-05-07

Notably absent from the discourse on labor union revitalization is a reevaluation of the strategic role of labor education. Using ethnographic methods, the authors elucidate four dimensions of a Freireian-based labor education program, characterized as (1) where rank-and-file unionists teach, (2) where shared experience is the basis for knowledge, (3) where programming involves a dialectical process of action and reflection, and (4) where participants convene in a collectively determined cultural context. Moreover, the authors address reservations to Freireian pedagogy and describe how the adoption of Freireian programming alters the role of labor educators. Finally, the authors hypothesize that Freireian pedagogy complements several contemporary recommendations for arresting the decline in union representation.

Building a Labor-Community Alliance: San Francisco Unionists and the Coalition to Save the Copra Crane

Schwartz, H. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: Labor of Fire: The Ontology of Labor Between Economy and Culture. By Bruno Gulli. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. 214 pp. $25.95 paper

Bruno, R. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: "Don't Sleep with Stevens!" The J.P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963--80. By Timothy J. Minchin. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005. 239 pp. $59.95 hardback: From Rights to Economics: The Ongoing Struggle for Black Equality in the U.S. South. By Timothy J. Minchin. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007. 211 pp. $39.95 hardback

Carroll, G. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: Freedom in the Workplace? By Gertrude Ezorsky. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. 91 pp. $12.95 paper

DeClercq, N. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: Academic Collective Bargaining. Edited by Ernst Benjamin and Michael Mauer. New York; Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors and the Modern Language Association, 2006. 410 pp. $22.00 paper

Eaton, A. E. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry. Edited by Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, and David Naguib Pellow. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. 357 pp. $25.95 paper

Olney, P. — 2008-05-07

Book Review: America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market. By Richard B. Freeman. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. 191 pp. $19.95 hardcover

Stanger, H. — 2008-05-07

Immigration and Labor: A Special UALE Conference Issue

Luce, S., Munoz, C. B. — 2008-02-06

Organized Labor in Residential Construction

Rabourn, M. — 2008-02-06

Residential construction is the largest sector of the construction industry and operates virtually union free in most parts of the United States. The jobs it provides offer some of the lowest wages and worst working conditions in the industry. For these reasons organizing the residential market is crucial to the future of building trades unions. This article explores why unions lost the residential market decades ago, how employers and workers developed in the absence of unions, and what kind of organizing activity is happening in the market currently. The article concludes by offering suggestions for future organizing in residential construction.

Building a Future Together: Worker Centers and Construction Unions

Fine, J., Grabelsky, J., Narro, V. — 2008-02-06

Why have not worker centers and building trades unions formed alliances to advance their common interests? Why do many construction unionists perceive worker centers as threats? Why do worker centers regard building trades' locals with suspicion? What can be done to promote communication and collaboration between worker centers and labor unions in the construction industry? This article examines the characteristics of both building trades unions and worker centers, analyzes opportunities for collaboration and conflict between the two kinds of organizations, discusses the impact of immigration on construction unionism, and describes two brief examples of building trades union and worker center collaboration.

Immigrant Construction Workers and Health and Safety: The South Florida Experience

Nissen, B., Angee, A., Weinstein, M. — 2008-02-06

Immigrants are a growing percentage of the U.S. construction labor force, so the safety of their working conditions deserves study. This article reports on research surveying 283 immigrant construction workers in south Florida about their safety training, use of personal protective equipment, and employer safety practices. Potential impacts of unionized status and documented legal status are tested through regression analysis. Results show only a minor positive relationship of unionization with more training and safer conditions and essentially no relationship between documented legal status and training or safe conditions. Reasons for the weak results are discussed, and further research questions are posed.

Contending Rationality, Leadership, and Collective Struggle: The 2006 Justice for Janitors Campaign at the University of Miami

Albright, J. — 2008-02-06

Building strength within a diverse constellation of social actors, including workers, clergy, faculty, students, and other activists, the Service Employees International Union's spring 2006 Justice for Janitors campaign at the University of Miami helped open a new local space for working-class political contention through an engaged and escalatory organizing and first contract drive. In an effort to empower workers as the base of a larger struggle against the exploitation of Miami's working poor, the campaign drew upon the creativity of workers in shaping and enacting a political agenda toward economic justice while building up Miami's social activist community, including a local chapter of the national Interfaith Worker Justice committee.

Invisible No More: The Role of Training and Education in Increasing Union Activism of Chinese Home Care Workers in Local 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East (UHE)

Margolies, K. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation. By Greg LeRoy. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2005. 290 pp. $24.95 paper

Bruno, R. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: Shaping the Game: The New Leader's Guide to Effective Negotiating. By Michael Watkins. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2006. 196 pp. $26.95 hardback

Cruz-Ledon, A. M. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes Are Affecting Low-Wage Workers. Edited by Rebecca M. Blank, Sheldon H. Danziger, and Robert F. Schoeni. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. 426 pp. $49.95 hardback: Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children. Edited by Greg J. Duncan, Aletha C. Huston, and Thomas S. Weisner. New York, N: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. 166 pp. $24.95 hardback

Gatta, M. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: The Working Life: The Labor Market for Workers in Low-Skilled Jobs. By Nan L. Maxwell. Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2006. 193 pp. $20 paper: Black Workers in the Bay Area. Employment Trends and Job Quality: 1970-2000. By Steven C. Pitts. University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 2006. 81 pp. $15 paper

Ginsburg, R. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: Labor's Home Front: The American Federation of Labor during World War II. By Andrew E. Kersten. New York, NY: NYU Press, 2006. 273 pp. $42.00 hardback

Lloyd, J. P. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels. By Rachel Sherman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. 373 pp. $21.95 paper

Bank Munoz, C. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: The Cinema of Globalization: A Guide to Films About the New Economic Order. By Tom Zaniello. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007. 202 pp; $49.95 hardback, $19.95 paper

Pattison, M. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: The Union Steward's Complete Guide: A Survival Manual, Second Edition. Edited by David Prosten. Annapolis, MD: Union Communication Services, 2006. 397 pp. $22.95 paper

Simmons, G. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement. By Ruth Milkman. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. 264 pp. $24.95 paper

Winning, S. — 2008-02-06

Book Review: Just Cause: The Seven Tests. By Adolph M. Koven and Susan L. Smith, third edition revised by Kenneth May. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., 2006. 560 pp. $105.00 hardcover

Worthen, H. — 2008-02-06