Documents labour movement 611 results

"A riveting account of labor's bottom-up resurgence, providing a roadmap for workers, unions, and social movements to win widely.

After decades of union decline and rising inequality, an inspiring wave of workplace organizing—from Starbucks stores to Amazon warehouses to southern auto factories—has thrust unionization into the national spotlight. By analyzing this surge and telling the stories of the courageous workers driving it forward, We Are the Union makes a case for how to overcome business as usual in both corporate America and organized labor.

Eric Blanc shows that recent struggles have developed a new organizing model, worker-to-worker unionism, which builds scalable power by giving rank-and-filers an unprecedented degree of leadership. Through digital tools and ambitious campaigns, young worker leaders are turning the labor movement back into a movement—and they're winning. Rigorously researched and compellingly written, We Are the Union illustrates how this new grassroots approach can exponentially grow the power of working people to overcome economic exploitation, racial injustice, and authoritarianism at work and beyond."

"Growing levels of income and wage inequality and the precaritization of many sections of the labour force have made labour unions as salient as ever. Although membership levels have decreased, they remain among the world's largest representative organizations and continue to play a significant role as vehicles for democracy, sustainable development and social justice.
This handbook assembles an array of experts to critically engage with the debates and discussions about the role and purpose of unions and the many means by which they seek to attain them. The book provides insights into how unions can meet the challenges of structural changes in the labour market, including technological progress, the green agenda and the digital platform economy, and how they can better represent the needs of their members, in particular migrant, domestic and informal workers.
The book is a valuable resource for industrial relations, labour economics, sociology of work, employment and labour law, history of trade unionism, working patterns and practices, workplace culture and workers' rights."

"The Transformation of Discontent demonstrates that far from disappearing from the workplaces of the Global North, labor protest has merely changed character and now focuses on healthcare and education, with white-collar and white coat employees clashing with employers over wages, working conditions, and professional autonomy.
Based on in-depth case studies of protest campaigns in four European countries – Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Ireland – this book explores the ways in which teachers, nurses, and medical doctors have developed a new repertoire of contention that unites their power to disrupt services with their duty to care for service users, such as patients, children, and older people.
A study of the changes to labor mobilization including new protagonists and a shift from mass strikes to duty-based protest, this volume considers the impact of public sector unions on the labor movement and their role in renewing labor's power resources. It will be of interest to sociologists and scholars of political economy, social movements, public services, contentious politics, and employment relations."

"Considering that the transition to a low-carbon economy will not be secured by mutual agreement but requires coordinated industrial organizing, this article builds upon eco-socialist critiques to identify the concrete dimensions of the underlying solidarity between workers and the rest of nature as reflected in workers' struggles. Specifically, we argue that industrial organization in opposition to labour precarity and work intensification is fundamental to both achieving sustainable work and mitigating environmental harms to workers' bodies. This argument presents a basis for a common response to the transition to a low-carbon economy across the labour movement and for cross-sectoral climate demands in bargaining."

"From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and have gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. Looking at specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often under-appreciated historical tradition.

Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers' control, Ours to Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old."

"In Union Voices, the result of a thirteen-year research project, three industrial relations scholars evaluate how labor unions fared in the political and institutional context created by Great Britain's New Labour government, which was in power from 1997 to 2010. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery present a multilevel analysis of what organizing means in the UK, how it emerged, and what its impact has been.

Although the supportive legislation of the New Labour government led to considerable optimism in the late 1990s about the prospects for renewal, Simms, Holgate, and Heery argue that despite considerable evidence of investment, new practices, and innovation, UK unions have largely failed to see any significant change in their membership and influence. The authors argue that this is because of the wider context within which organizing activity takes place and also reflects the fundamental tensions within these initiatives. Even without evidence of any significant growth in labor influence across UK society more broadly, organizing campaigns have given many of the participants an opportunity to grow and flourish. The book presents their experiences and uses them to show how their personal commitment to organizing and trade unionism can sometimes be undermined by the tensions and tactics used during campaigns."

"L'exploitation du siège aura duré un siècle, se terminant en 2003, à l'étage 1250, c'est-à-dire à une des plus grandes profondeurs d'extraction charbonnière européenne, voire mondiale. Cette histoire d'un siècle du siège de Merlebach s'inscrit bien au-delà des techniques et des méthodes d'exploitation; elle s'inscrit dans le travail, la collaboration, la solidarité de plusieurs générations d'hommes, de femmes, d'enfants qui, pendant un siècle, ont contribué à l'élaboration de notre culture minière. Robert Schmitz raconte cette vie de la mine de Merlebach, dans son ouvrage De la terre... au charbon, qui fait suite à son premier livre le Siège de Merlebach. Il présente une étude exhaustive de l'évolution du personnel, des cités, des associations... en soulignant, avec précision, les problèmes spécifiques liés aux guerres, aux événements politiques, économiques et sociaux ."

"Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities, even after years of decline. Labor continues to play a vital role in mobilizing urban residents, shaping urban conflict, and crafting the policies and regulations that are transforming our urban spaces. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address nonunion workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members.
Unions and the City serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. The book presents the findings of a collaborative project in which a team of labor researchers and labor geographers based in New York City and Toronto investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. The contributors assess the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals—such as protecting employment levels, retaining bargaining relationships with employers, and organizing new workforces—as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), this book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents."

"What would it take to topple Amazon? To change how health care works in America? To break up the media monopolies that have taken hold of our information and imaginations? How is it possible to organize those without hope working on the margins? In Labor Power and Strategy, legendary strategist, historian and labor organizer John Womack, speaks directly to a new generation, providing rational, radical, experience-based perspectives that help target and run smart, strategic, effective campaigns in the working class In this sleek, practical, pocket inspiration, Womack lays out a timely plan for identifying chokepoints and taking advantage of supply chain issues in order to seize and build labor power and solidarity. Interviewed by Peter Olney of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Womack's lively, illuminating thoughts are built upon by ten young labor organizers and educators, whose responses create a rich dialogue and open a space for joyful, achievable change. With stories of triumph that will bring readers to tears this back-pocket primer is an instant classic."