The U.S. labor movement is in deep trouble. Many assume that union decline is irreversible—the result of changes in the nature of work and unions' inability to adapt. However, American laws and corporate resistance are also responsible. New union tactics and militancy point toward a possible revival of a workers' movement.
References
1.
BronfenbrennerKateHickeyRobert. “Changing to Organize: A National Assessment of Union Strategies.” In Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement, eds. MilkmanRuthVossKim. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004. The authors document the tactics corporations use to fight union organizing and the ways social movement unionism counteracts them.
2.
ClawsonDan. The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Clawson argues that labor is on the verge of dramatic growth based on broad community support.
3.
DiNardoJohnLeeDavid S.. “Unionism in California and the U.S.: Using Representation Elections to Evaluate its Impact on Business Establishments.” In Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in the New Union Movement, eds. MilkmanRuthVossKim. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Two economists demolish the myth that unionization puts firms at a disadvantage to nonunion companies.
4.
FantasiaRickVossKim. Hard Work: The Remaking of the American Labor Movement.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. A concise overview of the U.S. labor movement that explains why American workers lack the powerful unions that exist in other countries.
5.
LopezSteve. Reorganizing the Rust Belt.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004. This ethnography of three campaigns to organize Pennsylvania nursing home workers is one of the few studies to investigate workers' anti-union beliefs.
6.
MishelLawrenceBernsteinJaredBousheyHeather. The State of Working America 2002/2003.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. The authors present a wide variety of data showing how the economy affects ordinary Americans.
7.
VossKimShermanRachel. “Breaking the Iron Law of Oligarchy: Union Revitalization in the American Labor Movement.”American Journal of Sociology106 (2000): 303–349. This study explains why some unions have adopted social movement unionism and others have not.
8.
WesternBruce. Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionization in Capitalist Democracies.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Western shows how the fate of unions is influenced by their nations' political and legal contexts.
